Abbie MacGregor

Abbie MacGregor is a former teacher. She has three children

A smartphone ban won’t solve our kids’ problems

As a former teacher, I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that Bridget Phillipson ranks among the worst Education Secretaries this country has ever seen. Yet when Phillipson described the Tories’ attempt to ban phones from the classroom as a ‘headline-grabbing gimmick’ back in January, I found myself nodding along in agreement. She was right. Unfortunately,

The trouble with ‘gentle parenting’

What type of parent are you? Buried beneath a litany of books detailing how to raise children ‘the right way,’ you’ll find an endless array of parenting identities: there’s the ‘helicopter parent,’ ‘gentle parent,’ ‘crunchy mumma’, and ‘tiger mum’. These labels are used to encapsulate what kind of mum, or dad, you are. It’s easy