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The Primary Curriculum – trying to grow up

“Education is what remains after you have forgotten everything you ever learnt in school”, claimed Mark Twain.  We don’t remember, at least I don’t, the content of what we learnt all those years ago, but what we do use every day (quite literally for our survival) is just how to learn.  That was the vital […]

Voices from the Past

February 19, 2009

All kinds of things land on my desk, both trivial and profound, urgent but not important as well as important but not urgent.  Too many are written in what is now called “transmissional English”, language that is precise but colourless and unmemorable.  Some, thankfully, use language to enthuse the reader, and it is such language […]

Paternal Pride, and Public Education

I couldn’t help paternal pride breaking out last evening as Anne and I went to the Mall Galleries in London with David our second son and his fiancé, to the annual Originals 09 printmaking exhibition where a piece of his work – The Lighthouse – was being displayed.  There were crowds milling around, and much excited […]

Ten Years On cont…

The first chapter of the book I finished writing ten years ago was entitled What Kind of Education for What Kind of World; Do we want our children to grow up as battery hens or free-range chickens?  It was a subject I had spoken on at very many conferences, and which I was to continue […]

Ten Years On

It is almost exactly ten years to the day that I completed the writing of The Child is the Father of the Man; How Humans Learn and Why.  As a private publication – it came out under the imprint of Education 2000, the predecessor of The 21st Century Learning Initiative – it sold over 10,000 […]

Where did Grammar Schools come from?

February 13, 2009

I was a little surprised yesterday when a man who is much involved with educational policy making asked me to explain the origins of grammar schools. My surprise was not as great as his when, having thought these were the ‘good parts’ of the 1944 Education Act, I said that the oldest known grammar school […]

What Goes Around Comes Around

February 12, 2009

It is said that there is really nothing new in the world, and that which comes around once will inevitably come around again.  Most of us can testify to the truth of this.  But even I was brought up short by a letter in today’s Post from the Department of Children, Schools and Families informing […]

First shot

February 11, 2009

I am a complete stranger to the world of blogging but from what I have heard it could benefit my thinking as Director of the 21st Century Learning Initiative, by sharing my thoughts on an almost daily basis with colleagues around the world might lead to some useful dialogue. Much of the time my thoughts will […]

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