Outside In

For those unable to purchase the Catholic Herald, this article of mine appeared in today’s edition; Whilst the increasingly fractious education debate has been simmering for a couple of years now, there has been a significant rise in temperature of late with the revelation that Michael Gove intends to abolish…

I have written extensively about Catholic education on this blog, and for those who have somewhere between little and no interest in the topic, I can only apologise that I am about to do the same again. Whilst I intend, in future, to write about what a specifically ‘Catholic’ education…

Question: why is there outrage whenever anybody suggests an idea or reform that will primarily benefit the highest achievers in our schools? It’s odd. Not least because whenever anybody suggests an idea or reform that will primarily benefit the lowest achievers in our school, there is nothing but rapturous applause…

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Samuel Beckett Failing failing If one takes responsibility for an outcome away from the individual involved in performing an action, what happens? Or to frame this using an example, if one exhorts an individual to achieve a particular…

Joining in the latest round of Blame the Teacher! (©Gove&Wilshaw) comes Martin Stephen, kindly providing us with a case study of how to extrapolate monumentally ignorant conclusions from the gleaming spectacle of a sound analysis. His initial breakdown runs thus: bright children in state schools needs access to top quality…

As I have blogged previously, the Bishop of Lancaster recently set feral cats amongst flailing pigeons by questioning the role and status of Catholic schools, nominally within the Diocese of Lancaster. The questions were bold and challenging – partly, one suspects, they were instigated by financial concern (the Diocese not…