Good manners have to be taught. Public schools get it, so why don't state...
I’m in another one of our top public schools, and the Headmaster and I step into the chapel. He is a small, mild-mannered man, and yet, without prompting or hesitation, as his foot crosses the...
View ArticleWhat Australia can teach us about the false war between state and private...
What is the definition of a ‘private’ school? For me, it has always been a school that is privately funded by parents, instead of the state. So I was greatly surprised when I discovered that, in...
View ArticleA lack of ambition is destroying British youth
Poor Ed Miliband, who spoke yesterday at the Labour Party conference. Other than those in the conference hall, no one seemed to be clapping. But I was pleased that he highlighted the injustice of...
View ArticleWelcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Nick Clegg's latest game show: Opportunity...
Last year he thrilled the nation with Alarm Clock Britain. In April he wowed us with Waste Not Want Not Britain. This morning, Nick Clegg unveiled his latest ratings-winner: Opportunity Britain. Mr...
View ArticleIndependent schools are not Barclays Bank. They haven't lost the moral high...
Dr Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, has denounced independent schools for failing to support his scheme for them to sponsor City Academies, and accused them of losing both their way and...
View ArticleIf we force the universities to take more state school pupils, the...
“Leading” – as, I suppose, opposed to “lagging behind,” universities – are defying government calls to take more students from state comprehensives and fewer from private schools. But why should they,...
View ArticleNick Clegg, public school, and Britain's epidemic of inverse snobbery
It's not very often that any journalist types the following sentence, and I do it with some trepidation. Nick Clegg is talking sense. Not in general, you understand, but on the specific issue of...
View ArticleWhat works for independent schools won't necessarily work for state schools
Michael Wilshaw touched a raw nerve when he described the independent sector of schools in the UK as being marooned in a sea of privilege. He has a point. But his solution is to castigate schools such...
View ArticleAm I a 'social leper’ for caring about my kids?
From Wednesday's Daily Telegraph If you believe some Left-wing commentators, I should be locked up for child abuse. The former Labour schools minister, Lord Adonis, thinks I’m guilty of “seriously...
View ArticleThe Gove-bashing great and good think working-class schoolkids are incapable...
This week, the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and various members of the literary set, educational establishment and other wings of the great and good had a letter published in The Times. It provided a...
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