Category Archives: School

Four Outstanding Schools and Disadvantaged Students

In the 2022 to 2023 school year….25.2% of disadvantaged pupils and 52.4% of all other pupils got a grade 5 or above.1 The attainment gap disadvantaged children suffer is a chasm. Those schools which reduce the gap are adding value … Continue reading

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School Uniform: Time for a Re-think

Causation means that a change in one variable causes a change in another variable. Correlation means there is a statistical association between variables.1 In Britain school uniform is a quasi-religion. Not wearing it can be punished by exclusion from school. Why? What’s … Continue reading

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John Lennon’s Wisdom

“When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote: ‘Happy’. They told me that I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them that they didn’t understand life.”

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How stupid rich kids get into Oxford University

“The future journalist Toby Young, rejected after failing to get the two Bs and a C1 at ‘A’ level that Brasenose College had required of him, was lucky enough to have a father well positioned to phone the admissions tutor … Continue reading

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Is Michael Fabricant MP a good role model?

Role Model: a person looked to by others as an example to be imitated. Michael Fabricant is Lichfield’s veteran MP. His majority has increased by a hundredfold between 1997 and 2019.1This is despite the fact that he isn’t an indentikit … Continue reading

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Institutional sadism at Repton School 1930s

“Michael [Dahl’s friend] was ordered to take down his trousers and kneel on the headmaster’s sofa with the top half of his body hanging over one end of the sofa. The great man then gave him one terrific crack. After … Continue reading

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Hitler copied the USA’s segregation policies…and then some

‘Segregation Forever’ documents the legal establishment of a racial purity regime as strict as any of its 20th-century European competitors. North Carolina required not only separate schools for black and white children but segregation of textbooks (‘Books shall not be … Continue reading

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School uniform as a fetish

The recent heatwave1 revealed problems with school uniform. Schools, however, have devoted huge emotional capital to student conformity and they didn’t like seeing their efforts going down the drain. This insight produced an intellectual meltdown but they couldn’t prevaricate because … Continue reading

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Faith based science?

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Sarah the Supply Teacher

Sarah the supply teacher watched the boys having fun kicking a football. She went across to Harry, who was standing by himself, and asked if he was OK. ‘Sure.’ “You can go and play with the other boys.” “It’s best … Continue reading

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