hominemtememento

Colleges are obsessed with retention statistics – it’s another OFSTED benchmark that makes very little sense in the real world other than to promote the spurious claim that we are producing more and more successful students and therefore creating a better qualified workforce. The truth, of course, is vastly different. When a student is palpably failing we […]

We need to be brave. There is a price of failure in the real world, but failure has a value as well. Many successful business people can attest to the value that bankruptcy had on their current business success. What we so often forget nowadays is the value that failure can have for students. We […]

Isn’t it obvious? Everyone is so worried about OFSTED – the Office for Standards in Education – that we forget that our aim should be to get students to learn – not just achieve qualifications. Having worked for many years in the Secondary, Further and Higher Education Sectors, I am disappointed that we seem still […]

Is there anyone else who worries – as I do – about the large number of different platforms and web 2.0 applications to which our students are being introduced?

Perhaps we can create a special group – a school within a school – for invited students only. This group can look at ways in which we learn best and how we can develop these children who are learning well in spite of the current system in which they work. We have to do something […]

Which school – or perhaps which headteacher – is going to be the brave one that decides to take a stand against the data and league-table madness that still prevails in mainstream schools in the UK? Every year we are expected to “raise the bar” and meet a new load of FFT predictions. The way […]

I’ve just sat in a 60 minute session while a colleague was effectively telling the rest of us that we have to adapt and find new ways of reaching our C21 young people – because we are competing with so many other more interesting experiences. What I really object to is our pandering to these […]

The Information Generation – have we got it all wrong?

Am I the only one who gets fed up with hearing young people and others saying “Cheers” when even “thanks” would be a more acceptable substitute? I took my daughter a cup of tea in bed this morning and she couldn’t even open her eyes – but she managed to groan “cheers”. I suppose I’m […]