At the age of seven, I waved a medical encyclopedia in front of my parents and announced that I had "free-floating anxiety". The book was one of only a few we had in the house, and it had an entire … Read More
Imagine your boss comes along and asks you: 'How can we improve your working life?' What do you say? If my experience of asking lots of questions to teachers over the years is anything to go by, most people will freeze … Read More
Everyone was battered in the old days, right? In our modern millennium, the trend is different. Non-alcoholic gins are the next big Babycham. Whereas, back in the 1930s, the average pub-goer would put away between fifteen and twenty pints per week. Yet, … Read More
One of the worrying things about post-pandemic life is that it might be K shaped. Economists are already talking about the 'K-shaped' recovery. In a normal economic shock, everything goes badly for a bit (\) and then it goes back up … Read More
I wrote this blog back in 2009 when I was in my fourth year of teaching and without a classroom. I had spent the previous 18 months traipsing between multiple classrooms - including one transition that required 6 sets of … Read More
Hello, thanks for getting in touch. This is the blog I send to people who write and ask for my advice about how to become a journalist. First up, and most importantly, it's a good question and great to hear … Read More
A few weeks ago (April 26th) I had a dream about how school should work post-lockdown. Not a Martin-Luther-visionary kind of way. An actual dream. In it I was travelling to pick up newly arrived international students to take … Read More
In the past, lacking serious problems to think about, politicians were worried about grade inflation. For ten years, more and more students were getting top grades which caused problems for universities admissions officers who said they could no longer fairly … Read More
Working from home is a pain. Literally. Working from hard kitchen chairs, slouched on sofas, or shoved into a new ‘office’ (read: cupboard) means most of us are contorting into new physical positions. And oof, it hurts. At the age of … Read More
Yellow dresses. Yellow jackets. Yellow bags. A yellow umbrella, yellow scarves, yellow trainers – even a set of yellow underwear. I have it all. Because I love yellow? No. Absolutely not. Since 2014, I have dressed in most professional appearances – on … Read More