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
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
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
When people don't like your opinions on blogs, or twitter, or any other form of social network, the backlash can be furious. If it ever gets fierce I'm lucky that Dad McInerney puts things in perspective. As a shop steward for … Read More
A week ago I gave my first ever talk at a WomenEd conference. I've written before about not particularly enjoying doing things "as a woman". So the talk was less focused on gender, and more on the unifying fact that we all … Read More
Everyone has done at least one embarrassing thing in the classroom. Most of us have done more than that. Here's mine... It's September 2007 and my classroom is the departmental showcase for the annual parent's open day. The event is critical - … Read More
On Sunday journalists were spat at outside the Conservative conference in Manchester for doing their job. At the same time, in the same place, I moved around the protest without experiencing any of this. In fact, I'd already written the … Read More
Written February 2017, after the terrible year that was 2016 Twenty-one and a half years ago my English teacher, Mr McGee, gave me a gift. It was autumn 1995 and he made our class write about the summer holidays. But, he said, we … Read More
SHAME"! by Rochelle Hartman - http://bit.ly/2tc3tCj In recent weeks journalists have spent an inordinate amount of time beating themselves up for not guessing the outcome of the General Election. This is bizarre. Journalists are contestants on Catchphrase: we say what we … Read More
Over the past week or so I’ve disappointed a lot of people. I know this, because they’ve tweeted to tell me. The problem was that Labour announced two policies, and I have issues with both. The policies are: Free school lunches for … Read More