Education
We must never abandon children during lockdown again
Schools are far more than mere exam factories. Across the UK, teachers in 32,000 schools and colleges care for children…
Why we should study literature, not science
Gstaad Who was it who said good manners had gone the way of black and white TV? Actually it was…
The mind virus killing academia
We lost a giant last month with E.O. Wilson’s passing. A man who stood on Darwin’s shoulders, Wilson had that…
Masks in schools: how convincing is the government's evidence?
Why has the government changed its mind and asked children to wear masks in school? When Plan B was announced…
Virtue signalling is really status signalling
A £19,000-a-year London day school was in the news this week because it has started instructing its pupils about ‘white…
America’s campus culture wars come for St Andrews
The University of St Andrews has been keen on American imports for some time. Americans make up 16 per cent…
Boris should keep copying Blair
Having written here at least once before that Boris Johnson is the heir to Blair, my first thought on the Prime…
How to burst the grade inflation bubble
The Tories regard a return to rigorously marked exams as one of their big achievements in education. In 2010, the…
The truth about Nick Gibb, history and ‘dead white men’
In 1983, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a great American sociologist and politician, wrote: ‘Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but…
The plot against religious education
Faith is not the declining force that some secularists believe or indeed desire it to be. Even here in the UK,…
It’s time to repair the damage done to the Covid generation’s education
Aswitch of personnel at the Department of Health this week has brought a welcome change in the government’s tone. No…
The curious parable of Dartington
I spent last weekend in south Devon at Dartington, the former estate of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, and now a…
Have we hit peak graduate?
The Tory party has turned sharply against the idea of ever larger numbers going to university. The reasons for this…
It’s time the British faced some uncomfortable truths, says Matthew d’Ancona
As Britain starts its long Covid recovery, are deeper problems lurking beneath the surface? Matthew d’Ancona certainly thinks so, and…
Pimlico Academy and the politicisation of the playground
The strange tale of Pimlico Academy, the central London school roiled by ‘anti-racist’ protests, shows us that the culture war…
The Proustian power of handwriting
Towards the end of April, my mum sent me a letter. She doesn’t write as a rule — we speak…
Letters: The veiled elitism of social mobility
Levelling up Sir: In making the case for social mobility, Lee Cain unwittingly endorses the classism he hopes to fight…
Westminster and the truth about the class ceiling
Social mobility is more urgently needed than ever
The facts about race and education
Judging from the reaction to last week’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, you’d think it had been written…
How to kill the English language
Probably, most of you will have only the dimmest idea what a ‘fronted adverbial’ is. I used one in the…
What Britain could learn from New Zealand about home-schooling
Britain needs a Kiwi-style national correspondence school
The true cost of school closures – an interview with the children's commissioner
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner, on why schools must reopen
To reopen schools, we need to vaccinate teachers
At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, Chris Whitty often made the point that a pandemic kills in two ways:…
A vaccine won't heal the scarring of lockdown
How can Britain recover post-Covid?
1619, 1776 and all that
Friday’s news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died after her long battle with cancer has briefly pushed most other topics…
