March 2015

  • So, what is a curriculum and what can it do?

    Given the curriculum and accountability chaos unleashed by the government’s education policies, it is timely of Routledge to make Michael Young’s editorial from a special issue of the Curriculum Journal – "What is a curriculum and what can it do?" freely available....

  • How best to smell a rat

    It's an old joke, and the answer is 'from a safe distance'.  However, if you're a charity trustee or a company non-exec director trying to exercise your scrutiny function, you often have little option but to do just that.  You are...

  • Education, Climate and Environment – a new guide

     A new DfID Topic Guide is available that "sets out the existing knowledge around the links between education, climate and environment [and] highlights the two-way relationship between these key areas."  These include: The risks and opportunities posed by environmental and climatic...

  • No publication for old(er) men

    I've been reading Monitoring Education for Global Citizenship: A Contribution to Debate, but it's no publication for old(er) men.  It's near-unreadable on screen because of the PDF formatting, and you need a magnifying glass to read the paper copy.  It's (un)clearly meant for the...

  • Lessons in waste management from Wiltshire Council

    Wiltshire Council is a unitary authority that covers the whole of Wiltshire where I live; this now excludes Swindon thereby relieving all of us of a dreadful responsibility.  WC is run by the Conservatives who are more or less successfully...

  • Walter Leal's very special day

    Are you an academic who can't think what to say?  Or one too idle to do your own preparation?  Don't despair, Walter L has the answer(s) for you – and they're free. Walter sent an email to his many followers...

  • Curriculum and low expectations

    In England, no matter how secular you are of mindset, you always know when Easter's approaching because the teacher unions and professional associations hold their annual conferences to which the educational great 'n' good are invited.  Here's the line-up for the Association...

  • Time to let Henges talk to each other

    Whether this mad idea to have a second Stonehenge is still being considered is unclear (it was on the BBC website recently), but Graham Gould, of Salisbury City Centre Management, has described it as a "fantastic idea".  He is reported as saying:...

  • Catching up with Ted

    Well, with TED, and in particular Johan Rockström.  Here he is in 2010.  I was alerted to this by the Independent the other day with an article by Christopher Hooton about a paper published by Rockström in Science in January 2015. The Indy's title was stark:...

  • What do you call a group of University Estates Directors?

    I wondered this when I was at the recent seminar on Designing & Managing Sustainable University Estates that was hosted by NCUP – the National Conference of University Professors. I came to the conclusion that a 'concatenation' might be appropriate, given how much...