December 2022

The Times on July 17th 1897 published Kipling's poem Ressional.  This includes the lines: ... The tumult and the shouting dies; The Captains and the Kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, An humble and a contrite heart. ... Far-called,...

Is the child really the father of the man (or mother of the woman) as Wordsworth envisaged back in 1802?  I wondered this as I watched a nativity event last week at my grandchildren's school.  It was no surprise that...

When I used to go to meetings at the Institute of Education in London, I developed the habit of dropping by the Wellcome Trust's coffee and book shop on the Euston Road.  It was and remains a good place to...

It's rare for Cumbria to be in the news these days.  No one is still hiding in its hidden valleys waiting for the latest guerilla skirmish with the plundering Normans, there's nobody on the watch for cattle rustlers from the...

I see that we are to double our imports of gas from the USA.  This is shale gas – the same gas that we refuse to extract from our own ground, except that the American gas has been liquified, transported...

Here's a renewables Christmas quiz for you: 12 questions.  Getting 4 right or nearly right will be pretty good and show a better understanding of the problems our electricity grid faces than most people. ........... 1 – The proportion of...

I had to admire the cardboard fort that my grandson had created at school and which was now a feature of his home gallery.  Or was it a castle?   Maybe even a railway terminus or an arts centre?  I...

While I was reading David Dixon's book: Leadership for Sustainability: saving the planet one school at a time, I was surprised to come across a reference to the text by Hammersley, Jones and Perry: The Teacher's Handbook to Environmental Studies (Blandfold Press,...

I was very puzzled the other day to hear that UNESCO had elevated the humble French Stick – aka le baguette – to exalted cultural heritage status.  Why I wondered when, for example, most sticks you routinely come across, particularly...

I made a brief input the other to a webinar where I addressed this question: What are the potential conflicts between, say, the agenda of an NGO and the educational responsibilities of a school? Here's what I said: The Law...