New Publications

  • 20 Questions

    I've bought a "vegan nail brush" from a "leading British lifestyle brand" made with "pure cactus bristle" – Agave sisalana – from Mexico with a FSC birch base.  The alternative was plastic so I took the plunge.  It's very nice.  But, given...

  • Appeasing the climate?

    In Hothouse Earth (Icon Books 2022: 160) Bill McGuire writes: “The truth is, playing down the potential worst effects of global heating and climate breakdown is far worse than raising the alarm and amounts to what I like to call climate appeasement....

  • One School at a Time

    I've been reading Leadership for Sustainability: saving the planet one school at a time, written byDavid Dixon, and published by Crown House Publishing, 2022: 250pp, paperback, £18.99, ISBN 978-1-78135-401-8.  The comments which follow will appear as a review in the Spring 2023...

  • Happy winter to you

    I noticed last year just how many 'Christmas' greetings messages from NGOs failed even to mention Christmas.  "Season's greetings", "Festive greetings", "Happy holidays", "Merry yuletide", etc were common themes.  I even had a "Happy winter" email.  It said: "Dear ... Colleague, 2022...

  • Natural History Apprehensions

    The fate of the natural history GCSE is now in the hands of the DfE and OfQual.  Fate as in quality rather than any question of whether it will exist because that battle has been won in the gritted teeth...

  • DfE ministers come and go and come again

    There's a new team at the DfE.  After all the recent resignations new ministers are in place, although one who resigned seems to be back, and the one who never resigned is still there.  Three are new, including the Secretary...

  • WTF: weighted total futility

    An article in the Economist's Bartelby column this week served to inform and amuse.  But should it have done? It begins: "Few things are more depressing than estimates of how much time people spend on a specific activity over the course of...

  • Manifestos compared

    I wrote the other day about the 2021 manifesto from Education International.  This post comments on another manifesto: the more recent one from NAEE.  This was launched in early 2022 and you can read a number of comments here.  Before...

  • The manifesto with a hole at its centre

    Thanks to SOS-UK for alerting me to the Manifesto on Quality Climate Change Education for All! [subtitled: Teach for the Planet] from Educational International.  EI is the "Global Union Federation that brings together organisations of teachers and other education employees from across the...

  • SDG 4.7 and Our Shared World

    A report by Doug Bourn (UCL) and Jenny Hatley (Bath Spa) on behalf of the Our Shared World coalition of organisations, was launched the other day.  The report gathered evidence of the extent to which the themes of Sustainable Development Goal...