Pushy tigers in helicopters?
… Why should we expect that our children are fulfilled at every level, for every hour of the day, sometimes at the expense of family happiness and our own personal lives?
Read MoreEducation
… Why should we expect that our children are fulfilled at every level, for every hour of the day, sometimes at the expense of family happiness and our own personal lives?
Read MoreTwo years ago, the first applications to open Free Schools were submitted to DfE amidst much suspicion, avid scrutiny and sensationalist publicity. Local authorities were hostile and pundits were convinced the concept wouldn’t work. What a difference twenty-four months make!
Read MoreThe Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which conducts regular comparisons of pupil achievement among 65 developed countries, recently announced that between 2000 and 2011, the UK had slipped from eighth to 28th place in maths, from seventh to 25th in reading and from fourth to 16th in science. That study also found that a fifth of UK 15-year-olds are functionally illiterate.
Read MoreThe time worn line is that boys and girls ‘do better’ at single sex schools. Do they? Really? Often, those who cite the line as fact will hold up the crème de la crème of single sex schools as proof of the statement’s fundamental truth; but it is not the singularity of the gender that leads to such schools’ high performance – it is rather the exclusivity of their academic selection.
Read MoreResearch and studies suggest these are difficult times to be a boy. Girls tend to perform better than boys academically throughout each key stage of a school career and the gap is widening. Seventy per cent of women now progress to university compared to only 50% of men. I can’t help believing that the dramatic decline in the number of single-sex schools over the past 25 years has directly impacted these statistics.
Read MoreAll girls’ education continues to thrive in south Manchester with demand for places at Wilmslow Preparatory School as high as ever. But what is it that makes the fee-paying school stick to its ‘all-girls’ guns when, during these tricky economic times, going co-ed could make life financially easier?
Read MoreOur law states that the school starting age is the term after a child’s fifth birthday. . . By comparison, children in most European countries start school at 6 or 7.
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