Out and About
I spend my time writing, blogging and speaking to a variety of audiences around the country. This page is to give you and idea of the events I am doing in the next few months and some of the speeches I have made.
Latest Out and About Posts
Private gain, public pain
This weekend I will be speaking at the Battle of Ideas in a session called Public Education; private harm? I re-named my speech “Private gain, public pain” An outline of my contribution ( improvised on the day) is below: Private gain, public pain Quite clear that fee charging schools are very good for some people.At Eton for […]
Whitley Bay High School – a real outstanding comprehensive community school
Today I visited Whitley Bay High School in the North East. I gave a talk about whether there is a different way of reforming schools than the one being pursued by the coalition government. The school itself was a very good advertisement for what could be done – it is a community comprehensive, still within […]
Gove and Glasman at the LSE. Is the stakeholder model of governance coming back?
Last night I went to an interesting debate at the London School of Economics. The Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove and Labour peer Lord Glasman , author of Blue Labour and involved in the party’s policy review, were discussing who “owns” the concept of One Nation, originated by Benjamin Disraeli and appropriated by Labour leader Ed Miliband […]
Talk at the Cambridge Fabian Society
Last night I went to speak at the Cambridge Fabian Society about alternatives to the current education policy. Details of the meeting are here. These are some notes on which my talk was based. 1.Education policy matters. One of the best ways to judge a society is by its education system. Does it offer equal […]
Why for profit is a bridge too far
Earlier this month I spoke at the Spectator Schools Conference on the subject of for profit schools. I argued that the the evidence doesn’t prove that they are guaranteed to raise standards, and there are considerable risks attached to putting financial incentives ahead of educational aims. You can watch my speech here thanks to my colleague […]
