Cristina Odone

Reforming Ofsted won’t fix Britain’s problem schools

4 February 2025 5:06 am

The proportion of children staying away from school may be alarming – one in five –  but the proportion of…

Parents are asking too much of teachers

31 January 2025 3:12 am

For a truly educational experience, visit your neighbourhood primary school. Watch the goings-on in the playground: tiny tots rushing around…

Home schooling is a lifeline for desperate parents

19 December 2024 6:29 pm

Hard cases make bad laws. There can be no harder case than that of Sara Sharif, whose torture and eventual…

Can Starmer help get children ‘school ready’?

4 December 2024 5:00 pm

It takes a lot of effort for ‘Johnny’ to take off his coat every morning when he joins his reception…

Has Labour given up on solving the social care crisis already?

19 November 2024 11:28 pm

The Toto Washlet toilet: at the press of a button, a jet of clean warm water sprays your nether regions;…

Kemi is right about absent fathers

23 October 2024 1:02 am

Kemi Badenoch MP keeps being compared to Margaret Thatcher. But the truth is she has taken on the persona of…

What’s the problem with zero-hour contracts?

10 October 2024 5:25 pm

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is set to unveil her workers’ rights bill this week – and ‘exploitative’ zero-hour contracts…

Labour’s childcare confusion has gone on for too long

1 October 2024 10:49 pm

For parents with young children, it’s been a game of grandmother’s footsteps. First they heard from the new Labour government…

Labour’s toothbrush classes for school kids? No thanks

16 January 2024 4:45 pm

Labour’s latest proposal for teachers to supervise pupils’ toothbrushing reveals a worrying view of parenting as playing a light-touch, rather…

How the Tories failed stay-at-home mums

16 November 2023 7:10 pm

We know that Westminster politicians do not always listen to ordinary voters. But there are few issues on which our…

The quiet truth about two-parent families

26 September 2023 9:39 pm

Imagine a key that opened the door to a place where children did better at school, were less likely to…

Steven Spielberg and the truth about divorce

1 February 2023 5:55 pm

Steven Spielberg has suggested that The Fabelmans, his latest film, is a $40 million therapy project. The Fabelmans focuses on divorce and in doing so holds a mirror…

Johnny Depp and the truth about male domestic abuse victims

31 May 2022 7:59 pm

James looks nothing like Johnny Depp. For one thing, he is a lot taller than the 5 foot 8 star;…

How lockdown sparked a wave of anxiety among Britain's children

21 January 2022 9:50 pm

I knew what ‘anxiety’ meant when I was in primary school. But it was not a word I had cause…

What has happened to parenting?

28 December 2020 6:00 pm

During a recent webinar with British MPs, I learned that parents in Bradford were up in arms because their children…