Education
Dartington, the utopian experiment
I spent last weekend in south Devon at Dartington, the former estate of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst, and now a…
Have we hit peak graduate?
The Tory party has turned sharply against the idea of ever larger numbers going to university. The reasons for this…
The state we’re in
As Britain starts its long Covid recovery, are deeper problems lurking beneath the surface? Matthew d’Ancona certainly thinks so, and…
Pimlico Academy and the politicisation of the playground
The strange tale of Pimlico Academy, the central London school roiled by ‘anti-racist’ protests, shows us that the culture war…
The writing’s on the wall
Towards the end of April, my mum sent me a letter. She doesn’t write as a rule — we speak…
Letters
Levelling up Sir: In making the case for social mobility, Lee Cain unwittingly endorses the classism he hopes to fight…
Left behind
Social mobility is more urgently needed than ever
The facts about race and education
Judging from the reaction to last week’s Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, you’d think it had been written…
How to kill the English language
Probably, most of you will have only the dimmest idea what a ‘fronted adverbial’ is. I used one in the…
Long-distance learning
Britain needs a Kiwi-style national correspondence school
Lessons learned
Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner, on why schools must reopen
A lost generation
At the start of the Covid-19 crisis, Chris Whitty often made the point that a pandemic kills in two ways:…
The aftermath
How can Britain recover post-Covid?
1619, 1776 and all that
Friday’s news that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died after her long battle with cancer has briefly pushed most other topics…
Our lopsided society
It is often said that the left does not understand human nature. Yet it is difficult to think of anything…
Learning the hard way
Many commentators have argued that the recent grading controversy indicates just how important public examinations are. Up to a point,…
The real losers of the A-levels fiasco
Three years ago I was contacted by an official at the Department for Education to see if I was interested…
The next education crisis
Many institutions face the fight of their lives
Exam failures
It was obvious that closing schools would hit the poorest hardest, inflicting permanent damage and deepening inequality. While many private…
The fight to defend academic freedom
About 18 months ago, I attended a debate at Policy Exchange, the think tank founded by Nick Boles, Francis Maude…
Age of the Econian
The public school elite who rule the wokerati
The lost boys
Britain’s forgotten demographic
Home advantage
Not going to school was the making of me
In Los Angeles, school’s out…forever?
Americans have mixed feelings about opening schools this fall. Some — like the Trump administration’s Department of Education — want…
Target for half of kids to go to university dropped
In a sign of how worried the government is about youth unemployment, it will – quiet literally – pay firms…
