Schools
Plato knew that home-schooling can have benefits
Education is cumulative. The idea that it will be lost on a generation because, for one out of 42 terms…
Reopening schools must be our first priority
It would be a tragedy if one of the legacies of Covid-19 — a disease which hardly affects children physically…
![Parents and children demonstrate against the No Outsiders programme at Parkfield School in Birmingham in March [Photo: Getty]](https://www.spectator.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Melanie_McDonagh.jpg?w=410&h=275&crop=1)
Should Muslim parents be allowed to challenge LGBT lessons?
We saw two different worlds, or at least two different value systems, collide in the High Court in Birmingham this…
Abolish private schools? Bring it on!
I cannot recall a week in which Britain’s private schools have received better PR. The Labour party has pledged to…
Must try harder: education is still a vote loser for the Tories
The reluctance of the Conservative party to take credit for the success of its education reforms is a source of…
Is there anything that can’t be put down to a ‘condition’?
I suppose it is overstating the case to suggest that dyslexia is simply a term coined to assuage the disappointment…
Letters: Donkeys are the latest victims of China’s gross cruelty to animals
We don’t cut God Sir: The Revd Dr Peter Mullen suggests (Letters, 3 August) that Boris Johnson told him my…
A badly missed opportunity: How the Middle Classes Ruined Britain reviewed
BBC2’s How the Middle Classes Ruined Britain (Tuesday) began rather promisingly. ‘I’m a working-class comedian who voted Leave,’ announced presenter…
Scotland and Wales have much to learn from England’s education reforms
I’ve contributed a chapter to an education book published this week by the Institute of Economic Affairs. I was asked…
The in-tray of horrors that Theresa May has left for her successor
‘Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards — and good luck!’ Liam Byrne will forever be…
How many people make it up Everest?
Tears for fears Theresa May welled up while announcing her resignation in Downing Street. How often do leaders cry? —…
The fanatical thinking that’s on its way to British schools
For anyone who isn’t following the long march of racial self-flagellation through America’s institutions, last week’s revelations about the excesses…
Can you really teach students to solve knife crime?
Next year the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS) will offer one degree, in design, technology and the humanities, to teach students…
In defence of a liberal education
A good decade or so ago I wrote a fairly vituperative article in response to a piece by the writer…
Letters: the history of centrist parties does not bode well for the ‘breakaway seven’
The breakaway seven Sir: ‘In both parties there are fools at one end and crackpots at the other, but the…
An inconvenient truth: white children are underperforming everyone else in UK schools
The Department for Education (DfE) published its finalised data on the 2018 GCSE results last week, revealing that, for the…
Letters: Brexit’s impact on the Irish border issue has been flagged up all along
The Irish border Sir: Contrary to the assertion that the Irish border ‘only hit the headlines’ after Leo Varadkar became…
Why are the middle classes so obsessed with schools?
One thing I love about my adopted country is the widespread cultural contempt for dullness. Unlike North Americans, intelligent British…
Is it ok for Muslim parents to stop their kids having non-Muslim pals?
Is it all right for the Muslim parents of children at British state schools to prevent their sons and daughters…
In my illness and old age, children give me hope
By 74 it is easy to feel that you have seen it all, done it all, that nothing much surprises…
Genetics and the truth about private schools
A paper published last week in an academic journal called npj Science of Learning attracted an unusual amount of press…
World Book Day is here again. God help us
For parents of primary school children, the first Thursday in March has got to be the worst day of the…
“I’ll eat you alive” – Angela Rayner interview
Angela Rayner is perhaps the only Labour MP who works with a picture of Theresa May hanging above her desk.…
Sadly, true grit can’t be taught
I am currently wrestling with a dilemma. I have agreed to contribute to a panel discussion on character education at…
Hard lessons
George Tomlinson, the post-war education secretary, declared that politicians should leave exams to the teachers because ‘the minister knows nowt…
