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Recent Posts
- Zola : a political reading. August 13, 2023
- Hotter than July? August 5, 2023
- Rethinking work July 30, 2023
- Educating for political literacy in an age of crisis. July 21, 2023
- Savoirs et valeurs : pratiquer et conjuguer July 21, 2023
- ‘Transformative Teaching and Learning in Further Education – Pedagogies of Hope and Social Justice’ July 18, 2023
- Dilemmas of Growth June 14, 2023
- A broader view of skills? June 7, 2023
- In praise of ‘low value’ subjects. February 27, 2023
- Frigga Haug and the mystery of learning December 6, 2022
- Debating Growth. November 29, 2022
- Code red for human survival November 8, 2022
- The politics of silence. September 4, 2022
- Posts on Corsican themes. August 10, 2022
- When Corsica welcomed thousands of Serb refugees (1916) August 9, 2022
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Category Archives: Education
What’s wrong with bite-sized learning?
The phrase ‘bite-sized learning’ suggests that a substantial, chunky educational programme has been chopped up into smaller pieces which are easy to take in but have lost any sense of overall meaning; little gobbets of knowledge of no real use. … Continue reading
Education and skills coming together?
The appointment of Peter Lauener as the chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) while remaining as chief executive of the Education Funding Agency (EFA) has prompted speculation that the two agencies could soon be merged, although this has … Continue reading
Learning and xenophilia.
Xenophobia is the fear of difference or the dislike of foreigners. Across Europe we have seen the rise in support for parties espousing xenophobic views. In difficult times, these parties play the blame game and tap into people’s suspicion and … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Politics, Teaching and learning
Tagged Education, Equality, learning, Solidarity, xenophilia, xenophobia
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Debating the Liberal Arts
The Future of Liberal Arts conference: The Liberal Arts and Schools I was delighted to be asked to contribute to the panel on ‘The Liberal Arts and Schools’ at the ‘Future of Liberal Arts’ conference organised by Martin Robinson (author … Continue reading
Learning to love liberal education
Talk given at the The Future of Liberal Arts conference at King’s College London on 14th October 2014. A video of this talk is available here: http://www.newvic.ac.uk/futureliberalarts/ (select ‘Liberal Arts in Schools’ starting at 3:33) I want to start by saying that … Continue reading
The oath and the compass
It sounds like the title of a medieval thriller; the brotherhood of educators send their top monks out to roam the world having sworn to serve learning and they solve all sorts of intractable problems with the help of a … Continue reading
‘Hindering’ subjects and ‘bad’ universities
The way we talk about subjects and universities has changed dramatically over the last few years, and not for the better. The English Bacc with its favoured GCSE subjects has led to a secondary school subject hierarchy which appears to … Continue reading
Reading the education manifestos
What is the point of manifestos, whether for education or any other policy area? Are they even worth the paper they’re written on given that we are fairly desensitised to parties straying from their election pledges in the name of … Continue reading
My NewVIc story: Joseph Toonga
My NewVIc story: Dancer and choreographer Joseph Toonga, NewVIc class of 2008. I attended Newham sixth form college (NewVIc) from 2005 – 2008. In my time at NewVIc I set up my dance company called Just Us Dance Theatre with Ricardo … Continue reading
My NewVIc story: Rumana Ali
Rumana Ali, NewVIc class of 2014 and former Plashet school student. Achieved A-level grades A*A*A in History, English literature, Government and politics and an A in AS Economics and has progressed to study for a BA in History at St … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Guest blogs, NewVIc
Tagged extended project, honours programme, Newham Sixth Form College, NewVIc, NewVIc alumni, Oxford university, Plashet school, Russell group, Shaftesbury primary school, St. Hilda's college Oxford, University College London (UCL), university progression
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How can we reduce educational inequality?
Meeting organised by “working towards a national campaign for education” at the Mechanics Institute, Manchester on 23rd September 2014 during the Labour Party conference. Many thanks to Sarah Williams for her work in organising and promoting this meeting. Speakers: David … Continue reading
The forgotten 50% need a one nation education system.
A dialogue between Simplex and Sapiens, two education policy commentators: Simplex: You don’t need to be a historian to know the value of education. Sapiens: And history shows that we cannot achieve ‘one nation’ goals with ‘two nation’ policies. Sim: No … Continue reading
Market madness #6 Students as commodities: premium, discount and remaindered
Enrolment is always a challenge. We come back from our holidays to an empty college. Like someone organising an open house, we’ve stocked up on a range of snacks and drinks for our guests but we can’t really be sure … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged 18 year olds, aspiration tax, Colleges, commodity, competition, consumer, Education, marketisation, Post-16 funding, tertiary education, young people
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London loses out in Headteacher Board elections
There was a national election before the summer to “improve the education of pupils across England” and “shape the future of the education system”. Missed it? You might be forgiven for this because only academy headteachers had a vote. Also, … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Education policy
Tagged Democracy, Education, elections, England, Headteacher boards, London, Regional School Commissioners
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Eddie Playfair 