Schools

Picture the scene: an Englishman loudly-ordering food in a Parisian restaurant. The waiter rolls his eyes at the customer’s stubborn commitment to soldiering on in English, and everyone in the-vicinity has the good grace to look suitably embarrassed. This may sound like a tired 1970s stereotype. Except, tragically, it’s just as likely to serve as a prophecy for our future. Three quarters of the UK’s residents are unable to hold a conversation in any language other than English. This reluctance — or lack of interest — is echoed in this summer’s academic results. This year the number of entries to French GCSE exams fell by 8.1 per cent compared to 2015,

I have no recollection of my first day at school. I was four-years-old so it’s not surprising that I can’t dredge up the memory. I do recall, however, refusing to return to nursery after being scared witless by Father Christmas. Back then (late 1970s), kids were dropped off at a new school and expected to get on with it. Today it’s markedly different. Ahead of my four-year-old niece’s foray into education, she has visited the school at least twice and had a couple of home visits from her teachers. Luxury! But there were still tears this morning, from daughter and mum. And I’ll be fretting all day, desperate to know how

Those who want to revive grammar schools are accused of ‘bring backery’ — the unthinking idea that the past was better. But many of their accusers suffer from the rigid mindset of which they complain. They say that grammar schools ‘condemned most children to failure at the age of 11’, and that, even at their peak, grammars catered for less than 20 per cent of the school population. Why assume that the return of grammars must re-create either of these things? Grammar schools grew up, historically, in different ways and at different times. Then, in the mid‑20th-century mania for uniformity, they were standardised and, in the later 20th-century mania for comprehensives, almost

Another week, another spate of barmy campus bans and ‘safe space’ shenanigans by a new breed of hyper–sensitive censorious youth. At Oxford University, law students are now officially notified when the content of a lecture might upset them. In Cambridge, there were calls for an Africa-themed end-of-term dinner to be cancelled just in case it caused offence to someone somewhere. It all seems beyond parody. ‘What is wrong with these thin-skinned little emperors?’ we cry. But while we can harrumph and sneer at Generation Snowflake’s antics, we miss a crucial point: we created them. First, it is important to note that young people who cry offence are not feigning hurt

Apparently, there are secret Jewish schools in Britain where children are taught nothing but the Jewish faith, where they are exposed to homophobic literature, where all music and the arts are banned and where they are indoctrinated by extremists. How do we know? Because Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw has told us. Admittedly he didn’t quite say so in those terms but that is what he ended up implying on Radio 4’s PM programme earlier this week. Interviewed by Eddie Mair about the 100 or so illegal schools reported to be operating behind the backs of education inspectors, Sir Michael described the problem. Parents abuse the law providing the right for home education

In part of his Budget manspreading this week, George Osborne stole Nicky Morgan’s announcement that councils will be forced to relinquish control of all schools, so every single one is an Academy. As Philip Collins says in the Times today, this doesn’t mean they’ll all get better – he rather scorns the idea. But his old boss, Tony Blair, had precisely the same idea: to (in effect) privatise every single state school, so each one is independent of the council and has a direct financial relationship with Whitehall, cutting out local authorities entirely. Blair was vetoed by Brown and had to settle for a few hundred Academies. But in this,