
Chris McGovern: School closures are a victory for the unions. What can be done to help the children catch up?
A start can be made by cutting back the forthcoming Easter break and by shortening the summer term holidays.
A start can be made by cutting back the forthcoming Easter break and by shortening the summer term holidays.
At the final meeting of her Cabinet, a revived Iron Lady told members, during a coffee break, that “on no account must Heseltine be elected”
Four in five of our party member respondents say yes. Hunt is top choice to come in from outside – but there’s no strong support for any non-member.
It may be necessary, given the Coronavirus, and could even work. But Britain has a long, long record of state spending failing to turbo-charge growth.
It’s a bit like the roof of Parliament’s Westminster Hall: which is held up by a lot of huge, ancient beams all resting on each other.
Educational traditionalists are wrong to believe that if we focus on academic rigour and high standards alone, everything else will fall into place.
Plus: May in trouble and Rudd in danger over Windrush. Corbyn stumbles. The pound rises. Local elections loom. And: the dignity of Neville Lawrence.
The capital isn’t a single political entity. Rather, it is still in some ways a Napoleon-of-Notting-Hill-style mass of small towns.
The evidence of improved standards shows that a knowledge-rich curriculum is the best way to enable each person to achieve the best of which he or she is capable.
The reality is that most of it will be concentrated on pupils older than 16 – whatever the best age may be at which to select.
The recently departed Prime Minister is re-emerging – and working on his memoirs. He will want to project his greatest achievement: public service reform.
I hope that in the electoral battle that lies ahead ahead, a fresh-faced volunteer will stand on the streets of Quito, and pose questions in a refined Liverpool accent.
Lord Woolton (pictured right) was the greatest-ever, rebuilding the Conservatives after the war. But here are my favourite five.
He was quick to detect rubbish and obfuscation – both of which he rightly identified as the stock in trade of his civil servants.
The statistics actually suggest that, nationally, students of a similar ability do better in these schools than in comprehensives.