From 9 pm to 10 pm on Thursday 9 April 1992, I was a teller for the Labour Party at our local polling station in Brighton. I had been working hard that week and hadn’t really kept up with what was happening in the polls. I took voters’ numbers,…
One of the joys of the Huh series has been talking with colleagues who are at the top of their game. Mary and I find, repeatedly, that they use metaphors and similes to describe what they do which are striking, original and illuminating. In AP Huh, our final book in…
In my last post, I reflected upon the sheer number of pupils who have a registered place in Alternative Provision (AP) (67,600) or are being home-educated (close to 100,000). I argued that mainstream schools will need to review how they tailor their offer for increasing numbers of pupils…
Mary Myatt and I have just signed off the proofs for our final book in the Huh curriculum series - Alternative Provision Huh. Interviewing so many disparate educationalists working in AP reminded me of Charlie Leadbeater and his book We-Think (2009). Fifteen years ago, Leadbeater wrote about the impact the…
Just over three years ago I sent this email to Mary Myatt. It resulted in five books about the curriculum in which we gave a platform to brilliant practitioners who were shaping curricula across the primary, secondary, special and alternative provision sectors. The series is called Huh, because, when we…
I wrote this post early yesterday morning, in anticipation of the day ahead. Anthony Christopher Knowles 25 May 1973 – 9 March 2024 Later today, I will help carry the coffin containing our dear friend Ant into the crematorium. It was approaching 9 pm on Saturday 9 March when Ant’s…
I’m a fan of a good sonnet, as was Seamus Heaney, who differentiated between poetic form and shape: 'There is a mistaken equivalence being made nowadays in this kind of talk about a return to form. A lot of people mean they are using shapes. I think that…
‘I’m writing immediately in case I don’t write at all – the usual thing is that I delude myself into thinking a moment will come when I can write the “real” letter.’ ‘Even at 63, I’ve not learned that what’s put aside, stays aside.’ I’ve just…