should have enough good teachers so that all children should have individual care and stimulus. They could then develop at their own pace to their own particular fulfilment. The schools would not segregate the like but mingle the unlike; by promoting diversity within unity, they would teach respect for the infinite human differences which are not the least of mankind’s virtues.

A comprehensive school aims to establish a school community in which pupils over the whole ability range and with different interests and backgrounds can be encouraged to mix with each other, gaining stimulus from the contacts and learning tolerance and understanding in the process.

Those who celebrate the meritocratic ideal… ignore…the morally unattractive attitudes the meritocratic ethic promotes among the winners and also among the losers. Among the winners it generates hubris, among the losers, humiliation and resentment.

It leaves little room for the solidarity that can arise when we reflect on the contingency of our talents and fortunes

And yet, in a moment that calls for creativity and boldness, all too often we find timidity, or worse, scepticism and cynicism – a sense that democratic politics is hopelessly corrupt, that capitalism is beyond reform.  The result has been a surge of support for illiberal and authoritarian populists, creating a palpable sense of uncertainty about the future of liberal democracy itself. 

Every technology opens exciting new frontiers that must be responsibly explored.  But as recent history has shown, the excitement must be accompanied by caution over the risk of misinformation and the corruption of the truth.

Many students come to school hungry and are unable to concentrate on their studies and this has a direct impact on their academic performance. As a community, we have a responsibility to ensure that every student has access to basic necessities, especially during exams. Providing free school meals for students taking exams would ensure that every student has the opportunity to succeed, regardless of their background.

Of the 15 or 20 that he's done over the last couple of months, the only one he hasn't completed or been able to complete is the one that he did last week, which makes it feel like something went wrong with that paper.

If the educational costs of all this are great, the human ones are greater……What is needed is something quite unlike both past and present.  But you don’t have to be a nostalgic to see that the present is worse than the recent past, and that for many it is scarcely bearable. Whatever success looks like, this is failure.

They may cast the lot against you…..and then stand aside to see what happens to you.

We are disappointed that Gillian Keegan has decided not to come to our conference. We very much hoped she would use this opportunity to thank school and college leaders for everything they are doing in what is proving to be yet another extremely challenging year. It would also have been a good opportunity for her to set out her vision for education, to talk about how we can work together to shape a better future for all young people, and say something about how the government intends to address the teacher recruitment and retention crisis which is at the heart of the current industrial dispute and which our members have to deal with every day. But nevertheless we will continue to engage with the Secretary of State positively and constructively and look forward to a time when she will feel more able to talk directly to our members.

You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place, I told him, like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again.

​Signing up to the charter is a public commitment to actively promote mental health and wellbeing through policy and practice. It is a way to show current and prospective staff that your school or college is dedicated to improving and protecting their wellbeing.

for some civil servants, working at the centre of government on policies that are pushing at the boundaries of legality, this presents more of a challenge than they have experienced under previous governments [...] the Cabinet Secretary Simon Case noted: ‘The government of the day are not remotely afraid of controversial policies. They believe that have a mandate to test established boundaries.'

A good faith conversation begins with curiosity. It looks for common ground while making room for disagreement. It should be primarily about exchange of thoughts and information rather than instruction, and it affords us, among other things, the great privilege of being wrong; we feel supported in our unknowing and, in the sincere spirit of inquiry, free to move around the sometimes treacherous waters of ideas. A good faith conversation strengthens our better ideas and challenges, and hopefully corrects, our low-quality or unsound ideas.

A good faith conversation understands fundamentally that we are all flawed and prone to the occasional lamentable idea. It understands and sympathises with the common struggle to articulate our place in the world, to make sense of it, and to breathe meaning into it. It can be illuminating, rewarding and of great value - a good faith conversation begins with curiosity, gropes toward awakening and retires in mercy.

Government statistics published last week reveal that in 2021/22 there were over 16,000 instances in England where child sexual exploitation was identified by local authorities as a factor at the end of an assessment by social workers. There were 11,600 instances where gangs were a factor and 10,140 instances where Child Criminal Exploitation was a factor. These numbers are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg. Those involved in gang activity and criminal exploitation are disproportionately young, vulnerable, and unknown to services. It has been estimated that there could be as many as 200,000 children in England aged 11 to 17 who are vulnerable to serious violence. The report says there are already huge stresses on over-stretched services and the public purse due to a lack of early intervention, and that a combination of Covid, a cost-of-living crisis, and any return to austerity would be a gift to those who exploit children. Over the last year, the Commission has heard from multiple professionals working with vulnerable children that many of these problems have become more extreme since the pandemic, including the ages of those running gangs becoming even younger. It has also heard countless examples of children from suburban, middle-class England being groomed by criminals who have spotted a vulnerability and moved in with clinical ruthlessness.

There are parts of our country where the state is completely failing in its duty to protect vulnerable children from the ongoing epidemic of county lines, criminal exploitation, and serious violence. This is a problem hidden in plain sight, rocket-boosted by Covid, which is disproportionately affecting teenagers in deprived and minority ethnic communities and also some families living in leafy suburbs.
It is a national threat to our country's prosperity and security, a threat which is ruining lives and scarring communities, and which is costing the NHS, schools, the police and criminal justice system, and the children's social care system billions of pounds every year.