It feels difficult at the moment to strike the right balance between a mature, sensible approach and the need to highlight the absurd in what is going on.  The spread of coronavirus and its obvious arrival on our doorstep are clearly issues that require focus and due gravitas.  The ch...

I think the best television series ever made was Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, with Martin Sheen playing US president Jed Bartlet, surrounded by a fiercely loyal team of advisers who were passionate about their work and the difference it could make to the American people.  Even...

I mentioned last week that I had been to see a lecture from Sir John Jones at St Mary’s, which became a timely opportunity for me to renew my educational vows about what really matters in school amidst the stasis and torpor that the weekly wait for an inspector to...

I said last week that I am currently teaching the social and economic history of the seventeenth century to my Lower Sixth class.  We spent last term looking at the various political and religious upheavals of the period, not least the execution of Charles I in 1649 as the culmination of the ye...

By the time you read this, we will know the outcome of the General Election, but it simply isn’t possible in the final week of term to wait until the last morning to put together the latest news in a coherent piece of thought – if indeed that is ever what I do when I write...

It is always an interesting experience to do something a little different at school, outside the normal rhythms of each term, so the chance to host a hustings event for the parliamentary candidates for the Twickenham constituency offered the prospect of a fascinating evening on Wednesday...