Thoughts on education
A quick post to promote what looks like a glorious opportunity to reflect on Charlotte Mason’s work AND hear from the peerless Malcolm Guite in the splendour of the Lake District later this month. To quote from the website, Charlotte Mason Institute’s English Lake District Retreat The Afternoon of 30 April – the Morning of 4 …
Continue reading “Charlotte Mason Retreat | Lake District | May 2018”
“The wise man sees a different tree from the fool.” William Blake When you look at a tree, what do you see? Imagine that we ask this question to a class of teenagers as they near the end of their schooling. What would they say? Would Blake say that they had answered “wisely” or “foolishly”? …
(First published in the Autumn Newsletter for the CRE) The latest news from the Independent Grammar School, a new affordable independent school in Durham reads as follows: “We have been delighted that, without advertising as such, we have had almost 100 expressions of interest. That confirms our view that there is a real demand for …
Who was Charlotte Mason? Charlotte Mason (1842 – 1923) was a teacher and educational writer who lived and worked all over the UK. Orphaned at 16, she taught both as a governess and as a classroom teacher. Despite suffering ill health for much of her life, she founded a teacher training college at Ambleside for …
Continue reading “Charlotte Mason – who was she, and what is her relevance?”
This series of videos from Ambleside Schools International goes through the many aspects of Charlotte Mason schooling in great detail: http://www.amblesideschools.com/main/video/introduction Also viewable on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/100226642
There is something distasteful about IQ. Leaving aside the fact that it is often used by those who want to make race-based claims about merit, it reduces the educational project to the merely quantitative, crowding out other virtues. However, these objections should not mean that IQ be buried – as it has been largely since …
Continue reading “IQ – a short and (over)simple FAQ for parents and teachers”
In Episode 3 of my History of Prep Education project, I interview Mark Johnson. Mark (known to all his pupils as MRJ) attended prep boarding school himself aged 6 (!). As a teacher, he taught at Summer Fields for 17 years, becoming Deputy Headmaster, before becoming Headmaster of Cheam in 1998 – a post he …
Continue reading “History of Prep Education Podcast # 3 – Interview with Mark Johnson”
Given the criticism that the school has received from many quarters (such that staff have even received death threats), I was fortunate enough to be allowed to visit Michaela at the end of the summer term. I spent a remarkable few hours there, and sent the following email to the headmistress, Katharine Birbalsingh afterwards: Dear …
Continue reading “My visit to Michaela Community School (MCS Brent)”
I am looking for a school-age student who has the time and inclination to read a Great Book with me online via Skype. Please leave a comment or email me if of interest. The idea is expanded in this link, which begins as follows… “The Good Books are food for a wholesome imagination. They are well-written. …
Continue reading “The Great Conversation (I’m looking for a pupil!)”
Last week I began a part-time project to interview retired prep school teachers about their teaching methods. My first subject was Rhidian Llewellyn. Rhidian began his teaching career at Heatherdown. From 1980-1984 he was Head of History and English at Arnold House School in St John’s Wood, London. In 1986 he became Senior Housemaster at …
Continue reading “History of Prep Education #1 – Interview with Rhidian Llewellyn”
Will Orr-Ewing 