Tackling child poverty may prove a vote winner for Farage
In news bound to make Keir Starmer nervous, voters in 121 Labour-held constituencies with high rates of child poverty are…
How to stop secondary schools becoming misery traps
‘Transition’ is a word much bandied about in education circles. No, this is not about gender. Rather, when school staff…
What the kids get right about the assisted dying bill
The brothers Grimm knew that it sometimes takes a child to call out what grown-ups think but dare not say.…
It’s not the government’s job to prepare kids for school
Today, every parent of five-year-olds will find out what school their child will be going to in September. The likelihood is…
Showing Adolescence in schools lets parents off the hook
Parents are up in arms. The Prime Minister’s decision to allow all state secondary schools to screen Adolescence, the scary Netflix…
How ‘best friend parenting’ leads to spoilt kids
Young people are unwilling to go to school. They are unwilling to go to the office. And they are unwilling…
Audiobooks won’t help children read better
Shakespeare, Dickens, JK Rowling: Britain’s literary heritage is undisputable. Creativity, emotional depth and universal values have ensured that Hamlet, Oliver…
What Bill Gates can teach today’s mollycoddling parents
‘I was different,’ Bill Gates describes his childish self, ‘School… felt slow. I found it hard to stay interested in…
Reforming Ofsted won’t fix Britain’s problem schools
The proportion of children staying away from school may be alarming – one in five – but the proportion of…
Parents are asking too much of teachers
For a truly educational experience, visit your neighbourhood primary school. Watch the goings-on in the playground: tiny tots rushing around…
Home schooling is a lifeline for desperate parents
Hard cases make bad laws. There can be no harder case than that of Sara Sharif, whose torture and eventual…
Can Starmer help get children ‘school ready’?
It takes a lot of effort for ‘Johnny’ to take off his coat every morning when he joins his reception…
Has Labour given up on solving the social care crisis already?
The Toto Washlet toilet: at the press of a button, a jet of clean warm water sprays your nether regions;…
Kemi is right about absent fathers
Kemi Badenoch MP keeps being compared to Margaret Thatcher. But the truth is she has taken on the persona of…
What’s the problem with zero-hour contracts?
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is set to unveil her workers’ rights bill this week – and ‘exploitative’ zero-hour contracts…
Labour’s childcare confusion has gone on for too long
For parents with young children, it’s been a game of grandmother’s footsteps. First they heard from the new Labour government…
Labour’s toothbrush classes for school kids? No thanks
Labour’s latest proposal for teachers to supervise pupils’ toothbrushing reveals a worrying view of parenting as playing a light-touch, rather…
How the Tories failed stay-at-home mums
We know that Westminster politicians do not always listen to ordinary voters. But there are few issues on which our…
The quiet truth about two-parent families
Imagine a key that opened the door to a place where children did better at school, were less likely to…
Steven Spielberg and the truth about divorce
Steven Spielberg has suggested that The Fabelmans, his latest film, is a $40 million therapy project. The Fabelmans focuses on divorce and in doing so holds a mirror…
Johnny Depp and the truth about male domestic abuse victims
James looks nothing like Johnny Depp. For one thing, he is a lot taller than the 5 foot 8 star;…
How lockdown sparked a wave of anxiety among Britain's children
I knew what ‘anxiety’ meant when I was in primary school. But it was not a word I had cause…
What has happened to parenting?
During a recent webinar with British MPs, I learned that parents in Bradford were up in arms because their children…
