It’s Your Time You’re Wasting

Why can't Britains schools cope when the temperature goes over 32c ?

The Interim Report is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/young-people-and-work-interim-report/young-people-and-work-interim-report Pic of Milburn used under permission: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Is Gemma Collins visit to the Department for Education a sign of the decline in standards or a recognition that the long tail of underachievement in this country leaves far too many kids with a cynical view of school and are marked by that failure for the rest of their lives? Can V levels help enhance the education of those who currently think that school is not for them?

In this episode, David and Martin discuss phones, AI and the need for educational scepticism. They ask why schools are increasingly banning phones while being encouraged to embrace AI, and whether this contradiction reveals a deeper problem: education has allowed others to define the terms of technological change. They explore the arguments for banning phones, including attention, authority, socia...

Who needs critical thinking? We've got books to win in a competition! Listen in and find out how to win David's new book! https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/104117215X/ref=cm_sw_r_as_gl_api_gl_i_2HSGGSTD9W7WTK75K5ES?linkCode=ml1&tag=thelearning07-21&linkId=8a1c9c357a01b11d4f9cae79c40bab00 Can you teach critical thinking? If you can, should we even try?

PISA has decided how well a country's schools teach creativity. They then go on to calculate what impact that will have on each country's economic performance. How well did the countries of the UK do? Have a butcher's in our latest podcast.

Should English Departments ditch their 'most popular' texts in order to leave room for books written by female authors? Can we really teach the best that has been thought and said if managers keep foisting texts on teachers that are short and accessible? We discuss this and more... The article that set us off: https://www.tes.com/magazine/teaching-learning/secondary/diversity-gcse-english-remove-p...

Chesterton's Fence - What do we lose when we use AI to make decisions for us?

The recent Bafta controversy tests the limits of inclusion in public places. Just how tolerant are we? How does inclusion work in classrooms up and down the country? Some links mentioned: https://open.substack.com/pub/johnsonphoenix/p/no-sign-says-it?r=1rvl5x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web https://www.tes.com/magazine/teaching-learning/general/uta-frith-interview-autism-not-spectrum

Belonging is Ofsted’s latest preoccupation. In the 2025 framework it sits inside inclusion, now judged in its own right. Schools feel pressure to demonstrate how they notice and support pupils who meet friction in the system. Much policy treats belonging as an emotional climate. Warmth, smiles and pleasant corridors become the accepted tokens of attachment. This flattens a serious idea and overloo...

In this episode we look at a cluster of articles, tweets and policy announcements, each tugging in a slightly different direction. On their own they’re fragments. Taken together they paint a picture of how schools try to make sense of contradictory signals about disadvantage, curriculum, SEND, misinformation and reform. We look at the top 75 schools based on progress 8 - what is their secret? We a...

Curriculum Wars, Again The 2025 Curriculum & Assessment Review – progress or regression? This week, we wade into the newly published Curriculum and Assessment Review — the biggest rethink of England’s education system since 2014. Chaired by Becky Francis, the report promises a “world - class curriculum for all.” But behind the polite phrasing lies a familiar battlefield: knowledge versus skill...

Breakfasts or Brains? Before we go into the notes, you can sponsor David and donate to cancer research here: https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/davids-giving-page-28674978 Bridget Phillipson’s Labour Conference speech had all the feels: a moving supermarket anecdote about a “lost boy” saved by an inspirational FE teacher, a soaring rhetoric of freedom and opportunity, and a checklist of b...

Should Kids Love Learning? • Should kids love learning? Is love even important? What actually matters? • Is this about engagement, motivation, wellbeing, stupidogenesis or something else? The Education Divide • Peter Hyman: the education divide that’s fuelling broader societal fractures. • Questions: o Is love of learning only available to the privileged? o Is “curiosity” a luxury or a universal r...

Becky Francis chair of the Curriculum Review stated at Research Ed National Conference that ‘The review will not dumb down content, or infuse with issues or campaigns.’ Yet the review ‘will (her italics) ensure that every young person can see themselves in the curriculum, and that it challenges discrimination and extends horizons’ Is this contradictory? Arguably dumbing down content is achieved if...

Can we teach students how to disagree agreeably? What is the state of our nation (UK) and how does this impact our schools and colleges? Is our national/international situation so fraught and anxiety inducing that young people are over-anxious? Is this made worse by socail media and the us vs them that seems to be dominating a lot of the online space? Are schools suitably ‘dialogic’ are we able to...

What is the point of school? Is it changing? Should we focus on academic education or vocational? Are either right for the age of AI? Does creativity and play have a part to play or are we just in the business of filling up memories with Shakespeare and Algebra? All this and more in this episode! Listen on your favourite platform or watch here. Don't forget to like and subscribe!

Is AI dumbing us down? Are schools in danger of making kids 'stupider'? Should we make schools gymnasia of the mind? Will an education for leisure replace an education for work? All this and more in this episode! Some links to material discussed: Do our brains need knowledge in the age of AI? https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.11015 Scott Alexander's Misleading Victory: https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/s...

Conscientiousness is crashing, neuroticism is soaring, young people are far less agreeable and far more introverted - what have we done to our kids? David and Martin discuss this and more - is our on-screen and social media culture to blame? What can schools do, if anything? Does 'project based learning' have a role? Article by John Burn Murdoch can be accessed here: https://www.ft.com/content/5cd...

Is Dead Poets Society a great film? Does it have any lessons for contemporary teaching? Is Romanticism a bad influence on schooling? ALSO: Why not sponsor David on his half marathon for Cancer Research? https://fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/page/davids-giving-page-28674978

Did you choose to watch this? If there is no free will who would ever discipline a child? It's not their fault! In this week's cornucopia of delights we look into Free Will and the implications of the science and the philosophy - do we have free will or not? We put Descartes before the Hume. Dennett and Searle, you name it we name drop it. We can't help ourselves!

Some links to articles mentioned: https://powerfulknowledge.substack.com/p/how-should-we-think-about-the-engagement https://schoolsweek.co.uk/curriculum-labour-is-on-the-right-path-but-its-a-tightrope/ https://daviddidau.substack.com/p/what-do-you-mean-by-engagement?selection=8e3325ff-837e-40fd-becb-cc379a5e3fb3 Fiona Millar was quoted from the RSA Journal Issue 2, 2025

In this episode, we take apart the myth that schools can paper over the cracks of a society in crisis with mindfulness sessions, gratitude journals and breathing techniques. We look at what the data really tells us: a fifth of children now meet the threshold for a probable mental disorder. Over a third of 17 to 19-year-old girls are struggling. Services are overwhelmed. Yet instead of fixing what’...

According to the Times Newspaper, the English Department at Alleyn’s School in southeast London are in the process of diversifying their curriculum and are introducing students to the 'works of a drag queen and non-binary authors.' We're not sure that the Times approves… There is another question underlying the discussion here and that is ‘should children see themselves in the curriculum?” and in...

Is our obsession with testing failing students?