“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.” Diary of Anne Frank January 13, 1943

perfect

German media seems to be taking more seriously than ours the fact a leading light in the party UK press keeps saying will be next government took bribes from Russia to spout their lies. Maybe it’s because they put NEWS ahead of propaganda

Could we please stop pretending that the flags being hung from streetlamps or painted on roundabouts are innocent expressions of patriotic pride? This is the far right marking out its territory. It uses these flags to intimidate its traditional victims and opponents. 🧵1/3

This feels like the biggest story from the Guardian's Boris leaks... he took £240k from a Venezuelan hedge fund after meeting Maduro. And having denied he was paid. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Everybody in education needs to read this. Fascinating insight and data exploring reported reasons for home-schooling in the UK by @learnwhatyoulive.bsky.social

What utter dickheads we are… Rayner fought for workers: sick pay, maternity rights, protection from unfair dismissal Farage and his MPs voted it down Rayner gets binned over £40k in stamp duty Farage dodges £44k, shrugs & strolls on The mega wealthy win again.

Angela Rayner accidentally pays less tax than she should have, resigns, and the media gives her hell. Nigel Farage deliberately pays less tax than he should have, and the media gives him a free pass. That, right there, is the problem.

On the same day in the Telegraph:

Right wing media has had it in for Angela Rayner from the start - they couldn’t bear a working class woman being so powerful & dynamic. She made a mistake and has paid heavily for it. Very much hope she’ll return at some point in the future - our politics desperately needs more voices like hers

'Hamnet' film trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2xt...

Debra Myhill as always is superb here on writing and the teaching of writing! Her critique of the DfE Writing Framework is absolutely spot on, including its very poor use of research on writing. @beckyfrancis.bsky.social

This is awful

Not sure what's going to give up first: knees, lungs or heart. Hiking after long Covid is a little humbling. But survived another hill walk and now doing a slow wander around Raglan Castle

NEW* for June 2026 onwards: AQA Lang P1 specimen papers and accompanying PPT slide decks. I’ll add to this folder as I update them. Includes: ✅ Enduring Love ✅ Hound of the Baskervilles ✅ Whole Town’s Sleeping ✅To Kill a Mockingbird Help yourself 😊 www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/bd6qg...

Mini hike up the Skirrid in Monmouthshire. Need to do this more often.

Nice piece by George Orwell’s son about the history of Animal Farm www.theguardian.com/books/2025/a...

I’ve nothing against the subjects doing well and I understand the power of earnings prospects in A Level choices, but this graph saddens me and it feels like we have a job to do as schools to communicate the value of the subjects in blue and as a society to learn it. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Beautiful, relaxing morning at Tintern Abbey after the stress of A-Level results yesterday. Proud of what my lovely Y13 Lit students achieved despite huge setbacks. Proud of myself for achieving so much in a year. Tintern Abbey reminds me of my first ever A-Level class of 2002.

How is Paris 34 degrees? 🔥 It's hotter than Nice. So weirdly inverted to be travelling home and it's hotter.

Finally read Kafka on the Shore. Not sure exactly how to feel about it. Astonishing. Moving. Problematic. Possibly one of the most thoughtful-provoking books I've ever read.

Setting off from Nice on 9 hours plus journey on 3 trains to make it home by this evening.

Island day.

Summer hols feels like...

GCSE Eng marking finally done. It's time for my annual epic train journey. South of France this year. Train to London for overnight stay at Kings Cross, ready for early Eurostar tomorrow.

I spent seven years writing a book on this and she just… said it in three succinct paragraphs to politico.

The fact that the President of the United States posts a fake video of a kneeling Barack Obama being handcuffed and we’re supposed to pretend it’s perfectly normal, everyday stuff shows exactly what is terribly wrong with today’s political mainstream media.

Nailed it.

chromophism (or a variant of this!) Anyone?!? (for undisclosed reasons...)

Absolute credit to journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou. Some people really are the dregs of humanity. The Salt Path was never my kind of book and I'm glad I've never read it. Read this instead... observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

I'm ridiculously excited about my new school. Stepping back from HOD and just teaching English. Genuinely can't wait.

Your 'bonus moment of doom' for today ~ 6 sigma "About 2.5 million sq km of Antarctic sea ice went missing relative to the average before 2023. The anomaly was of such a magnitude that it’s quite hard for scientists to know what to make of it. It has been described as a five sigma event."

He was humiliated last weekend. This weekend he bombed someone. My guess is there is a relationship between those two events.

Setting up a new google site to share all my resources. First up a work in progress - Y7 mythology. All our units start with a provocation lesson to explore a concept - this one is why do people tell stories? sites.google.com/view/engteac...

Water. Hills. Walks. Love the holidays

If this person sat next to you on a bus or train and started ranting about Bruce Springsteen in this way, you would get up and move to a different seat. In the United States, we have him the nuclear codes.

This is bleak reading

We've long known the positive impact that metacognition can have on student attainment, but what impact can it have on reading? An interesting new study came out today exploring just that, by M. M. Iskandarova. The findings aren't to be missed ⤵️

It's the most wonderful time of the year

Last stop of mini Belgium tour: Bruxelles

Brugge is beautiful in the evening (less crowded)

Childhood favourite.

Over 20,000 steps today walking around Antwerp. Absolutely love the freedom from work routine.

God I bloody love holidays

Everybody romanticizing about the heyday of American manufacturing needs to carefully listen to one (1) Bruce Springsteen song.

Let’s be clear. He sold $2.4 billion of his stock the day before he announced tariffs. He’s now crashing the stock market deliberately. He will then buy stock when it’s fallen through the floor. All this is is him stiffing everyone to get richer. That’s it.

The problem with evidence: Somehow we've convinced ourselves that a lesson hasn't happened if there isn't something in pupils' books. It's a though we've got to prove that the lesson took place. /1

This is absolutely me.

Sometimes moving forward is a move backwards and prioritising your happiness and health.