My recollection too. Though I had the bizarre combination that of my two English teachers at that point, one didn’t vote because Sinn Fein weren’t on the ballot paper in Leeds North East, and the other voted for the Referendum Party.

Your regular reminder that cryptocurrency does in fact have a use case and that use case is crime

I think that the thing I am most upset about in this litany of nonsense is the deliberate calculation that schools can afford to cover 0.8% and should therefore be asked to cover 1.8%. Someone thought hard about that and decided it was a good idea and I’d like to flush their head down the toilet.

TIL that ”dyr” is Norwegian for expensive and look forward to finding out that if I just channel the dialect of Leeds I’ll get by in Bergen.

So, school funding - a quick briefing for those new to Orwell: www.tes.com/magazine/new... The government says that mainstream funding is going up by 1.9% (sixth forms, not being “mainstream” for some reason are getting 0.5%). The government says costs are going up by 1.4% (inflation is 2.8%)

Liking a politician because they aggressively and pejoratively attack others - who ever those others may be - is not something that is easily compatible with being a decent person.

Sports Day. Back when I was HoD I had an NQT who was a Y8 form tutor. A Polish girl called Martha moved into her class. Martha was a perfectionist who found peer relationships tricky. She needed everything to be perfect and predictable which is, I think, why she preferred adults.

FARGE

This is one of those days when I come out of school late, hungry and grumbling about my extensive commute only to look up and check my privilege.

Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel always says England to me, the one I care about. "Son, he said, grab your things I've come to take you home"

This is a brilliant game - really enjoying it (Tolkien geek, game player) with family members A (not Tolkien geek, fantasy nerd, quite likes games) and B (knows Tolkien, likes pretty games but not war ones or things that get unpleasantly competitive). Strong recommend.

This Academic year has a pupil shown you an example of skill they have learned or knowledge acquired from a YouTube video? We can all ask #leadingquestions

We have answers.

Looking forward to ResearchEd Yorkshire tomorrow. Speaking on the threats presented by the white papers to the gains made in English education, what evidence informed adaptation means and why telling the truth matters. I expect again I'll be unintentionally controversial.

Schools are different. Buildings, community, transport. While schools can never please everyone chances are your kid's has made the best decisions about opening and heat adaptations based on its individual circumstance. Assume competence. Leaders and teachers are at least as hot and grumpy as you.

This is remarkable.

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio... this sounds amazing, pun intended

Felt the same when visiting a women’s prison in England a few years ago. Definite sense that care in the community had failed, and prisons had taken up the asylum role instead.

The constant chatter about private schools reminds me exactly why I do this job. We’re raising more money than expected, school offer days passed smoothly, and we’re injecting money into state schools. My focus remains on the schools attended by the majority of kids in this country.

Graphic design is my passion.

Once a PM (or perspective PM) allows themselves to say “I won’t raise any taxes” they’re done for. They’re finished. That’s it. It’s over. Be bold enough to say “I will raise or lower taxes and expenditure in line with the needs of the country. That’s why you’re electing me as your leader”.

This is remarkably uncool.

The craziest thing about gutting the BBC’s international news is that the service has given Britain unbelievable amounts of soft power, all across the world, for a relatively low cost.

Sermon for #PrideMonth. #TipToe fatheredwardbarlow.wordpress.com/2026/06/21/t...

And I would like to say a massive Thank You to @bennewmark.bsky.social for doing #FridayFive for all these years. It's not easy to come up with new inspiration every week

Reform have now lost six by-elections in a row in England, Scotland and Wales. Their national poll rating is 26% – below Labour in 1983 – and Farage’s approval rating is -37. They’re very far from the voice of the people and need to stop being treated as such.

Europe has advanced only when it was synonymous with the future. If Rejoin isn’t to fail, its adherents should talk less about the defeat of 2016 and more about the EU of 2046. Bagehot this week. economist.com/britain/2026...

I changed my mind. A bit.

Very exciting - my little book on teachjng has been delivered in bulk to a school that has ordered it for all staff.

Wisdom for a Wednesday: "Your choices are half chance - and so are everybody else's."

That's the question at the heart of my latest Substack post, which argues that CPD focused on specifying practices creates cargo cult teaching - the appearance of good teaching without the understanding behind it. 2/3

Which is worse: curses or IBS? Willerby is the kind of place where you could get either - and with approximately equal likelihood or hope of rationale.

The Gestapo marched hundreds of thousands of innocent people to their deaths. I've ended private schools' tax breaks to invest in state schools. No responsible leader makes vile comparisons like this. Kemi Badenoch is not fit to be Prime Minister.

Three years now since the last time I saw her.

Also, (rechargeable) batteries have been quite common for 30+ years now, surely people are familiar with them bsky.app/profile/adsq...

“We leave their marvellous native tongue to Englishmen, and for our intelligent island pray that to her virtuous beauties by all poets sung she add at last an honest foreign policy” Auden and MacNeice

I think this one is currently in second place.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s has been streamed 416 million times. Halo (Deep Blue Something‘s second best known song - no, me neither) has streamed 700,000 (presumably people who just clicked to the next one on the list by mistake). Is there a ratio here that defines one hit wonders?

these guys who think the education system should do all their training for them but they also don't want to pay tax... how do they think we're funding their oven ready staff exactly?

Now do Clacton

The War on Motorists:- News from the frontline. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Why do you do the job? It’s a good question for us all to ponder. clivehill.substack.com/p/planting-t...

“And to Sir Oswald (please forgive the stench which taints our parchment from that purulent name) we leave a rather unpleasant word in French.”

From the Last Will and Testament of WH Auden and Louis MacNeice: “Item, to those who spend their lives in the wet lost six counties of the Emerald Isle we leave our goloshes and a shrimping net.”

Condemning riots isn't enough. We need policy action, including an immediate appraisal of X as a vehicle for coordinating far-right disorder. And we need political leadership, to challenge white nationalism as an idea, not to validate it daily and then complain when it turns violent.

Everyone on X and elsewhere who called for a violent response should be charged with incitement. Everyone involved in the pogrom should be locked up with exemplary sentences. Govt should make it clear that will be the response in future anywhere else. Enough.

We saw your advice to reach out so.. We think you'd like our village and we'd love for you to visit us. Here the supernatural is only about as remarkable as the weather. There more than fifty free uncanny short stories with art, music and videos on our village website. www.welcometowillerby.co.uk