Councillor SAM WHEELER says there’s a tangible shift in mood on the left in the city whose mayor has recently become PM — but there’s no room for complacency
We need a class analysis of the control pedagogies now emerging in our schools
Award-winning teacher PHIL BEADLE argues that the way the most authoritarian moves in education, like the bizarre practice of ‘silent corridors,’ are mainly inflicted on working-class pupils has dark overtones of fascistic logic
Pedagogies that seek to control the way students sit and their right speak, and demand they move from classroom to classroom in total silence are prevalent — and increasingly, dissent against these methods is not tolerated.
Communist Party leaders Alex Gordon and Lorraine Douglas deliver vital medicines in trip to besieged socialist island
TUC Cymru is playing a leading role in tackling far-right ideas in the workplace, says LAURA DOEL
A New Delhi press conference in which Sheikh Hasina and her son implied the new order in Bangladesh is a security threat to India has sparked fears she is planning a comeback. SIAM SAROWER JAMIL reports on the fallout
Two months of student unrest have forced out India’s education minister and rattled the BJP regime. Could this be the beginning of the end for Modi, asks Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary MA BABY
MAT COWARD says the heatwave is a testing time for gardeners — but he has some tips
I HAVE had the honour, in my 27 years of working in classrooms, of working in all sectors of education (except nursery for which I don’t have the skillset). I’ve worked in the independent sector in other countries and count senior figures in that sector as friends. They are unfailingly polite and are nice erudite people. I still think their schools should be dismantled, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a friendly discussion.
What I have learnt in my time in that sector is that the children of the sometimes wealthy (not all are), are subject to schooling that is characterised by an enlightened liberalism, and their curriculum offer is filled with arts provision, replete with drama and music.
If you could put your political integrity to one side, you might want your children to experience such a curriculum. Generally, the teaching is a little less skilled, but there are some very well-educated people and charming people in the independent sector.
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