James Handscombe
@JamesHandscombe
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Executive Principal of Harris Westminster Sixth Form (HWSF) and Harris Clapham Sixth Form (HCL6F)
London, England
Joined December 2013
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Last Seen Profiles
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My book about the crazy adventure and wonderful privilege of being part of Harris Westminster Sixth Form over the last 7 years is now available on Amazon as well as direct from Crown House.
I'm sure it will amuse anyone charmed by learning Please do let me know what you think!
A School Built on Ethos by
@JamesHandscombe
is now available on Amazon:
Check it out and don't forget to leave a review if you like the book!
#SchoolEthos
#ASchoolBuiltonEthos
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Yesterday the Times reported Professor David Abulafia’s defence of privilege.
I’ve written to them to point out the flaws in his argument.
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In today’s Times,
@caitlinmoran
is on fire and beautifully on point, brilliantly reasoned and just this side of incandescent against the cruel, immoral, socially destructive Texas abortion law.
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I like this letter from Prof Peter Edwards in today’s Times. It’s very easy to let ambition suck you into an idea that there is only one career path worth taking - or worse, that if you don’t race along it you’re falling behind or failing.
There is more to life.
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The streets of Westminster are full of flags, scattered with broken glass and, in places, running with what I’m choosing to believe is spilt lager.
For calm sanity I’ve come away from the bellicose end of Trafalgar Square, to remind myself of an idea of English I can look up to.
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We're trying something new at Harris Westminster - - introduced, obviously, in an assembly. Equally obviously sly references, liminal spaces, and an attempt at the record for most shocking language abound.
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I'm delighted to be able to announce that from Easter I will be taking on the role of Executive Principal and will have responsibility for Harris Sixth Form Clapham as well as Harris Westminster Sixth Form.
#excitingtimes
@HAClaphamSixth
@HWSFNews
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Stupid school rules and why they're not stupid: a 🧵
1) Imagine an exam hall. 130 final year students, their studies come down to two hours of writing. They have ink in their pens, lead in their sharpened pencils and the best conditions the school can arrange - peace and quiet.
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@oldenoughtosay
This is BRILLIANT Oxford Lore* - it comes from the civil war when the King's forces were in Oxford and set up their northern outpost - their North Parade - a cannon's shot from where the Parliamentarians outside had their southern lines - their South Parade.
The names survive.
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If your argument against exams is based on the idea that a third of students fail then I have great news for you - they don’t.
About 98% of students get a grade in GCSE.
The problem is not the exam, it’s people who call grades 1-3 “fail”. Maybe we should abolish *them*?
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Is there anyone whose day isn’t immeasurably improved by being greeted at the door by a dinosaur?
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This, from
@Sathnam
was brilliant when he read it on the radio yesterday morning (Radio 4, Broadcasting House, about 9.40) and it’s brilliant in the Times today. Read it, listen to it, show your friends, don’t let anyone convince you that Trump’s comments weren’t racist.
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@Greengrumbler
@Shofiquez
@CumberlandE13
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
It's an anti-war poem dressed up as imperial bombast. Perfect school kid's piece, exciting story, thundering rhythm, subversive meaning
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@Miss_Snuffy
@adamboxer1
I care, because words matter- their shape matters- their meaning matters. What you say is either what you think - which matters - or a lie which speaks to your ethics - which matter. And it’s not just the truth, but the context, how your words will be heard - that matters, I care
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A thread on thinking about going back to school from the perspective of a head - I have a big sheet of paper with things to thing about on it (in an attempt to stop them filling my brain at 2am which helps absolutely nobody - at least I can be constructive on the paper). 1/
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@japanauthor
This is condescending: “Sorry despite your "reports" you are still wrong.” – the use of “sorry” does not sound apologetic and the quotation marks round “reports” are weird, when you don’t seem to be quoting anything specific.
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Eric is tall, smiley, and brilliant. He has 3A* and a B and is going to Mansfield College, Oxford to study PPE.
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Rocco looking understatedly chuffed: he should be - he has 4A* and a place to study PPE at Oxford - I look forward to following his career (Rocco for PM in a few years?)
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Congratulations to Rio, Daniella, Faridat, Rayo, Miriam and Harry off to Cambridge - and Aweys who is heading for Harvard!
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19 Harris Westminster students have Cambridge offers.
Congratulations to all 44.
25 Harris Westminster students have Oxford offers this year (a school record). Cambridge still trickling in but also looking good.
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I'm delighted that 57 Harris Westminster students have Oxbridge offers - demonstrating not, as Lloyd Webber puts in the mouth of Joseph, that anyone from anywhere can make it if they get a lucky break, but that talent and hard work and good schooling can overcome disadvantage.
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This week I finished teaching my Year 12 class the history of learning disability using the resources from
I would like to encourage as many schools as possible to offer the same opportunity (I will be running this again next year).
A thread of thoughts
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In “A School Built on Ethos”, I emphasize the importance of taking joy in learning, of finding learning in all our joys. I rather love that as
@taylorswift13
re-records her albums so she has all the copyright, she and I have our photos in The Times together.
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Louise and Lizzie both have 4A*, Lizzie is taking hers to Cambridge to do medicine and Louise is off to Oxford for Biomed.
Congratulations both!
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I've been reorganising my assemblies website to make it more navigable.
Any suggestions/comments welcome:
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Two shots of the cenotaph this morning. Remembering the dead and campaigning for a better future; thanksgiving for those who made sacrifices for our way of life and taking full advantage of our democratic rights.
War is Hell.
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I’m constantly surprised by how many people think that teaching in an academically selective environment will be easy without actually having any experience in that environment.
Doing the best you can every day for the children in front of you is hard, whatever the setting.
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I’ve just finished reading
@AlisonColwell
’s book No Excuses and have found it massively energizing - the vision and determination to value what’s important (kids and teachers) has really resonated. I strongly recommend it.
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@adamboxer1
And scared too - a large group of bullies who are being unpleasant to you just because they can and you can’t stop them.
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25 Harris Westminster students have Oxford offers this year (a school record). Cambridge still trickling in but also looking good.
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Alfred has 4A* and is going to Warwick to study Maths. Keith (the penguin) has no A-levels and is poor at Maths. Congratulations Alfred!
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Kate and Lizzie are two of the cleverest people I know - Congratulations to Cambridge and Edinburgh for snagging them to study Engineering and Physics+Maths; and congratulations to both students - a magnificent future awaits.
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@FraserNelson
No it doesn’t. It doesn’t even claim to - the aptitude tests and interviews are deliberate methods to avoid having to give places to students with the best grades.
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Well, they end up with a fairly hefty sanction (quite right, they've been defiant, they've disturbed those students toiling away at their exam) and they go home (or to the papers) and explain it was just for walking down the corridor.
And it was.
And yet it wasn't.
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Delighted that
@thesundaytimes
have named Harris Westminster as Sixth Form of the Year.
@HarrisFed
@wschool
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This is a really interesting question that is relevant to our schools, their purpose, and their communities.
Why would someone be unpleasant to someone they don’t know and, incidentally, to thousands who are vulnerable and who they can’t know?
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I’m embarrassed to be part of a country that has representatives that speak like this about other human beings.
Humanity has to involve recognizing it in others and respecting it even when hard choices need to be made.
These views would give ogres a bad name.
"If the accommodation isn't good enough for them they can get on a rubber dinghy back to France," Conservative MP Lee Anderson tells Suella Braverman.
Braverman: "My friend is right... Any complaints that the accommodation isn't good enough is frankly indulgent and ungrateful."
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The Post Office scandal has been reported for years- notably in Private Eye. I am glad that the ITV drama has brought the issue to the attention of the public, but very worried that it appears to have brought it to the attention of the government. Is this how they get their news?
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Forget the football, Mark Cavendish is a complete hero and the Tour is the most amazing piece of sport.
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If you haven’t already read Piranesi, then I think you probably should.
This is today’s public service broadcast.
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Reading on the train - I didn’t think the opening to Finding Nemo could get scarier:
@AdamRutherford
proves me wrong.
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Man make fire.
Man sit in front of fire with beer.
Man happy.
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Do you want to do something about social mobility?
Then tax wealth. Tax inheritance. Build council houses. Fund schools. Pay proper wages. End the two-child benefit cap.
This is the way.
This is an amazing, heartfelt, righteous insight into why 'expert commissions' are often a complete waste of time.
Ministers know what to do to fix problems. They just won't do it.
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@ShakinthatChalk
I completely disagree.
University is a place of learning; it is the opportunity to spend three years delighting in the itch of a subject that A-levels sparked but failed to scratch; it is the incubation of an intellectual delight in all things counter, original, spare, strange
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And if you try to explain the reasoning and structure of the rule the answer from someone who hasn't lived the 800 students all trying to avoid a flight of stairs is "couldn't you just let one student go past - this is a silly, unreasonable rule."
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I’m teaching a lesson on beautiful prose. Can anyone recommend a really wonderful paragraph?
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@TabitaSurge
The Empress Matilda (and presumably therefore the anarchy, the question of succession and the Anglo-French relations) is less worthy of study for Y7s than the myth of Harold and the arrow?
That doesn’t seem so obvious to me.
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Lukas has 3As and a B, and is off to study History at Oxford.
Well done, Lukas - we’re extremely proud.
@FalconwoodBICT
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Maths is much more than times tables (sometimes you can work out what the other side of the argument must have been)
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Congratulations all three - Isaaq looking particularly dapper, I think.
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@sam91860232
@Simon_Nixon
The biggest part of Eton’s selection process is the ability to spend 40k/yr out of disposable income.
The rest would explain a significant over-representation, which it still has. The issue is not that Etonians are not getting in to Oxbridge, it’s that other people are too.
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Ayuub is off to study electronic and information engineering at Imperial!
A*AAA - absolutely amazing work.
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Years of cutting what looks to an outsider like inefficiency has removed the ability of the organisation to deal with the daily rough and tumble of hundreds of young lives without a few hours of workload landing on an already flat-out teacher.
Sorry
@GillianKeegan
- no easy solns
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Well, this is a first...
Students at Harris 6th Form state school get more places at Oxford and Cambridge this year than their counterparts at Eton. Getting into Oxbridge is all very well, but do they have the qualities that Etonians are famous for?
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@bickypeg
@petergates3
They did.
It's an outstanding school with fully compliant safeguarding.
It turns out that having-political-views-you-don't-agree-with isn't a trigger for child protection issues.
Who knew?
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@Mr_LukeHarrison
@TabitaSurge
They definitely do, and are definitely trying to get a certain response here - it's not an ethically designed study, it's a piece of propaganda.
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Absolute stars! Katiann is going to Cambridge to study HSPS and Ayla to Oxford for English, both with a fine collection of 4A*.
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This is very exciting (for me, at least).
I've assembled a book following the adventures of Harris Westminster over the last few years and Crown House are going to publish it.
I like the way it looks (& give open permission to have it judged by its cover)
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This is interesting.
I’ve always felt that permanent exclusion is a terrible thing, but temporary exclusion is not. In fact, I like what it says about the relationship: being part of our community is a privilege, & a temporary ejection is the strongest expression of disapproval.
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The lack of professional empathy and complete double standards among some of those who claim to support education is appalling and stomach turning.
🧵
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@FakeHeadteacher
Because we have a finite time with students before lockdown comes and because setting good routines and high expectations for written work is even more important now that in a usual September.
Part of providing excellent learning is checking it's provided.
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And the answer is "yes".
"But what else could I do?"
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Congratulations to all the Harris Westminster students getting results today - it’s been a Y13 like no other and you’ve made us proud.
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@NateSilver538
I've looked at votes from both sides now - from give and take and still, somehow, it's votes illusions I recall. I really don't know votes at all.
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@FraserNelson
It really doesn’t - there’s no way it can unless you’re making out that Oxford are morons. If it was just about the grades they would make offers based on grades rather than spending a fortune on interviews.
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Setting officials the task of reducing bureaucracy is not going to fix the problem - we need to have more teachers in schools, partly so the workload is manageable, and partly so that there is slack to deal with problems when they arise (which they do if you have young people)
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I’m a great fan of Larkin, but there are more amazing poets who have written in English than there is space in the anthology for, and to make a fuss about your favourites having to take turns with those you don’t know do well is the rejection of an opportunity to find new joys.
Larkin and Owen are two of our finest poets. Removing their work from the curriculum is cultural vandalism.
Their work must be passed on to future generations - as it was to me. I will be speaking to the exam board to make this clear.
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The big loads for teachers are
- Being in class
- Preparing to be in class
- Assessing students' work and feeding back on it
- Providing pastoral care and interfacing between school and home
These are all important, they all take time, they all take skill and knowledge.
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@hopkinsmmi
@miss_mcinerney
I know money is tight and I know schools are expensive and don’t look like they do much to people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, but squeezing them tight is what makes keeping good staff hard: everything is miserable, functional, exhausting.
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I was at Clapham on Thursday, so missed these guys getting their results, but of course I’m massively proud of all of the HWSF students.
One of my friends described the 43 Oxbridge places as “proof of concept” - a good position as we approach our 10th year.
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Good luck to everyone getting results today - whether they represent hard-earned celebration or what Anne Shirley would call “a bend in the road”, they are just a marker, you are still you and can (must) still shape your own future.
(I hope it’s good news, though, that’s easier)
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If this is what you think the fight against misogyny looks like then I can only imagine that you don't understand one of the words "fight", "against", or "misogyny".
This is targeted unpleasantness against a woman from a man.
@greeborunner
So what is it? If it's the only female appointee amongst the cabal of men who are to advise
@nadhimzahawi
, I would applaud you, if it weren't for the fact that you'd be another blood Tory that didn't care. ☹️
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This, from
@JSEllenberg
is incredible: the maths book I wish I’d written. Starting with Wordsworth’s Prelude, drawing in John Newton and Abe Lincoln’s fascination with Euclid, and including the chapter “reasoning well from badly drawn figures”, it’s an absolute joy.
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Yesterday Lee Elliot-Major
@Lem_exeter
expressed his desire to end the personal statement. I think they serve a useful purpose in enabling young people to add some shape to an amorphous future.
My letter to the editor.
@thetimes
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“Often we are who we are because of a picture book we read as a kid and have long ago forgotten.” Great words from
@JayHulmePoet
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@oldenoughtosay
*This story is brought to you as an erstwhile resident of South Parade and is told as true but carries with it no attempt at scholarship.
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I particularly enjoyed "Handscombe, its executive principal, taught maths in the Rhondda Valley, has a master’s from Harvard, is evangelical about the power of school assemblies and believes Taylor Swift is one of the great philosophers of the modern day."
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I’m moving out of my office, which is a little heartbreaking, but clearing off my notice board is a joy because everything on it is a thank you or a fond wish that colleagues and students have given to me over the last eight years.
Those messages mean so much to me. Thank you.
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In Chagford this morning to meet
@MoreMorrow
and to see this rather wonderful church (too beautiful even to warrant Larkin)
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@_JustinHope
@oldenoughtosay
Is that list of books and manuscripts a description of daily life in the Middle Ages or is it, in fact, a list of books and manuscripts and hence neither a lie, nor a valid response to the challenge?
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I'm afraid that this is the answer. Sometimes there are bureaucratic burdens that fall on teachers - mostly the inherent admin of dealing with so many kids, occasionally unnecessary but usually this is because the leadership are too stretched to have managed it themselves.
@LouisaClarence
Every govt peddles this nonsense. Only ways to reduce workload are to reduce class size or increase PPA time . Nothing done on either of these two since 2010
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This has tickled me this morning.
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This is the student president, Diogo, sporting a very fine moustache, 3A* and an A. He’s off to study Medicine at Imperial.
@HWSFNews
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@RyanShorthouse
@educationgovuk
Twelve months of good class teaching and homework will provide more than enough "catch-up". The challenge is getting the students who were struggling with school before lockdown or who have had a bad time over the last couple of months to engage fully with their education.
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@llewelyn20
We have a Policy Policy that explains exactly which bits of the policies need to be read and which ones you just need to know about and be able to access.
I feel very Joseph Heller-like when I tell people to read the Policy Policy.
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I’m not the first person to have been impressed by
@PepsMccrea
’s books, but I thoroughly recommend them to anyone who wants clarity in thinking about teaching (they are also short and have few words in: the Coelho of education writers)
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@EnserMark
A piece of cheese inscribed with an ancient rune that, when buried beneath the oak tree as the last new moon of the autumn rises over the lonely mountain, will lead them to great adventure.
At least, that's what they'd get if I was Education Secretary.
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Sidcup skies looking glorious today. (Sidcup pavements rather treacherous). Harris Westminster interviews today - hard questions to select the 2021 cohort
#excitingTimes
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@geogramblings
@Gwenelope
@Andrew_Adonis
I think that our young people are missing vital, transformative experiences that they won’t get back (a lost summer to lockdown for me is neither here nor there I can do whatever next year - for a 16 year old Y12 those chances are lost forever) - this is a real, visceral cost...
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The articles where
@gilescoren
writes about his father have a habit of sticking with me when the lighter nonsense evaporates. I think this is one of those - a really powerfully made argument.
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Two really great days at Harris Westminster. Yesterday we announced that all 125 of our Pupil Premium or in-care applicants had confirmed places whatever their CAGs. Today we enrolled all offer holders that came in. Brilliant students - the start of a new adventure.
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Marwa and Comfort looking deservedly happy with their London destinations: both refusing to engage with such mundanities as grades, Marwa has a place at UCL to study natural sciences and Comfort is going to Imperial for medicine.
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Uncancelling exams would be one of the government's less-bad U-turns (I think I have a flair for understatement -
@StuartLock
?)
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@RichardKeppler1
@Otto_English
Nothing.
Except free education to 18.
And a national health service
And the welfare state
And roads
Well, obviously the roads, safe streets, high employment, cheap food, and high life expectancy.
And peace.
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@RossMcGill
Worth also asking if anyone supporting the campaign would like their own child in a class that is constantly disrupted by a single expletive-spouting child; learning nothing for weeks on end... in school.
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Oxbridge isn't everything, but to get an offer you have to pretend to yourself that it is, at least for a little while.
Congratulations, therefore to the 49 Harris Westminsters who received one. A record-breaking year group.
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