#MotherLanguageDay International Mother Language Day is an annual event in UNESCO member states to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism. It originated in Bangladesh, where it is known as ‘Ekushey February’. Ekush is Bangla for 21, and Ekushey means 21st. It commemorates 21st February 1952 when police opened fire on demonstrators upholding their right […]
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Your Very Special Place Would you like to have an empty room that is there just for you; a room you can go to at any time; a room where no-one else can go? It is a very safe space, a space where no-one will judge you. This is what a journal provides. In it […]
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Yes! Celebrating 2020 As we come to the end of a year we tend to look back and reflect on how the year has gone. 2020 has no doubt been one of the most challenging years many of us have ever experienced. It began with record unemployment, news that the previous ten years had been […]
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The Masks We Wear “We all wear masks…metaphorically speaking” Jim Carrey — The Mask One of the enduring images from the current pandemic will be the wearing of masks. From every corner of the globe, the medical advice has emphasized the need to keep everyone safe from COVID-19 and recommended the wearing of a face […]
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Time to celebrate The clouds above us join and separate. The breeze in the courtyard leaves and returns. Life is like that, so why not relax? Who can stop us from celebrating? Lu Yu Diwali has just been and gone. Hanukkah is coming up soon. Christmas follows on. We look forward to festivals. They punctuate […]
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How/Do you teach Values? “Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same but you leave ‘em over everything you do” Elvis Presley Values are at the heart of the Values and Visions approach. Whether consciously or unconsciously, nearly everything we do, nearly everything we think and feel, is coloured and influenced by what we believe […]
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How can we best support children and young people’s social and emotional wellbeing during Covid 19? Guest blog by Liz Bowles, Partnership for Children Schools across the world have been re-opening over the last few months. Already some have had to shut again, or send whole year groups home, because of cases of Covid19. This […]
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What does back to school 2020 mean for you? When I was a child, I dreaded the start of the new school year. I couldn’t bear to lose the freedom of long days at the beach, in and on the water with my friends, only emerging for meals from time to time; being driven to […]
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Feeling a bit apprehensive? Nobody would blame you. As we look forward to a new school year in September we can’t help being aware of the bigger picture. The summer of 2020 presents us with some very pressing environmental, economic and social issues that impinge on any vision of a sustainable future. We and our […]
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Where did we go wrong? Three voices; shared ideas I haven’t posted anything about black lives matter yet, but have spent a lot of time following links, new people, reading articles and trying to better educate myself on the issue. I thought it would be unnecessary to post about the protests and the movement hoping […]
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How do you live with change? I lived over twenty-one years in the Sultanate of Oman. I loved the consistency of the weather. Every day I would wake up and the sun was shining. If it wasn’t, it was still warm or hot. That was the extent of the seasons: warm, hot or very hot, […]
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We cannot, must not, go back Education experts in a range of settings around the world were unanimous on this point in last week’s WISE online conference: Education Disrupted, Education Reimagined. This blog is a digest of session 3 of the conference. Kiran Bir Sethi (Design for Change) suggested we spend too much time at […]
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