AS Chris Woodhead’s empire, the Office for Standards in Education, expands to take in tiny tots, the nation looks forward to the eclipse, a hot summer and some tropical storms.
It was bad news for clubbers as the Royal National Institute for the Deaf found that 62 per cent of young people admitted to hearing problems after dancing the night away to sounds at 120 decibels. Most didn’t care.
Use earplugs or risk tinnitus and deafness, says the institute.
Blind people are caught up in a controversy over the decision to introduce capital letters into the 130-year-old Braille system. The Royal National Institute for the Blind said it would print capitalised versions of educational material, but retain the lower case for leisure reading. Critics say capitals will make the text slower to read and deter people from learning Braille.
German children are turning to instructive comic books which are not only transforming reading habits, but attitudes to history. A new work tells of two related German families, one from the East, the other from the West.
In a 56-page sprint, readers get to know the country’s post-war history from the German exodus from Central Europe, the Berlin Wall’s construction and fall, and the Stasi secret police to the neo-Nazis in the Ninties. Apparently it fills a gap left by schools and CD-Roms.
Hope for the printed word then, albeit in cartoon bubbles.
Italians are spending their summer hols reading a book the Pope tried to ban. Gone with the Wind in the Vatican, is full of salacious tales of the papal court.
Another public school is being targeted by famous showbiz folk: Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman are seeking an expensive English education for their offspring.
The stars of Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut may send Connor to Dulwich College, in south London. Old boys include Raymond Chandler and PG Wodehouse. What would Jeeves have thought?
