Mr Hubert Griffith, the well-known dramatic critic, has recently written a small book entitled: Iconoclastes; or, The Future of Shakespeare.

Teachers of English will find in it much that is stimulating and a great deal that is provocative - not least in its omissions. Mr Griffith never once mentions schools in his argument, yet without animadversion on the validity of his main thesis, which is that Shakespeare acted in modern dress is far superior to Shakespeare acted in costume, we may declare roundly that the future of Shakespeare in this country lies very largely in the hands of the schools and universities.

50 years ago April 3, 1953

Teachers, like so many others in these drab, uneasy times, are caught up in the daily struggle to wring a worthwhile living out of the rags of our tattered economy. While, then, to the world at large theirs seems a calling with many rewards, they themselves must think often of the sort of recompense that comes their way in hard cash. With so much else demanding attention there could be regret that the National Union of Teachers will turn so firmly to salaries in the conference now starting at Blackpool.

25 years ago April 7, 1978

Running though Mr Fred Jarvis’s state of the union address to the NUT was a certain euphoria.

The thousand delegates were gathered in the afterglow of a bitter confrontation inside and outside the Burnham Committee. Tempers had run high. The management panel had bungled. The LEAs allowed themselves too little elbow room; the Government representatives tried to interpret their own rules with unreasonable severity. The teachers, without exhausting the arbitration procedures, pressed ahead with a damaging withdrawal of co-operation.