This week
3-9 MARCH 2012SATURDAY
He came, he saw, he insulted
David Cameron stood up at the Conservative spring conference. He spoke. He angered the whole teaching profession. Schools, he said, were in thrall to an “ideology” that is against competition and competitive sport.
SUNDAY
Goodbye to homework
Rules dictating the amount of homework that can be set were scrapped. Heads and their staff are now free to decide how much time parents will have to spend forcing Little Johnny to work. Or doing it themselves.
MONDAY
Beauty and the Prince
Prince Harry’s trip to the Caribbean got going. Between chatting to Miss Worlds, he spent a couple of hours discussing local issues with schoolchildren in the Bahamas national stadium in Nassau. The lucky thing.
TUESDAY
Third of schools satisfactory
Ofsted revealed the results of inspections in the last quarter of 2011. According to the inspectorate, nearly 31 per cent were judged “satisfactory”, a rating that will soon change to “requires improvement”.
WEDNESDAY
Four in five schools in peril?
Some 84 per cent of primaries and secondaries in Northern Ireland are at risk of closure, according to a report. The local NAHT threw doubt on the findings, insisting that the data were misrepresented.
THURSDAY
A question of exclusion
Charlie Taylor, the government’s behaviour tsar, announced plans to crack down on the multifarious and often unsuitable alternative provision that excluded pupils find themselves in.
FRIDAY
Party in the middle
The Liberal Democrats’ spring conference starts in Gateshead. Expect scrapping over any number of issues, including academies, free schools, exclusion policy and, well, just about everything else.
Next week
10-16 March 2012
SATURDAY
Broomsticks and bludgers
The first UK quidditch game played to the official International Quidditch Association rules will take place, with a team of muggles from the University of Leicester travelling away to take on Keele.
SUNDAY
Fukushima one year on
The first anniversary of the enormous earthquake off the Japanese coast, which set in motion the tsunami that killed thousands of people and led to the second largest nuclear accident in history.
MONDAY
Commonwealth celebrations
Commonwealth Day. The day when, in theory at least, adults and children of the organisation’s 54 members - which range from Rwanda to New Zealand - celebrate their bonds of friendship (see pages 36-37).
TUESDAY
Battle zombies with maths
Knowing how long we have before zombies arrive could be the difference between life, death and zombification, according to mathematician Thomas Woolley’s speech at the Cambridge Science Festival.
WEDNESDAY
So you think you can teach?
To mark the 10th annual Teach First Week, celebrities including Jon Snow and Vivienne Westwood will deliver lessons in front of the cameras. Shadow education minister Maggie Jones will run the gauntlet today.
THURSDAY
Et tu, Brute?
Expect a murmur of interest from the English department and possibly more from the Latin team: it’s the Ides of March, the anniversary of the slaying of Julius Caesar in the Senate.
FRIDAY
And they’re off
It’s the Cheltenham Gold Cup, arguably the greatest day in the National Hunt diary. Will the mighty Kauto Star steal the crown from last year’s winner Long Run? Place your bets, please.
