Newly published guidance for play leaders and nursery teachers instructs them to be on the look-out for and to reprimand racist attitudes evinced by toddlers. “No racist incident should be ignored. When there is a clear racist incident, it is necessary to be specific in condemning the action”, they are reportedly instructed. Among potentially racist… [Read More]
It was a theme that ran throughout Lord Darzi’s final report, published earlier this week. ‘High quality care cannot be mandated from the centre – it requires the unlocking of the talents of frontline staff….where change is led by clinicians and based on evidence of improved quality of care, staff who work in the NHS… [Read More]
For those sufficiently fortunate never to have needed to know, WDWTWA stands for ‘Who Do We Think We Are Week?’ For those still none the wiser, according to the proud boast of the Department of Children Schools and Families, ‘WDWTWA is a new, DCSF-funded education project, designed to engage primary and secondary school teachers in… [Read More]
Lord Darzi today publishes his eagerly awaited Next Stage Review of NHS policy. Ostensibly it heralds the end of the top-down era; a shift away from central targets to more self-sustaining means of driving performance, based on user-empowerment, information, choice and competition – but the system will work against it.
When Slovenia shuffles off the podium of the EU Presidency tomorrow, France will assume the European Union’s top post for the second half of 2008. Among its priorities, the French leadership has asserted its ambition to formalise a common European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). However, France must prove that the EU needs a common… [Read More]
This week Gordon Brown gave us his assessment of the factors thwarting social mobility in Britain today. Where he was right, was to point to the impact which unemployment had on social mobility under Thatcher. Where he was wrong, was to ignore the role which his very own government is playing in thwarting social mobility… [Read More]
The dramatic escalation of child protection measures has succeeded in poisoning the relationship between the generations and creating an atmosphere of suspicion that actually increases the risks to children, according to a new study released today by Civitas. In Licensed to Hug Frank Furedi, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, argues that children… [Read More]
The Conservatives made a first small step in the right direction on NHS policy yesterday, reaffirming their pledge to scrap the endless targets that have – to not put too fine a point on it – bludgeoned the life out of the health service over the past decade or so; and instead focus on outcomes.… [Read More]
Much of the western world, including Britain, currently seems in process of economic melt-down. To take our minds off all the depressing economic news, and hence off how lamentably the present Government has prepared this last decade for the years of national belt-tightening that now lie ahead, we need reminding that, as well as love,… [Read More]
Shortly before last week’s unexpected referendum decision in Ireland, a journalist in the Scotsman explained why the Irish had chosen to reject the Lisbon Treaty despite the benefits the EU have showered on their country in recent years. He wrote: ‘The anti-EU lobby … have plastered Ireland with posters warning that the treaty will force… [Read More]