Tom Bennett's School Report

Hazy days have passed since A-level results so it doesn't feel ghoulish to gnaw on a few mouldy bones and see what kind of soup we can make from the stock. Results day has visited, eaten the scones and fled, and like an enormous Sorting Hat for attractive, spring-heeled Cotswolds dryads ('A lawyer you shall be!' 'A civil servant!' 'Ah, alas you shall be an educational blogger') destinies have been ordained or ossified to the rustle of Manilla envelopes.

The time has come, though, to speak of other things (insert joke about cabbages getting into King's here). The A-level pass rate now stands at 98%, and has been rising for thirty years. The % of entries resulting in an A or higher has also been climbing steadily for decades. And now turn away, reader: it has stalled, nay it has nose dived....by an astounding 0.4% this year. IT'S A MASSACRE. This is because Ofqual has 'advised' exam boards to 'err on the conservative side' to tackle w…

Who's the fastest person in the world? If you said that Boltcove then damn your eyes and call yourself an Englishman? It is, of course, Stephen Kiprotich from Uganda, who spanked everyone else in yesterday's Marathon. Fastest man in the world over twenty six miles and change. I'll tell you something else:  it's also Michael Phelps, at least over 100m in water doing the butterfly. It's also Victoria Pendleton, as long as you're talking about the women's (or 'girls' as commentators prefer to describe them, as if they were a clutch of spinsters descending on a tearoom, or Miss Jean Brodie's pride) keirin, which I think might be a boy's name.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you mean the fastest man over 200 metres? Or perhaps the man who obtained the fastest unassisted speed at any point in his event? The answer you get depends on the question you ask.

But at least there are benchmarks; cornerstones of absolute truth that we can all agree upon. Usain Bo…

It's like opening a window and smelling fresh air. Listening to people's reactions to the Olympics is almost as heartening as watching the damn thing themselves. Any cynicism about our four weeks of superhuman gasping is lying low for now like dry ice, and boy, is the air clear up here. There are plenty of things to get snippy about, to carp and mew and harrow; this is not one of them. No event is beyond reproach; nothing is ideal. But at least this aspires to be.

One of the saddest things I ever met in teaching was in a poor, poor school in a rough, rough area, where, when you asked the kids to what they aspired, they replied- seriously- 'the dole'; 'ASDA'; 'hustling'. That taught me that the cages we build inside our minds are at least as important as the economic circumstances from which we emerge. Being wealthy isn't enough- it sure helps, of course, and the concomitant support and culturally inherited aspirations are strongly correlated with t…

Dzien dobry.

I recently spent some time in Poland. I promise not to make this a 'what I did in my holidays blog' because there's enough of them and one day the internet will be full and then we'll all be sorry and I'll point to the kitten Tumblrs and Facebook inventories of people's childrens' stools, and I'll say 'You did this.'

So, Poland. I've been many times, seen Polish schools, spoken to Polish teachers, and worked with Polish teachers who have also worked in the UK state system. If you read the latest reports, you would think (correctly) that Poland is some kind of Eastern European educational tiger. Its school system has been collecting laurels like Michael Phelps attracts gold discs on ribbon.

'The most recent test results from the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) show that Poland is ranked 14th for reading, ahead of the USA, Sweden, France and Germany - and well ahead of the UK in 25th''…