Thoughts on schools ...

At this time in September we often hear the phrase 'back to school'. A new school year has begun and for some that may mean a new school, for others a new exam course, but for all it means a period of change: new classmates, new subjects, new systems and rules.

It's one of the things that divides older from younger people: their experience of education. Recently a senior lecturer in history at Cambridge University said that pupils should do exams on computer: “Fifteen or 20 years ago, students routinely wrote by hand several hours a day, but now they write virtually nothing by hand except exams“. She argued that the need for clear writing was too demanding for today's schoolchildren, who are…