Blog posts in October 2011 
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Why enterprise and entrepreneurial skills are important for young people
Tuesday 25 October 2011
Categories: Careers, Education, Higher Education
Guest contributor Claire Young talks about the importance of entrepreneurship and enterprise skills for girls in today’s difficult economic climate.
Job hunting, or deciding on a career path as a young person in today’s world, is a bit like walking over an exploding mine field. You only have to pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV to see the statistical bombs going off:
- A recent survey revealed that top employers feel that 1 in 3 students leaving school do not have the appropriate...
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Toxic childhood?
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Categories: Growing up, Media Influence, Parenting, Role Models
Surely parents should pay attention when over 200 teachers, academics, authors and charity leaders issue dire warnings? A group of them is urging the government to take action (The Telegraph Sept 11) because they believe that children’s wellbeing and mental health is being undermined by the pressures of modern life and by the culture of “too much too soon”.
I would argue differently –
What really is childhood? – dear little innocent girls and boys playing innocent games until...
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'Women earn more than men': should we be excited?
Friday 7 October 2011
Categories: Careers, Role Models
A recent article in The Independent by Richard Garner, the Education Editor, drew attention to the content of this year’s Elizabeth Johnson Memorial Lecture at the Institute of Physics. Betty Johnson, who died in 2003, was a great supporter of women in the sciences, and in her honour, this lecture this year was given by Mary Curnock Cook, the chief executive of UCAS, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. She spoke in part about figures published by the UK Office of National...
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Girls crack royal eggsperiment...
Wednesday 5 October 2011
Who said girls weren’t interested in science? Not only are they interested – and getting top marks in public exams – now they’re being consulted by ‘eggheads’ at the top of the scientific world.
It’s not every day that school pupils are commissioned to undertake an official scientific experiment. But that’s eggsactly what happened to the girls at Sherborne Girls’ School when the Royal Society of Chemistry asked them to discover what makes the perfect boiled egg and...
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Bring back the cane?
Tuesday 4 October 2011
Categories: Education, Media Influence
A recent YouGov poll commissioned by the Times Educational Supplement suggests that almost half of parents would welcome the return of corporal punishment for ‘very bad behaviour’. Across the representative sample of over 2000 parents, 49% agreed, and a quarter strongly agreed, with the reintroduction of ‘the cane or slipper’. Fathers were particularly keen, with 58% of men, as against 40% of women, in favour of this disciplinary measure.
I have always believed it important to...