Dr Debra Kidd
@debrakidd.bsky.social
Teacher, doctor, author, Leader of Learning and Teaching at the British School of Brussels. Books: Curriculum of Hope, Teaching Notes from the Frontline, Uncharted Territories and Becoming Mobius. A Pedagogy of Power currently gestating!
Let’s hope the tide is turning on this madness that has gripped our schools for the past 16 years. There is no need at all to treat young people like this. www.bbc.com/news/article...
How parents and pupils took on 'cruel', 'authoritarian' schools - and won
Discipline at an academy trust went too far - parents, pupils and former teachers tell BBC Panorama.
bbc.com
Appointing John Healey is a smart move. One in the eye for all those speculative journalists. And in charge of the Treasury it'll be harder for him to complain about lower defence spending than he had wanted as Defence Secretary. He'll be the one making the difficult choices.
Oh no. Not for the first time since...Thursday? Possibly the most desperate bit of doom reporting I've ever seen!
Sad to hear about Kevin Keegan. Always seemed decent and humble.
Everyone should read this story and see how the state of Idaho, the Trump administration, and hate groups such as ADF, SEGM, Do No Harm, and the Manhattan Institute have blood on their hands. They murdered this trans teen and her future. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
Idaho pushed anti-trans laws for years. Then a teen died.
The life and death of May Pollard, 16, provides a window into the tragic effect that legislation and political rhetoric have had on trans people in America.
nbcnews.com
HMRC. Told them we were tax residents in Belgium in 2023. Reminded them last year when they sent us a bill with proof that tax had been paid to the Belgian government. No reply. Phoned and were told we should receive a reply by December 2026 ((a full year later). Now charging £10 fine per day.
Well this is deeply disappointing. Burnham to announce plans for new North Sea oil and gas drilling www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Burnham to announce plans for new North Sea oil and gas drilling
Drilling has become a controversial topic for the Labour party after the 2024 manifesto pledged to not issue new licenses.
bbc.co.uk
That was a really good and relatable speech from @andyburnham.bsky.social
Goodbye Anne Widdicombe. Convention dictates that we don’t speak ill of the dead so I’ll just say ‘Ding, Dong’ instead.
The discussion on PIP payments on BBC is just horrendous. People with physical illnesses should get it. People with mental health shouldn't. Seriously? Are our brains not physical? Are we really so unaware of the physical impacts of mental illness?
The oceans are warming alarmingly, causing mass die out of many species as well as catastrophic weather events. But hey, BBC News is celebrating the fact that we can catch and sell (and presumably eat) more octopus. The banality and irresponsibility of this reporting is depressing.
In case you missed it, here's Count Binface's appearance on the BBC this morning.
Oh come on @vicderbyshire.bsky.social - are you going to take control of the programme and let other guests actually speak? #Newsnight
That Belgian finger up to Trump will keep me in a good mood all week.
Suggesting that heat related deaths are not actually heat related, but caused by meteorologists reporting the temperature is...quite the take 🤪
Jenni@wipjenni.bsky.social · last mo.I wonder how many heat related deaths are partly psychological. Stress can be a contributing factor, so scaring people by telling them they "feel" even hotter than the actual temps, *could* have an effect. I've watched people have spontaneous 'allergy attacks' when they see a pollen count "alert".
A lesson here for Burnham. If we want to rebuild faith in the Labour Party he needs to look to Khan and Mandami.
Christabel Cooper@christabelcoops.bsky.social · last mo.Extraordinary credit to Sadiq Khan for pushing through this deeply controversial policy. This is what can happen when politicians are prepared to stick to their principles.
Here's a very useful thread for those of you tired of the 'but in 1976' pub bores.
Emma Monk@monkemma.bsky.social · last mo.It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23
Currently 37 degrees here and Thursday and Friday set to be hotter. Countries like Belgium and the UK are not equipped for extreme temperatures. Yet social media absolutely full of ‘it’s just Summer’ climate denial. It’s depressing to see the ignorance.
There are going to be some very hot children this week 😬
I wrote a document the other day and spotted a typo that I left in to prove that it had been written by me and not AI. And now I think I might be losing my mind.
This is my very lovely colleague, Clair Draper.
Tes magazine@tesmagazine.bsky.social · 2mo agoInternational schools are good at welcoming new arrivals, but what about helping those pupils who are leaving and anxious about life in a different country? One teacher shares her school’s unique approach to supporting this transition
Our 15 yo learned Japanese on YouTube during the covid lockdowns, got a GCSE in Japanese, passed JLPT level 2 and got into university to study it. Mind you, our kids knew what a VPN was early on too. Ridiculous to infantilise teenagers like this imo.
My kid learned to play the guitar from You Tube. There’s a lot of educational stuff on there regularly used by schools - ‘how to’ tutorials, science demos, documentaries, grammar and pronunciation of languages…Seems mad to ban rather than regulate.
Exactly. Wanna do something about harmful social media? Change the law so the platform's owners are classed as publishers, and become responsible for harmful / unlawful / slanderous/ offensive content. Same standards you'd apply to any print publisher. And enforce it with hefty fines.
Cllr Dr Alex Powell@apowelllaw.bsky.social · 2mo agoProhibition has never worked. We already know that very high numbers of under 16s in Australia continue to access social media notwithstanding the 'ban'. The same will happen in the UK. All a ban does is given the impression of having 'done something' while ignoring the actual issues.
Blown away by Guy Claxton and Emily Poel's book "Bodies of Learning: How Embodiment Science Transforms Education." It presents to us an overwhelming body of research to argue that we must overhaul education systems in order for learners to thrive. Moving, feeling, doing...all critical to learning.
Meanwhile, Tony Blair...
@alexvonwitzleben.bsky.social · 2mo agoFlanders' has launched an ambitious program to deploy #solarpanels along highway infrastructure. Sound barriers along the E40 and E17 motorways near Ghent and Antwerp have been fitted with integrated solar panels — their south-facing surfaces generating electricity fed into adjacent grid connections
