If you're an educationalist and you're angry with Labour on SEND reforms, you have to recognise that this government is probably the most ideologically-aligned you're ever going to get and they're still disappointing you. Suggests the problem is not the politics

I note Andrew is still 8th in line to the throne, having never done anything so bad as become a Catholic.

Pleased with how this one has done - although most of the traffic has been from the, err, *cough*, other place

Losing Faith in Education I do like a paradox – they’re useful little things. They can convey a great truth whilst appearing to demonstrate foolishness on the part of the one uttering it. This probably speaks to…

We have AI coming squarely for the knowledge economy and service sectors, that very space our school system is primarily set up to support, and our politicians' main preoccupations are breakfast clubs and phone bans. We need better. michaelmerrick.co.uk/2026/02/17/l...

Losing Faith in Education I do like a paradox – they’re useful little things. They can convey a great truth whilst appearing to demonstrate foolishness on the part of the one uttering it. This probably speaks to…

We have AI coming squarely for the knowledge economy and service sectors, that very space our school system is primarily set up to support, and our politicians' main preoccupations are breakfast clubs and phone bans. We need better. michaelmerrick.co.uk/2026/02/17/l...

Losing Faith in Education I do like a paradox – they’re useful little things. They can convey a great truth whilst appearing to demonstrate foolishness on the part of the one uttering it. This probably speaks to…

New post - on the paradox of a society that talks so much about education, whilst appearing to care so little. michaelmerrick.co.uk/2026/02/17/l...

Losing Faith in Education I do like a paradox – they’re useful little things. They can convey a great truth whilst appearing to demonstrate foolishness on the part of the one uttering it. This probably speaks to…

NEW POST: Losing Faith in Education - michaelmerrick.co.uk/2026/02/17/l...

Losing Faith in Education I do like a paradox – they’re useful little things. They can convey a great truth whilst appearing to demonstrate foolishness on the part of the one uttering it. This probably speaks to…

NEW POST: Losing Faith in Education - michaelmerrick.co.uk/2026/02/17/l...

Between 1900 and 1970, around 2000 country houses were lost - for a bunch of reasons, but death taxes was right up there. Just an unimaginable loss of heritage. Here, Crofton Hall just outside Carlisle, home to the Brisco family for 500yrs, demolished 1955

Print featuring the silhouette of a bare hedgerow under a purple sky filled with birds flying in group formation

'Storm light' by UK contemporary printmaker Mikki Bowers #WomensArt

😊

From Rates to Ruin - Policy Exchange Download Publication Online Reader This paper warns of the looming crisis of local authority SEND spending in England. In just 6 years, local authority spending on SEND provision has increased 58.5% i...

'In just 6 years, local authority spending on SEND provision has increased 58.5% in real terms – equivalent to over £5 billion in additional spending.' - Policy Exchange.

Some eye-watering stats in this - read the report here: policyexchange.org.uk/publication/...

It's a dereliction of duty. Headteachers, parents and children deserve better than this

ok

1) for goodness sake 2) as we have learned already, the caveat to informing parents is so wide you can drive all sorts of horrors through it

So I keep being told!

Been in London. Thoughts:
1) £6.45 a pint
2) Not seen a single buggy/pram/pushchair, or any young kids that weren't obviously tourists
3) rainy day in Feb but much quieter than I remember ever being before
4) and cleaner
5) what's the point in Warren St station?
6) £6.45

want

Christ Walking on Water, von Klever

I was referring to the colonisation point! Much more a cultural claim than financial - and I think it's that cultural claim that is most prominent (and incendiary tbf)

You keep reverting motivated reasoning about money, but that is moot because it only holds so far as your explanation is accurate. The point is if people in radically different financial circumstances make similar (non-financial) claims, then attributing it financial-priors is unfalsifiable

I meant the view about immigration and your view that it is motivated reasoning of the rich

But people with very little money often say the same thing - of course this logic might apply there too, but as a theory it becomes a bit unfalsifiable

Bookstall outside Ye Olde Rovers Return pub, Manchester, January 1954. The 14th century building was demolished in 1958 (Getty/Manchester Evening News).

Love that book.