I think that they should be kicked out of the football league. I think that is right. And I am far far from anti-Man City, but nothing else feels proportionate enough.

I think jumping to strike action was escalating much too quickly, and I disagreed with you. But suddenly jumping to tweeting about how positive the situation is when £0 extra has been agreed since you were agitating for strike action makes me wonder what has happened.

Is this aimed at us English Everton fans? Five years? You don’t know you’re born.

Obviously don’t know the full story, but things like this are usually negligence.

Dystopian.

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Is this about Spurs maybe finishing above Man City?

We go to The Cock fairly often!

Wait. What? It's a (fairly long) dog walk from me too.

I knew you'd come round.

My daughter (13): “I’ve put my maths hoodie on for you, Dad” 😡

For a very long time, I was optimistic about the future of education in this country. This time last year, @amymayforrester and I predicted that when the next round of PISA results came out, England would tick up. There had been 15 years of positive change in the sector, and we thought that would pay dividends. That then came to fruition. England is doing well, especially compared to countries that are similar in many demographic and social respects, but have different education systems. But now, I am worried. There are lots of things going on that I think are problematic. The current government and DfE seem hell-bent on reforming a sector that does not need reform, and introducing changes that will row back some of the gradual improvements we have seen. Ofsted seem stuck in a mire of unpopularity, and are unable to convince the profession or the public that they are a force for school improvement. Big, respected, organisations that hold government contracts and an important place in the sector do not seem to be delivering. None of these groups are bad actors, and I really do believe they all want what's best, but that isn't always enough. Alongside that, we seem to now lack the public discourse infrastructure to adequately challenge these issues. The 2012-2019 years on Twitter were ones of fierce debate and criticality, and ideas could be well-tested before, during and after implementation. That doesn't exist any more. The debate seems so much flatter. That's partly a numbers game: social media has become a less popular place. But also, politically and commercially, more and more "big voices" find it harder to make public statements and take strong positions on things. It's easier to get in line and bend with whatever winds happen to be blowing at the minute, and you often see people taking surprising and contradictory positions. Critically, I don't exempt myself from this, and know that there are things I would have said 5 years ago that I won't now. For the first time in a while, I'm worried. I am certainly no longer optimistic.

Me too. I feel duped by politicians & others who said they stood for excellence for poor children. I am frustrated by people doing things they know are not good. And I am worried about the future of schools in England as we stare at what could be an era of very low expectations.

This: gov.uk/government/news/200-m…

This is the SEND training. I’m happy to take you through why I think it is very poor (and why that was inevitable) when it’s all public. Though I think it’s a hard point to land politically, I hope you and/ or Laura and team will be interested.

The materials I’ve seen appear to encourage teachers to be worse, more surface-level, than even the ECF demands.

I had very low expectations and it's much worse than I expected.

I don't think that it is. I think that if you're going to teach teachers that training for SEND is substantively different from excellent teaching, you inevitably compromise on what 'excellent' is. And providers are chasing the £200m.