In Defence of Dress-up

It is has been said that teenagers can be characterised by being in a perpetual state of ‘fitting in by standing out’. As I ruminated on this thought, I had a startling revelation: I (and I dare say many of my fellow tweeters) am exactly the same. Who doesn’t love sharing an ‘unpopular opinion’ and receiving confirmation of their ‘unique’ views by many strangers? The (I believe intended) irony is that most ‘unpopular’ opinions turn out to be nothing of the sort.

Persistent ‘unpopular opinions’ rear their heads at various points of the year. I could fill a short book with some of my ‘favourites’ (I’m talking about you, Valentine’s Day haters!), but I must focus. We are now entering a time of year in which one of my most hated popular unpopular opinions begins to rear its head: there is no value in dressing up for World Book Day. By sharing some of my own experiences both as a child and a teacher, I hope to address some of the (legitimate) concerns about the role of dress-up on Book Day, and seek to encourage some less-than-enthusiastic dresser-uppers to consider once again the true value of the exercise.

A Lasting Legacy (in Literacy and Life)

This is a blog post that has been a long time in the writing. Originally, it was to be an overwhelmingly positive treatise on the impact that personal reading recommendations can have on a child’s experience of school and, indeed, life. However, during my research for the piece I stumbled upon some devastating news which has suddenly made this possibly the most difficult, yet in many ways the most important, blog post I have yet written. So, let these simple words be not only a set of personal anecdotes which highlight the need for proactive, personal teachers, but also a small symbol of my thanks and respect for a wonderful teacher whose legacy lives on, I hope, through me and many others who were blessed to be educated by Mr. Norman.

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Allow me to first tell the abridged story of my primary school experience.

Growing up in various parts of South-East Essex, my primary school life mostly consisted of moving schools, being embarrassingly shy, correcting teachers when they misspelled anything on the board (sorry…not sorry) and seeing how many laps of the playground I could walk before one of my peers spoke to me. If only somebody had enlightened me to the fact that walking around the tramlines of a playground for hours on end is NOT, in fact, a good way to make friends!