“The Tale of the Principal Emeritus”

Posted on 10/07/2026 by jameswilding

(after the manner of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner) & with apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

This tale of heroic contribution, spoken on the leaving thanks after staff Inset at Claires Court Senior Boys School, commemorates the contribution made by those departing staff, aligned to the Ray Mill Road East campus.

It is the Principal Emeritus,
Who stoppeth one of three;
His beard is grey, his eye is bright,
“Come, tarry now with me.”
“The Hall is dressed, the drinks are poured,
The speeches soon begin;
But ere these faithful souls depart,
Pray let this tale sink in.
For many a year we’ve sailed together,
Through ISI’s storm and calm;
With timetables, reports and boys,
And tea to soothe each qualm.
No albatross hung round our necks,
Though burdens there were many;
Yet faithful hearts and willing hands
Outnumbered cares by plenty.
For schools are built of flesh and blood,
Not merely brick and stone;
By those who quietly gave their all,
And never sought their own.
Now hear of those whose watch is done,
Whose duty now is past;
Whose names shall echo through these halls
Long after bells have ceased their blast.

Dame Maggie Olivier
First came Dame Maggie Olivier,
High Queen of Stage and Speech;
The Common Room her royal court,
No soul beyond her reach.
A parent first, then leader true,
With wit both sharp and warm;
She weathered every school-day gale,
Each teenage thunderstorm.
Yet all who gathered round the urn,
Knew well another throne:
The Mistress of the Biscuit Barrel—
A kingdom all her own.
The Custard Creams obeyed her nod,
The Bourbons knew their place;
No Chocolate Digestive dared
Appear without her grace.
And monthly came the solemn cry,
With ledger held aloft:
“The Common Room subscriptions, please!”
Though spoken ever soft.
For someone had to mind the purse,
And someone keep us fed;
Else hungry teachers, lacking tea,
Would surely fall down dead.
And oft when endings came around,
‘Twas Maggie’s voice we’d hear;
To bid farewell to friends departing,
With laughter and a tear.

Yet now the wheel has turned once more,
The herald takes her seat;
The one who spoke the parting words
Must hear them now complete.
But not farewell—not wholly so—
For schools are strange that way;
We part with “Adieu” more than “Goodbye”,
And meet another day.
Beside poor Barry once she stood,
In years now passed from gaze;
Though life wrote scenes no playwright dared,
His memory sits in the haze.

Cherie Levi
Then Cherie Levi, healer kind,
The guardian of our health;
Whose calming smile and measured words
Were greater far than wealth.
She bore the bag of mysteries,
Of lotions, charts and files;
Yet somehow soothed the fiercest boy
With little more than smiles.
And many feared the gleaming dart,
The hypodermic gleam;
“The Nurse approaches!” voices cried—
“A most alarming dream!”
Yet Cruella she was surely not,
Though she liked the likeness well;
Her purpose was not wickedness,
As every child could tell.
The needle served but one great cause—
To keep disease at bay;
To guard the young entrusted here,
Each ordinary day.
Then came the plague no living soul
Had thought they’d ever see;
When silence settled on the land
Like some dark phantom sea.
Through COVID’s strange and fearful years,
When certainties grew few,
She brought us calm and clarity,
And always knew what to do.
The masks, the tests, the jabs, the charts,
The guidance changing fast—
Yet Cherie steered the little ship
Until the storm had passed.

Dr Karen Loughran
Then Dr Karen Loughran strode,
With scholar’s measured tread;
The Academic Deputy,
Whose thoughts ran miles ahead.
The Cover Lists! Great parchment scrolls!
Known only unto few;
If lessons stood when staff were gone,
‘Twas Karen saw them through.
But deeper still the mystery lay,
Beyond all mortal ken:
The sacred art of Timetables—
Unknown to other men.
How place Set Four in Chemistry
At half-past nine on door,
Whilst somehow granting nursery runs
Before the clock strikes four?
How balance Physics, French and Games,
And GCSE review,
With granny needing hospital,
And Year Eight needing you?
Not Karen’s granny—mark me well—
But everyone else’s kin;
For somehow every pleading case
Would find its way to win.
She cut just enough slack, no more,
With wisdom, tact and grace;
Until impossible itself
Found somehow time and place.
The rest of us looked on in awe,
And wisely did conclude:
The timetable is witchcraft dressed
In academic mood.

Wendy Keaney
Then Wendy Keaney, steadfast soul,
Whose heart embraced us all;
Inclusion’s champion, wise and firm,
She answered every call.
Yet “Deputy” ne’er told the tale,
Nor captured all she’d done;
For captains need no braided sleeve
To prove that they have won.
Across three sites and five great schools,
Her fleet stretched far and wide;
Yet every sailor knew her hand
Was steady at the tide.
The broadest charge of anyone,
Yet closest-knit her crew;
They knew the voyage, shared the helm,
And always saw it through.
When inspectors sought a shining light,
One phrase rang clear and strong:
“A Significant Strength” they wrote—
Where Wendy did belong.
The football crowds cry every year,
“It’s coming home!” with cheer;
For Wendy and her steadfast team
Made those words true right here.
Not sung from Wembley stands alone,
Nor dreamt by hopeful men;
But lived each day in countless acts,
Again…and yet again.

Pip — Philip Horatio Bowen

Now Pip! Sir Philip Horatio!
Long may his legend grow.
From Scallywag in younger days
To Justice’s measured glow.
One-and-forty years have passed
Since first he walked these grounds;
As pupil, coach and master true,
Where countless joy abounds.
The coaches waited at his word,
Their journeys all well planned;
No driver feared the unknown road
While Pip gave his command.
Now Pip! Sir Philip Horatio!
Long may his legend grow.
From Scallywag in younger days
To Justice’s measured glow.
One-and-forty years have passed
Since first he walked these grounds;
As pupil, coach and master true,
Where countless joy abounds.
The coaches waited at his word,
Their journeys all well planned;
No driver feared the unknown road
While Pip gave his command.
Yet hear the words he leaves behind,
More precious than applause:
“I’ll miss the old establishment,”
He says, then gently pauses.
He names the friends who shaped his path,
Too many to recount;
Yet some deserve remembrance still,
Whose worth no tongue can count.
Alan Sibley, Mark Turner,
Brian Forrester beside;
Wendy, Paul and Huw Buckle,
Who walked the selfsame tide.
Charlie Bretherton, Scott Harris,
Justin, John Rayer too;
Each a lantern on the voyage,
Each steadfast, wise and true.

But one name shines with special light,
And bids us all take heed—
David H Course, his mentor dear,
A master every school would need.
Generous beyond all measure,
Humble, wise and kind;
A teacher who shaped other teachers,
And countless hearts and minds.
“It was,” says Pip, “the best of times—
Though worst there sometimes proved:
The ski trips and the rugby wins,
The boys whose lives were moved.

The visits made, the grades achieved,
The friendships forged for life;
The memories that outlast exams,
Outlasting toil and strife.
And when old boys return again,
With children at their knee,
You know the work was worth the while—
As plain as plain can be.”
And somewhere still the barbecue
Awaits another June soon,
With laughter rising through the dusk
Beneath a summer moon…

John and Pauline Carr
Then John and Pauline, side by side,
Long guardians of the lore;
They mined the seams of hidden data,
And tested evermore.
No spreadsheet dared deceive their gaze,
No system hid a flaw;
For every number told a tale
Observed by Carrian law.
Yet John bore other gifts besides,
Unknown to graphs and sums;
For when the Staff Choir found its voice,
He summoned beating drums.
His baton danced, his eyebrows rose,
His fingers marked the time;
Till weary teachers somehow found
Their voices turned sublime.
And oft beside the Christmas tree,
Or Speech Day’s grand parade,
His patient hand upon the lens
A thousand memories made.

The films, the songs, the treasured scenes,
Now safely kept in store;
To warm our hearts beside the fire
When we can teach no more.
And Pauline too, with testing’s art,
Kept standards straight and true;
Though one remembered script survives,
As legends sometimes do.
For Amit wrote with boundless zeal,
His verses bold and frank;
He sought a rhyme of highest worth…
With one outrageous prank.
“What word,” he mused, “completes this verse?”
The examiner looked wan.
The answer was… perhaps unfit
For mention after dawn!
Yet laughter lives where kindness dwells,
And every school must keep
A little shelf of treasured tales
Too good for solemn sleep.

Andre Boulton
Then Andre came, Lord Boulton named,
High King of Cable and Screen;
Whose kingdom lay where none could see—
Behind each glowing machine.
“Why build it fast?” the youngsters cried.
“Why not tomorrow’s trick?”
Andre smiled that patient smile:
“The slow-built wall stands thick.”
For brick by brick, and wire by wire,
He raised a future sure;
Not fashioned for a single term,
But decades to endure.
The architect of quiet things,
Whose triumph none applaud;
Until one morning nothing works—
Then all invoke his God.
Yet greater still the choice he made,
When family called away;
To seek a wider, stranger world,
Beyond familiar day.
One heart remained at Claires Court still,
Another journeyed on;
For every father knows at last
His duty is not gone.
The map unfolds before the feet,
The road bends out of sight;
May every mile reward the faith
That guided such a flight.

Jamie Odell
Then Jamie strode—the tallest man
To grace these ancient stones;
Whose head seemed nearly level with
The weather vanes and cones.
Now City’s towers beckon him
With figures, funds and shares;
May merchants tremble at the sight
Of one who climbs their stairs.
Yet none shall quite forget the day—
Confession now is due—
When Burnham won by nine great wickets…
Or so the scorebook knew.
For Jamie, James and Simon there
Contrived, with subtle art,
To lose with such convincing grace
They played the clever part.
“Why throw the match?” the youngsters cried.
“What madness guides the bat?”
“Because,” quoth they, “Pip’s barbecue
Was waiting after that!”
The alumni gathered, stories flowed,
Old friendships were renewed;
Some victories are scored in runs,
Some simply… neighbourhood.

Louise Thomas

Then Louise Thomas , scientist,
Who once was Atter named;
With logic and the chemist’s art,
Her spirit is acclaimed.

With Rhiannon and with Harley too,
She watched the seasons fly;
An Academic Lead whose care
Was seen by every eye.

The “Big Questions” were her special skill,
To make the scholars think;
To pull the truth from off the page, And forge a lasting link.


Within the silent Exam Hall,
Where nervous pens would fall;
She watched the data’s hidden flow,
Obeying Carrian law .

With Mrs. Carr she kept the watch,
Through hours long and still;
Directing every student’s path,
With firm and steady will.

From Atter name to Thomas change,
The journey has been long;
By method and by theory,
She proved her logic strong.

The scientific method’s rule,
She taught with clarity;
To grant to every boy and girl
A bright prosperity.

Now other duties call her name,
To fields both green and new;
But here the “Big Questions” remain,
In everything we do.

Jo Andrews

Then Jo Andrews , Geographer ,
Whose maps were truly wide;
She understood the turning earth,
The wind and ocean tide.

Across the lonely moorland heights,
Where purple heather grows;
She knew the language of the rocks,
And where the river flows.

To Iceland’s shore of ice and fire,
The expeditions went;
With Jo to guide the eager crew,
On discovery intent.

The longshores and the coastal drift,
She tracked along the sand;
To show how water, wind and time,
Have carved this ancient land.

As Captain Hope’s right hand she stood,
A Deputy of might;
To keep the vessel on its course,
Through day and through the night.

When navigation grew most hard,
And heavy seas would roll;
Her steady hand and quiet word,
Provided much control.

But new horizons call her now,
Beyond the familiar shore;
The compass points to other lands,
For her to now explore.

The open sea is bright and clear,
The voyage is just begun;
She leaves us with the maps she drew,
Beneath the morning sun.

The Guests Listen
The Guests are hushed. They hear the tale.
The glasses all stand still.
The Principal Emeritus
Has yet to speak his fill.
He looks upon familiar faces,
Now silvered more than gold;
And sees not merely years gone by,
But stories still untold.
Then softly speaks of Dickens’ words,
Whose truth we all have known:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”


“So wrote old Charles—and every school
Has lived that selfsame page.
For every triumph, every doubt,
Belongs to every age.
We’ve known inspection’s anxious tread,
And speech days bright with pride.
We’ve buried friends before their time,
And watched young lives take stride.
We’ve laughed at things no parent knows,
Nor governor could guess.
We’ve turned disasters into jokes,
And chaos into success.
For schools are curious little worlds:
Tomorrow always comes.
Another boy, another bell,
Another beating drum.
The names upon the office doors
Are written in the sand;
But character, once truly formed,
Outlives the strongest hand.”


Then rose the Principal once again,
His final toast to give:

“To Maggie, Cherie, Karen, Wendy,
Pip, Pauline, John—
To Andre and to Jamie—

May every one of you
Know that your labour has not ended,
Only changed its field.
For schools are never built by Headmasters.
Nor by Governors.
Nor by Inspectors.
They are built by ordinary people,
Doing extraordinary things,

Day after day,
Year after year,
Until one morning they discover
They have become part of the place itself.
You leave your offices today,
But not these halls.
Your names are written,
Not on honours boards…

But in the memories
Of generations of boys,
Of colleagues,
Of parents,
And of friends.


The tide rolls on.
The voyage continues.
New hands now take the helm.
Yet every ship bears, in her timbers,
Something of those who built her.
So raise your glasses high.
Not to endings—
For schools know very few of those.
But to adieu.


For somewhere,
On another Speech Day,
At another rugby touchline,
Around another barbecue,
Or over another biscuit barrel,

We shall surely meet again.”

And all were silent for a space.


Then someone reached for the biscuit tin. And all was well.

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Beyond the Thunderdome: Reclaiming Childhood from the Algorithm

Posted on 06/07/2026 by jameswilding

I was standing at the school gate on Thursday, doing what I’ve done for fifty years and counting — watching children arrive — when I noticed something that stopped me mid-thought. A line of Year 8s, games bags on backs, walking in a tight little knot, and not one of them talking to another. Six thumbs, six screens, six separate worlds, all occupying the same six feet of pavement. Nobody bumped into anybody. Nobody laughed at anything that had actually happened in the previous ten seconds. It was oddly, perfectly synchronised, like a flock of starlings that had all individually decided to stop being a flock.

Two men enter, one man leaves — that was the line I couldn’t shake off the rest of the day. Bartertown*’s rule, not mine, but it kept surfacing because it’s not a bad description of what a smartphone does to a child’s attention. Something goes in — an hour, an afternoon, a Saturday — and something rather less than what went in comes out the other side. Not violence. Nothing so dramatic. Just erosion, quiet and continuous, of the ordinary boring magic of being bored, which is where half of childhood’s best ideas have always come from.

I don’t say this as a man who thinks the old days were better simply because they were his days. I’m wary of that particular vanity in myself, having watched enough colleagues fall into it over the decades to recognise the shape of it coming. Children have always needed adults to be a bit anxious on their behalf; that’s more or less the job. But there is something different about handing a twelve-year-old a device engineered by some of the best-resourced psychologists and designers on the planet to be as close to unputdownable as humanly possible, and then being surprised when they can’t put it down. We didn’t do that to any previous generation. We’ve done it to this one, largely by accident, and mostly because it was easier than the alternative.

The alternative, of course, is harder. It always is. It means a school being willing to say no to phones in a way that will annoy some parents who quite reasonably want to reach their child at pickup time. It means a parent being willing to be the one house on the street where the eleven-year-old doesn’t have Instagram yet, and living with the eye-rolling that follows. It means all of us admitting that “everyone else has one” was never actually a good argument, even when we were the ones using it about our own bicycles fifty+ years ago.

I was listening to Radio 4’s You and Yours this morning on the way in, and there was a segment on precisely this — except for once it wasn’t dressed up as another dopamine-addiction scare story, the sort nobody much acted on when the same warnings were doing the rounds about mobile phones the way they’d once done the rounds about cigarettes. Nobody gave up smoking, in my experience, because a doctor explained the biology of it to them. They gave it up when it stopped being what a certain kind of person did. What was interesting this morning was the suggestion that something similar might finally be happening with the always-on life — not children being told to comply, but grown adults, Gen X downwards, quite deliberately choosing friction back into their own days. Vinyl instead of a playlist that never ends. A flip-phone instead of the one with everything on it. Alcohol-free beer that exists, as far as I can tell, purely so the pub can go on being a pub rather than a place people leave early to get back to their screens. And half the country, by the sound of it, found itself in exactly that kind of room early this morning (6 July 2026), roaring at a football match in Mexico City that had no business being as dramatic as it turned out to be — ten men holding out at the Azteca, a stadium eight time zones away, and pubs the length and breadth of the country doing something no feed can replicate, which is a room full of strangers feeling the same thing at the same second.

What I keep coming back to is that none of this is really about technology at all. It’s about what childhood is for. It’s for scraped knees and arguments about whose turn it is and the particular tedium of a wet Wednesday in August with nothing to do, out of which children have always had to invent something — a game, a grievance, a joke that only makes sense to the two of them. The algorithm doesn’t want that kind of boredom to exist, because boredom is the one state a feed cannot monetise. So it fills every gap before the child even notices the gap was there. And the child who never experiences the gap never quite develops whatever it is that used to grow in it.

I don’t have a tidy policy announcement to make here, and I’m suspicious of anyone who does. But I do think schools like ours have a part to play that goes beyond banning phones in corridors, useful as that is and a practice over a decade old. It’s about deliberately, stubbornly protecting the parts of the day where nothing is optimised for anyone — a games afternoon with mud on it, a form period where the conversation is allowed to wander, a Founder’s Day where the whole point is standing about in a marquee talking to people you didn’t choose.

It’s not a new idea for us, particularly. We were putting sailing and outward-bound trips and the sort of debating that makes a child look a stranger in the eye at the centre of the timetable long before anyone thought there was anything to protect children against. We didn’t do it because we saw any of this coming. We did it because it seemed like more fun, frankly, and more useful, than another hour at a desk. It just happens to look, in hindsight, rather like exactly what a childhood needs when the alternative on offer is a feed.

Beyond the Thunderdome, there was still a world. Someone had to decide to walk out into it. I’ve always wanted Claires Court to be the sort of place that helps our children make that walk a little sooner, and a little more often, than the rest of the world currently seems to want to let them. That’s why my children followed my childhood into the school, and why the grandchildren will both be at Ridgeway in September. But for now, it’s time for the final school bell to ring this term, and for all of us to enjoy what looks like a lovely Summer ahead. People who know me well, know I have a set of clubs in one hand, and a trowel and secateurs in the other.  If Mad Max had to pick between a manicured golf course and a gritty allotment this Summer, he would choose survival. He might say: “You can either walk the wasteland in polyester, or you can grow potatoes and rule the dirt. I know which one keeps the apocalypse away – it’s time for the new potatoes to be dug up!

*Bartertown is a remote market-town outpost situated in the midst of the Wasteland. It was likely created during the two decades that saw Max Rockatansky wandering said region. Its primary focus and income is the trade and bartering with scavengers in the area, and travellers passing through.

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Claires Court – a partnership worth backing

Posted on 02/07/2026 by jameswilding

The header shows our Junior playing fields set out for Sports Day; as ever, a welcoming place for all sports, summer or winter!

This week’s news that the Department for Education is scrapping the £320 million PE and Sport Premium in favour of a new “partnerships network” will, understandably, be met with some anxiety across the profession. No one can ever welcome a cut in funding, and school leaders are right to ask serious questions about how a scheme worth some 22 per cent less will reach every corner of the country, and whether the money will get to the frontline rather than a new layer of bureaucracy. Those are fair concerns, and I share them — not least because this cut lands on the same independent sector that has spent the past 18 months absorbing VAT on fees, a tax no other country in Europe sees fit to levy on education. I’m really disappointed that government policy currently treats independent schools as a convenient source of revenue one moment, and a partner to be quietly relied upon the next. There’s a glaring hypocrisy to tax a sector as a private luxury and lean on it as a public good in the same breath.

But strip away the funding arithmetic for a moment, and look at the principle behind the change: schools and their local sports clubs, working together, are to be placed back at the heart of how young people get active. As Principal Emeritus of Claires Court, I take honest pride and feel a flicker of vindication. It is a model we have been quietly building in Maidenhead for well over forty years, long before it had a policy name.

Our first formal partnership was with the Maidenhead and District Schools Sailing Association, back in 1978. Forty-eight years on, we remain proud partners of Maidenhead Sailing Club, and this week our sailing team is out at the National School Sailing Championships at Itchenor, competing against the very best schools and clubs in the country.

The partnership with Maidenhead Rowing Club began in 1984. We row from their clubhouse on the river, while through the winter months Maidenhead Juniors train back at the school, using our rowing gallery and fitness centre. That shared investment in facilities is paying off spectacularly just now: Claires Court has three crews qualified for Henley Royal Regatta, rowing’s greatest stage, this summer, joined at Henley by crews from Maidenhead Rowing Club itself. Two clubs, one stretch of river, one clubhouse, and both on the startline at Henley: what better advertisement for what shared training facilities can achieve?

Other partnerships have flourished in the same spirit. We work with both Maidenhead Rugby and Maidenhead Football clubs; in cricket, we partner with Boyne Hill and Maidenhead & Bray, and our Playing Fields at our Junior School at Ridgeway, now providing the home ground for Maidenhead Royals. Before long the Thicket will once again be alive with the 600 junior footballers of MUFC, back for their seasonal home at Claires Court, just as it is now for Maidenhead Nomads FC too.

The deepest and most enduring of all these partnerships is with Phoenix Rugby Club, forged in 1984 and now extending for a further thirty years, giving the Taplow community a genuine home for adults and children alike in both rugby and cricket.

I set all of this out not to claim any great foresight, but because it illustrates something the DfE’s new network will only succeed if it grasps: partnership cannot be conjured into being by a funding formula. It takes decades of trust, shared facilities, and people on both sides who keep turning up for each other, season after season, long after any grant has been spent. What Maidenhead has built with its schools and clubs is not a compliance exercise. It is a community habit, indeed for Claires Court “Maidenhead is our Campus”!

And it is a habit paying dividends right now. Alongside our sailors and our Henley crews, our tennis team has reached the last sixteen of the LTA finals in Nottingham, our cricketers are preparing for the school county cricket finals, and our First XV rugby squad are about to depart on their summer tour to South Africa, playing in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town. It is, by any measure, a remarkable few weeks for young sportspeople who train, more often than not, on pitches, courts and water shared with the wider Maidenhead community.

Claires Court does not just produce an opportunity to play; our pipeline produces more than school-age success. Old Claires Courtian Ellie Rayer recently celebrated her 150th cap for GB Hockey, a milestone built on exactly the same grounding in local, club-linked sport that today’s sailors, rowers and squads are drawing on now.

So as Whitehall works out the mechanics of its new network, my hope is simply that it looks to towns like ours and asks what has actually worked, rather than starting from scratch. Youth sport in Maidenhead is vibrant precisely because schools and clubs stopped seeing each other as separate worlds decades ago. Claires Court is proud to be at the heart of so much of it, as an enthusiastic and, we hope, dependable partner.

It won’t be long now until the Thicket is ringing again with the sound of football on the weekend. As a certain song has it: it’s coming home.

The Fawley quad 2026, on the water on the ‘Stretch of the Gods’ underneath Cliveden on the River Thames between Maidenhead Lock and Cookham upstream.

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“Burnham Wood, If He Takes the Chance”

Posted on 29/06/2026 by jameswilding

There’s a scene I still enjoy teaching, every time I get the chance: Macbeth, told he’s safe until Birnam Wood marches against him, treats the prophecy as a kind of cosmic permission slip — an impossibility dressed up as a guarantee. Forests don’t walk. And then, of course, they do; not by magic, but because an army cuts down branches and carries them, and what looked fixed and immovable turns out to have been waiting for someone to actually move it.

I’m not going to pretend a change of Prime Minister is Birnam Wood arriving at Dunsinane, and I’d be a fool to promise the children in today’s attainment report that the cavalry is coming. Governments have promised “national renewal” before, and the trees stayed exactly where they were. But there’s something in that scene worth holding onto: the wood only moves because somebody decides it can, and starts cutting branches. Stories do that — they let us rehearse the moment before we have to live it. Which is, as it happens, more or less the entire argument of Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s tenure as Children’s Laureate: that a child who has been read to, who has been allowed to sit inside someone else’s impossible forest for a while, comes out better equipped for whatever their own turns out to be.

Today’s report on white working-class attainment landed with the depressing inevitability of a wet Monday in February. Another year, another set of figures confirming that a sizeable chunk of our children are leaving school having been measured constantly and served rarely. I read it over breakfast and thought: we’ve been here before, and we’ll be here again, and somewhere in between those two visits the actual children involved will have grown up and left school anyway, none the wiser as to why nobody fixed it in time for them.

I want to tell you about a hundred headteachers in a hotel conference room, because it’s relevant, and because I’ve been waiting years for an excuse to tell this story again.

It must have been around 2003 or 2004 — a couple of years before his death — when Ted Wragg addressed the Independent Schools Association conference. A hundred of us, heads of school, notebooks out, doing the thing headteachers do at conferences, which is nod sagely while mentally drafting the email we’ll send when we get back to the office. Wragg told us about some research he’d been involved with into Singapore’s accountancy students. Apparently they were astonishing in their first set of professional exams — flawless on the calculations, faultless on the spreadsheets — and then fell apart spectacularly in the second set, which asked them to sit across a table from an actual client and tell them, in plain language, what to do with their money.

Wragg’s diagnosis, as I remember it, was that these students were brilliant at what they’d been trained to be good at, and had no idea what any of it was good for. A roomful of headteachers laughed nervously, because every one of us recognised the shape of the problem. We just didn’t know yet that twenty years later we’d still be writing the same speech.

That distinction — good at, versus good for — has lodged in me ever since, the way only the really useful ideas do. It’s not an argument against rigour. Spreadsheets matter. Exams matter. I am not about to stand here, fifty years into this career, and tell you that getting the basics right is somehow beneath us — that ship sailed long ago and good riddance to it. But a child who is magnificent at the test and has no idea what the test was for is a child we have half-finished. We’ve built the engine and forgotten to ask where it’s supposed to go.

Cottrell-Boyce’s Reading Rights campaign makes the same case from a different angle. The children most likely to be let down by the system — the same children in today’s report, more often than the headlines admit — are also the ones least likely to have had the “invisible privilege,” as he calls it, of being read to. He isn’t asking for another testing regime. He’s asking for time, attention, and the rather unfashionable belief that a child who has been read to is better equipped for absolutely everything else, including the spreadsheets.

I don’t think today’s report and Cottrell-Boyce’s campaign are two separate stories. I think they’re the same story told twice. We have built a system that is very good at measuring what a child is good at, and almost entirely silent on what a child might be good for. The white working-class boys — and it is mostly boys — at the centre of today’s report are not short of testing. They are short of someone making the case, convincingly and early enough to matter, that any of it adds up to something they’d want.

I don’t have a tidy three-point plan to fix this, and I’d be suspicious of anyone who claims they do, especially by lunchtime on the day a report drops. But I keep coming back to that hotel conference room, and a hundred heads laughing nervously at a story about Singapore, all of us recognising the problem and precisely none of us having solved it since. If a new government — and it increasingly looks like Andy Burnham’s government, with Ed Miliband installed at the Treasury — wants to be more than a prophecy nobody believed, that’s where I’d start looking for the army. Though I suppose the real question is whether the Chancellor permits the cutting down of any trees at all, or simply asks the Office for Budget Responsibility to confirm the forest was always going to march on schedule. Wragg would, I suspect, find it darkly funny that we’re still here. He’d also, I suspect, tell us to get on with it.

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Track, Field, and Open Water: Reclaiming Childhood in the Spirit of the Three Lions

Posted on 19/06/2026 by jameswilding

This week, as thousands of England fans have poured into stadiums across the USA — with reports of up to 15,000 Three Lions supporters turning out in Dallas to watch England beat Croatia 4-2 in their first game in the 2026, a historic line in the sand has been drawn back home. With the government’s landmark announcement legally banning social media for children under the age of 16, the public conversation has hyper-focused on a singular, urgent mission: giving our kids their childhood back.

For over a decade, headteachers and parents have stood on the front lines, managing the heavy fallout of the algorithmic playground — from fractured attention spans and low-level classroom distractions to the steady erosion of youth mental health. A legal digital curfew is a welcome step, but as we all know, policy alone cannot fill the vacuum left behind by the infinite scroll. It simply clears the room. The real challenge for educators and leaders is deciding what we choose to put back into that sacred space.

To find the antidote to this digital isolation, we don’t need to look forward to the next tech gimmick. We need to look out the window — to the grass, the track, and the river.

The timing of this digital shift aligns beautifully with a motif close to my heart: the spirit of the Three Lions. What does that iconic badge truly represent? It is the absolute antithesis of an algorithm. Social media teaches a child to look down, trapping them in an isolated audience of one, chasing superficial validation, streaks, and likes. The Three Lions spirit, however, forces a child to look up. It demands physical presence, sweat, and visceral accountability to the people standing next to them. On the pitch, you learn quickly that effort is seen, character is tested, and belonging is earned. And when Gary Linekar, former England manager, makes it clear that these are the lessons he now wishes to embue in his next steps to make a difference to society.

This isn’t just idealistic theory; at Claires Court, we see the fruits of this analogue devotion in action every single week. Our school’s immense, historic contribution to sports education is not a mere co-curricular add-on — it is the baseline for our academic excellence. Look no further than the national stage this term. Our pupils and staff provided the literal backbone for the ISA London West athletics squad, which triumphantly retained the National ISA Championship title for the third consecutive year. Our partnership with Delgado & Lee at Bisham Abbey means our Under 18 Tennis team have made the finals in Nottingham for the third year running too. A three-year regional dynasty doesn’t happen by accident. It is forged out on the track, court, and in the field, through grueling practice, grit, and collective pride. As a school, we’ve managed the ISA Area championships and emergent regional team for a quarter of a century. We don’t just practice what we preach, we make it permanent.

When you combine that track and field dominance with our renowned heritage on the open water, you get a holistic education that engages every element of a child’s being. There is a profound, meditative reality to water sports. The open water demands absolute, acute awareness of your environment. You cannot check a notification while trimming a sail, navigating a kayak, or balancing a blade against the current. The water, like the running track, pitch or court, commands total presence.

It is for this exact reason — to ensure our children have vibrant, real-world spaces to thrive in — that Claires Court established its sports development pathways and committed to the deep integration and support of local sports clubs. We don’t just coach sport within our gates; we anchor it in the wider Maidenhead community. The celebration by England Hockey of Ellie Raye’s 150th international cap this week is perhaps the greatest achievement of the longevity contribution of a Claires Court Alumnus.

This summer, we are proud to put our resources precisely where our principles are. I’m delighted that Claires Court is financially supporting Maidenhead Rugby Club’s girls’ development pathway from Year 10 to 13, alongside sharing our coaching knowledge and expertise to help nurture the next generation of athletic talent. Furthermore, in a landmark moment for our local sporting infrastructure, we have successfully negotiated a 30-year lease extension for the Sports Club we jointly own with Phoenix. This vital agreement secures a proud, 42-year community legacy for another entire generation of young athletes.

We aren’t just giving our children their childhood back — together, we are building a legacy worth inheriting.

While the state introduces boundaries to pull our children back from the edge of the digital void, Claires Court is actively building the real-world infrastructure to welcome them back to reality. Banning apps only removes the symptom of a hyper-connected, deeply lonely age; embedding team sports, outdoor education, and community play solves the underlying problem. On the track, in the field, out on the open water, and now secured on our local pitches for decades to come, the spirit of the Three Lions is burning brighter than ever.

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‘Nudge Theory’ and why schools should model rather than demand compliance to achieve success.

Posted on 15/06/2026 by jameswilding

When principals, teachers, parents and children turned up for work at our Junior school on Friday, two deputy heads were on welcome duty at the gate, as you can see. On the left is Mrs Lindsay King, Deputy Head and to the right is Mrs Chantal Hankin, Deputy Head Lower Juniors & Nursery. As you can see from the kit, Mrs Hanking is wearing the current England Hockey kit, ready to play in the 4 nations home internationals over the weekend. ‘Chants’ was back in school this morning, dressed more as you’d expect for a leading school teacher, but flushed with pride, because, the England team won the tournament – that’s a result, no question.

There’s an old age that us teachers can’t bear, which is “If you can DO if you can’t TEACH!” Well in a school that has very many teachers who can absolutely DO brilliantly, and IN ADDITION choose to pass on their skills, talent and know-how, I’m moved to add to my post of 10 years ago, highlighted below.

The Age of Reason v the Age of Enlightenment 

Thus year, I’ve done my best to challenge the government’s decision to cause irreparable damage to our sector through their decision to impose 20% VAT on independent schools. Their stated aim (albeit hugely confused by their own statements suggesting it woul also fund health, care and housing) is to employ 6,500 more teachers in state schools. As the emerging data is now clearly showing, the growing loss (last year 30,000) of children from our sector is adding to the financial burden as well as damaging the amazing diversity of choice are sector offers, which enriches our society many times over.

On 11 June, the Education Endowment Foundation’s report on the Evolution of the Attainment Gap highlights the incredible importance of early and primary years education. https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/projects-and-evaluation/projects/growing-apart-evolution-of-disadvantage-gap. The report highlights that it’s intervention and support that’s needed, a determination powered by knowledge not bodies, and when the teacher recruitment at primary level is diminishing, and the loss of specialist staff accelerating, the disadvantage for those who are currently being failed can only get worse.

This March, teacher Hannah Gee spoke at the TEDx Royal Tunbridge Wells on ‘Why our exams need to change https://youtu.be/M5_zj2FZ6KY?si=Z51xZZvqfUsFCpYA . As Hannah makes really clear, it’s not about diluting the challenges, but making them fairer. It’s also about permitting breadth in Education, and attracting really talented adults into the profession, so they can be the role models children need around them. The Gove reforms of the last decade are now shown to be absolutely not the solution the country needed. Narrowing the GCSE curriculum to core Maths, English, Science, 2 Humanities and an MFL drove out all the opportunities that before then could encourage those whose skills diverge from this ‘norm’.

But most schools in our sector ignored that narrowing, provided diverse choice AND exam approaches, and as a consequence have become the beacon of excellence for the UK international sector across the globe. Indeed, even the government recognises the soft power our sector provides, and our value to the nation’s GDP. The Labour party will never recognise that the GDP our private schools create locally in our towns and countryside alike is even more vital to our communities’ success. Which is where I started…

It is the case that school doesn’t have any alumni playing in the current World cup. But the children at Claires Court can look forward to watching Mrs Hankin play in the Hockey World Cup this Summer. Knowing that one of ours is playing for her country, and still finds time to fit in being a parent, partner, teacher and leader is inspirational indeed. Go ‘Hanks’, you’ve got this! OK, it’s more than a ‘Nudge’, more a real shove!

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“Christian schools win right to landmark Supreme Court appeal” dateline Friday 5 June 2026

Posted on 06/06/2026 by jameswilding

I have copied below the article published on the Christian Concern website, in which they give the remarkable news that the stoicism of the campaigners supported by the Christian Legal Centre has paid off. In short, the Law Lords have permitted the appeal to the Supreme Court on the matter of the blanket imposition of VAT on private school fees. Permission to appeal to the Supreme Court is limited to whether the Government’s policy strikes a fair balance (proportionality) between its objectives and the real-world harms. The schools argue the 2026 Court of Appeal gave insufficient weight to the tangible negative impacts on families and schools, while overemphasising administrative convenience and public finances.

The case is listed as UKSC/2026/0056 (R (on the application of BYL and another) v Chancellor of the Exchequer and others). Supreme Court hearings are typically scheduled several months after permission is granted. As of now (early June 2026), the hearing has not been listed, and no specific date has been announced publicly.

Over the last 7 days, the following list covers schools that have announced their closure at the end of the current term:

Heathside School (Hampstead, London – Dukes Education group)
Ruckleigh School (Solihull, West Midlands)
St Wilfrid’s School (Exeter, Devon)
St Michael Abbey School (Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire)
St Gerard’s School (Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales)

…and yesterday the news that Abbotsholme School (Uttoxeter, West Midlands) announced its immediate closure, with staff unpaid since April.

That significant harm has been caused is beyond any doubt now. The recent Independent Schools Council (ISC) figures revealing a loss of 30,000 pupils across UK independent schools since the introduction of VAT on fees represent a stark and accelerating impact of the policy. With ISC CEO Julie Robinson making numerous media appearances this week to highlight the data, the decline — significantly greater than the government had anticipated — underscores the real-world consequences for families, schools, and the broader education sector. Far from being a simple revenue-raising measure, these numbers illustrate how the blanket VAT charge is forcing difficult choices for parents, threatening the viability of many schools (particularly mid-sized and specialist ones), and ultimately risking added pressure on already-stretched state schools as displaced pupils seek places there. This data strengthens the case for a more nuanced and proportionate approach to education policy.

“The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has granted permission for a group of independent Christian schools, parents and pupils to appeal the Government’s decision to impose VAT on independent school fees, ensuring that the high-profile legal challenge will now be heard by the country’s highest court. Lord Reed, Lord Hamblen and Lord Richards confirmed that permission to appeal has been granted on one of the central grounds of challenge, proportionality, recognising that this aspect of the case raises an arguable issue requiring consideration at the highest level.

The case is supported by the Christian Legal Centre and brought by independent Christian schools across the UK, including Emmanuel School in Derby, The Branch Christian School in Yorkshire, The King’s School in Hampshire, and Wyclif Independent Christian School in South Wales, including parents and even pupils.

They argue that the Government’s VAT policy disproportionately impacts Christian schools and the families who choose them, particularly those of modest means. While permission has been limited to “ground 4” of the appeal, this issue lies at the very heart of the case. It concerns whether the Government’s policy strikes a fair balance between its stated objectives and the real-world consequences for affected schools, parents and children.

The schools’ lawyers contend that the 2026 Court of Appeal ruling placed insufficient weight on the tangible harms caused, including financial strain on families, disruption to children’s education, and risks to the viability of schools, while giving undue weight to administrative convenience and public finance considerations. The appeal will therefore give the Supreme Court the opportunity to examine whether the proportionality test was properly applied and whether the policy goes further than is justified.

A key feature of the challenge is that the VAT measure applies as a blanket policy, without allowing for individual circumstances. The schools argue that this lack of flexibility fails to account for families who choose Christian education for religious reasons, those already financially stretched, pupils settled in their schools, and institutions whose sustainability is under threat.

The case also raises wider concerns about fairness. The appellants argue that it is disproportionate to single out parents who are not using the state system, despite contributing through general taxation to state education, and then requiring them to shoulder an additional financial burden. Another significant issue is the absence of any transitional arrangements. The policy was introduced without safeguards for children already part-way through an academic year or stage of education, leading to disruption and uncertainty for families who had made long-term commitments.

This development marks a significant step forward in a case with far-reaching implications for education, religious freedom, and parental choice across the United Kingdom. While the outcome remains to be determined, the Supreme Court’s decision confirms that the challenge raises serious and arguable questions requiring full consideration.

Analysis reported in The Times this week highlighted that since the introduction of a 20 per cent charge on school fees, more mid-sized independent schools than usual have begun to buckle. Across the independent sector, including special educational needs schools, closures rose from 58 in 2024 to 71 in 2025. “

Christian schools win right to landmark Supreme Court appeal
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Podcast Episode: “Heart in the Game” inspired by Will Greenwood*  

Posted on 27/05/2026 by jameswilding

Pip: There’s a version of civilisation that runs on broadcast rights and wage bills, and another that runs on hay bales, after-match pints, and children learning to fall over without crying. james wilding has been thinking hard about which one actually holds.

Mara: This episode sits inside that tension — community infrastructure, the economics of survival, and what it takes to keep the lights on when the professional model starts to wobble. Let’s start with the heart of the game itself.

“Heart in the Game” — What Keeps the Lights On

Pip: The professional rugby model gets most of the column inches, but the argument here is that it’s also the most fragile thing in the room — and that the clubs with real staying power are built on something the balance sheet can’t capture.

Mara: The post sets that up directly: “the professional rugby model is balancing on a fragile financial and existential tightrope, where high wage bills, over-reliance on volatile broadcast revenues, and severe player welfare crises leave even historic top-flight clubs vulnerable to sudden collapse.”

Pip: So the upshot is: size and prestige are no protection. Wasps Rugby is the example — a historic club that disconnected from its roots and created, as the post puts it, an identity vacuum. When the money left, there was nothing underneath to hold it.

Mara: The counter-model is the community club — woven into local fabric, generating players, volunteers, and supporters across generations. The earlier post, “The Cracked Pot: The Heart of the Game,” frames Will Greenwood’s view that rugby is fundamentally people and community, not a commercial enterprise.

Pip: And that framing does real work here, because the argument expands well beyond rugby. The Claires Court playing fields — a decade-long development project — now host over a thousand junior and adult players across football and cricket. The school did, as the post puts it, “its bit” for grassroots sport.

Mara: What’s striking is how the same logic threads through every institution in the piece. The Thatched Cottage pub nearby has become the after-match pavilion for the adult clubs at those fields — a local example of what the post calls community symbiosis. And the Licensed Trade Charity gets named explicitly as a protective force for exactly these kinds of anchoring institutions, operating as “a protective sanctuary for a sector under siege.”

Pip: Two pubs a day closing permanently is the number. That’s not a trend, that’s a structural collapse happening in slow motion.

Mara: The post draws the thread tight at the end: rugby clubs, agricultural land, local pubs, schools — none of them survive if treated as purely transactional assets. They require, in the post’s words, “heart, shared identity, and an understanding of their deep cultural values.”

Pip: There’s also a quietly poetic side to this — a new set of lyrics to “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” set to an original melody, prompted by looking out over those hay bales in the evening sun. The economics are urgent, but the register stays human.

Mara: That balance is probably the point. The storm is real — volatile weather, supply chains, taxation, demographic shifts — but the defence against it starts at ground level, not in a boardroom.

Mara: The throughline is consistent: institutions that survive are the ones people feel they belong to, not just use.

Pip: Which is either a hopeful argument or a very demanding one, depending on how many of those institutions are still standing near you. More from A Principled View next time.

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“Heart in the Game” inspired by Will Greenwood*  

Posted on 27/05/2026 by jameswilding

Over the 15 years I’ve been blogging, I’ve covered everything from the small & trivial to the earth-shattering and society-shaping that individuals have caused. When I posted about Will Greenwood’s work last month, https://jameswilding.blog/2026/05/08/the-cracked-pot-the-heart-of-the-game/, I’d become increasingly aware of the fragility of the professional game.

The professional rugby model is balancing on a fragile financial and existential tightrope, where high wage bills, over-reliance on volatile broadcast revenues, and severe player welfare crises leave even historic top-flight clubs vulnerable to sudden collapse. By over-professionalising, the elite game risks disconnecting entirely from its roots, as it did with Wasps Rugby club, creating an identity vacuum that strips the sport of its soul. In contrast, the clubs that survive and truly thrive will be those built from the bottom up on an unbreakable emotional infrastructure of community. 

Much like the generational conveyor belt of mini and junior rugby, a club deeply woven into its local fabric creates a continuous supply of players, volunteers, and lifelong supporters. These grassroots hubs provide exactly what modern youth need most: a safe space to build resilience, learn physical motor skills, and experience the profound alchemy of belonging. Ultimately, while professional franchises can lose sponsors or drop down leagues, a community-based club possesses a resilient heart—because, as Will Greenwood beautifully noted, rugby is not just a commercial enterprise; it is people, community, and the power of noticing others, which is the only foundation strong enough to keep the lights on when the storm hits.

Developing the ‘Claires Court Fields’ became one of my major projects over the last decade, and now I am delighted to report that the school has indeed done ‘its bit’ to promote the grassroots of local sport, providing homes for perhaps over 1000 junior and adult players alike, for football and cricket, as well as the school’s own sporting needs. As the header of this piece shows, the playing fields and their surroundings, taken on Monday evening, 27 May 2026, were bathed in brilliant sunshine. The first crop of hay can be seen in the large pink bales, ready now for transportation into the fodder barns. 

It’s difficult not to feel poetic when looking over such a landscape, and I wrote last week about the important support that school and head’s association can give when needed. My good friend John presented me with the new lyrics I’d created for  ‘You’ll never walk alone’ set to a musical score. Not wishing to plagiarise Richard Roger’s  music, I’ve found a new melody for the words – you can hear it here. https://suno.com/s/KotFFAhWRtPeFikR 

It’s only May, and the farmer is cropping hay so early? The dramatic rise in the value of hay in the UK market is the result of a “perfect storm” of extreme weather, supply chain disruptions, and soaring production costs. Once viewed as a modest, low-margin farm byproduct, hay has skyrocketed into a highly valuable commodity, with prices doubling or even tripling across the country. Locally, that’s in part because many of the fields have gone.

Just beyond the bales is my father’s local pub, the Thatched Cottage, or ‘Thatch’, as it’s always been known, when the family lived at Ridgeway. Of an evening, Dad would walk down for a quiet beer and a chat with the locals, and we’d accompany him and at first hand see what a unifying force the hostelry was, being a ‘local’ home for all. Then, the area was surrounded by farmland, whose memory you can read in the names of the roads, estates and institutions, Barley Mead, Farmers Way and Norden Farm, for example. That’s good news for the Thatch, of course, to see so many houses hosting many possible customers, but the appeal needs to be more universal than that, and pleasingly it has become the local after-match pavilion for the adult sports clubs now based at our fields next door, a really positive example of community symbiosis. 

In so many ways, local schools and the children whose education they provide face the same existential challenge, and not just because of changes in cost bases, taxation and regulation, but also due to the rapid shift in society’s demographics across much of the developed world, not unique to Maidenhead. Writing a critique on how Western civilisation finds itself in this place is not for now. The main reasons my parents were able to set up Claires Court in 1960 included the lack of sufficient school places for the burgeoning population of ‘baby boomers’. As school and education have evolved over the years, so the provision has needed to expand to cover not just the 3Rs, but also to promote challenge and opportunity, manage diversity yet retain inclusivity & health, and prepare young people for the wider world and employment opportunities, many of which may not yet exist!

As the stewardship of Claires Court has moved from one family to another, it’s worth highlighting just how important the role of the Licensed Trade Charity (LTC) is in supporting both our ambitions for education and the wider hospitality industry it champions. In an era where the economic headwinds are so severe that two pubs a day are closing their doors forever, the LTC’s mission is both honourable and urgently vital. It operates not just as an administrative body but as a protective sanctuary for a sector under siege—preserving the very places and the people behind them that have kept the British community anchored for centuries.

Ultimately, whether we look to the resilience of a community rugby club, the careful management of our agricultural land, the survival of the local hostelry, or the evolving care of our schools, we are looking at the exact same human endeavour. None of these institutions can survive if they are treated as purely transactional assets. They require heart, shared identity, and an understanding of their deep cultural values.

As the sun sets on the Claires Court fields, illuminating the pink hay bales, the “Thatch” in the background, and the spaces where thousands of children learn the alchemy of belonging, it is clear that our true strength lies in mutual support. By stepping into this educational space, the Licensed Trade Charity is expanding its circle of care, ensuring that the timeless values of service, resilience, and connection are passed down intact to the next generation. In a world of volatile change, it is this fierce defence of community life from the ground up that will ensure we keep the lights on, no matter what storms may hit.

*His series of films “Heart of the Game” about Maidenhead Rugby Football Club can be found on YouTube – https://youtu.be/LbXF3ZjjGLM?si=MSBPLR0o6rV80NGP

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The AI Divide: Why the DfE is Bringing a Butter Knife to a Tech Fight

Posted on 19/05/2026 by jameswilding

The following post is written in response to the government’s much-stated ambition to rapidly adopt AI and become a world leader in AI.

 With ChatGPT now at version 5.5 — and entire articles being written wholly by GPT-5 with zero human input — the integration of Artificial Intelligence into the classroom is no longer a dystopian prospect or sci-fi gimmick. It is a reality fundamentally reshaping how children learn, at a pace that demands urgent, dynamic leadership. Yet as AI accelerates, it’s also carving out a massive, unequal chasm between independent and state schools.

Pioneering private schools have spent years experimenting with advanced tools like Merlyn Mind and Google Workspace. National policy for the state sector, by contrast, has remained reactive, underwhelming, and stuck in the mud. If we want to fix this, the Department for Education needs to stop producing dense white papers and start learning from how the private sector built its trailblazing culture.

A Head Start That’s Becoming a Chasm

Independent schools had a massive advantage. Many were operating as digital laboratories long before ChatGPT arrived. Some have used AI-powered digital assistants since 2021 — treating them as “extra adults in the room” to handle admin and free teachers for what matters most. They’ve even introduced safe, curriculum-aligned AI to younger pupils, building early tech literacy.

Combined with infrastructure built on platforms like Google Workspace over a decade ago, the results are stark. According to the Sutton Trust’s 2025 research, private school teachers are significantly ahead in adoption, training, and strategy.

Private schools are three times more likely to have a clear AI strategy than state schools (27% vs 9%). Private teachers are more than twice as likely to have received formal AI training (45% vs 21%), and they report higher confidence and more sophisticated usage — from pupil reports to marking and parent communication.

Meanwhile, the state sector faces a severe strategy deficit. A staggering 91% of state school teachers say their school has no clear, unified AI strategy. Without direction, AI use becomes fragmented — mostly quick lesson planning rather than the deeper administrative and pedagogical transformation seen in the independent sector.

Training, Hardware, and the Home Access Gap

Even well-intentioned peer training in state schools hits a wall: hardware and access. Independent schools often provide 1:1 devices, while many pupils from lower socio-economic backgrounds lack a reliable laptop at home for personalised AI tutoring.

The government’s response has centred on platforms like Aila through Oak National Academy — a well-meaning, safe, and free tool designed to reduce workload and meet DfE safety standards. It’s a solid start for consistency and equity of access. But it risks becoming a rigid, “Big Mac” solution: highly processed, one-size-fits-all content in a world demanding creativity and flexibility. Tools like Canva Magic Studio or Google AI Studio, used more freely in private settings, offer greater dynamism.

We’re essentially waiting for an educational Jamie Oliver to point out that algorithmic Turkey Twizzlers alone won’t nourish the next generation.

Culture Eats Strategy

There’s a famous management adage: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It has never been more relevant. Bridget Phillipson and the DfE can issue all the top-down mandates, toolkits, and guidance they like. Without fostering genuine empowerment, experimentation, and professional trust, state schools will continue to fall behind.

Independent schools didn’t succeed because of a government memo. They empowered “digital champions,” invested in peer-to-peer training, and did the messy work of navigating data privacy, bias, and integration over years.

Time for Leadership, Not Lagging

We don’t have time for more white papers. With GPT-5.5 demonstrating capabilities once thought years away — including fully autonomous, hours-long complex workflows — education needs dynamic leadership and informed stewardship right now.

If the Secretary of State genuinely wants AI to be a gap-closer rather than an engine of deeper inequality, she should look beyond the political divide and treat trailblazing independent schools as partners, not opponents.

Practical steps could include:

  • Funding cross-sector innovation pilots that let state schools adopt and adapt proven private-sector approaches.
  • Greater procurement flexibility so schools aren’t locked into single national platforms.
  • Targeted investment in devices and home access for disadvantaged pupils.
  • Backing digital champions in every school with time, budget, and autonomy.
  • Regulatory sandboxes that encourage safe experimentation while maintaining rigorous safeguards.

The alternative is clear: another generation watching the future being built on the other side of the school gates. It’s time to move from a policy of catching up to one of genuine leadership.

James Wilding

Google Certified Innovator

AFIS Patron

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