It is amazing how quickly you can discourage a nation. Just 18 months ago, Michael Gove kicked off his controversial tenure at the Department for Education with apparently definitive claims, backed by international test evidence, of UK state school failure and the need for a radical new approach. Last year, Sweden was the model for… Continue Reading
Author Archives: Melissa Benn
Inside the Nation
Of all the reviews so far of School Wars, I am most pleased with this one, in The Nation magazine, by Stefan Collini. It’s an incredibly thoughtful and informative discussion of the state of UK education as well as of my book. Stefan and I will be in discussion at the Cambridge Word Fest later… Continue Reading
The schools our children deserve….
Open Democracy has launched an interesting new series on social exclusion, and how to further economic inclusion. I kick the series off with an article on the relationship between economic and educational inequality – and how a different school system might promote great parity between students. Continue Reading
She blames the media. And I think she’s right
As a new drama series called Pan Am – a mile high version of Mad Men by the sounds of it – prepares to hit our screens, a brilliant piece by Tanya Gold today on the appalling way in which discussion of womens lives, and feminism, is framed by the press and most broadcasters in… Continue Reading
What Hannah Arendt called thinking…
I have just come across this thoughtful essay from the New Statesman, published in the late summer, by Margaret Heffernan. It makes many important points – but I particularly love its last paragraph. It touches on so many aspects of human life and behaviour I find most interesting – in particular the things we deliberately… Continue Reading
Considering Ed’s Question…..
Is it time to set up a movement to save our state schools from the many changes proposed by government? Read my latest post on the LSN website….. Continue Reading
The Sorcerer’s Apprentices
Check out this piece for the Guardian’s comment page tomorrow – but published already – on the move among today’s students towards apprenticeships. Continue Reading
Forming ideas
Below, an interview by Samantha Laurie in November’s RIchmond magazine. Please click Melissa layout to read. Continue Reading
In a very good cause…….
I will be hosting a fundraising evening on December 1st in aid of the Maya Centre, which provides therapy to low income women. The evening will feature some of our finest writers – Jill Dawson, Margaret Drabble, Helen Simpson and Sarah Waters – reading from their short story collections. Tickets selling fast. Please come along. Continue Reading
Richmond blues
Somehow, I think my appearance at the Richmond Literary Festival on November 25th is going to be my trickiest talk yet! A couple of weeks ago I did a long interview with Richmond magazine’s Samantha Laurie which is published this month here. The interview itself, and various follow up e-mail discussions, waas a veritable clash… Continue Reading
Latest writing
THE CRISIS OF THE MERITOCRACY
The crisis of the meritocracy: Britain’s transition to mass education since the Second World War PETER MANDLER, 2020 Oxford: Oxford University Press 361pp, hardback, £25, ISBN 9780198840145 Cambridge historian Peter Mandler has a fundamentally optimistic story to tell about the growth of universal education in Britain over the last seventy years and one can sense… Continue reading…
Latest news & events
A Cold War Tragedy
Melissa will be in conversation with Anne Sebba about her new book, ‘Ethel Rosenberg – A Cold War Tragedy.’ Weds 15th September 2021, 5-6pm, in the Robert Graves Tent at the Wimbledon Book Festival. More information here. Continue reading…
