Bridget Phillipson: parents must do more about bad behaviour and attendance in schools

Bridget Phillipson: parents must do more about bad behaviour and attendance in schools

Education secretary targets 800 schools as she attempts to turn around post-Covid trends with enhanced support Parents and caregivers “need to do more” to reverse post-Covid trends of poor attendance and behaviour in schools, the education secretary has said, announcing new measures to support schools in England before the start of the new school year. Bridget Phillipson unveiled a UK government programme on Sunday targeting 800 schools attended by about 600,000 pupils, beginning with an initial wave of 21 schools that will serve as attendance and behaviour hubs. Continue reading...

Why we’ve all fallen for The Summer I Turned Pretty: ‘Endless, wonderful melodrama’

Why we’ve all fallen for The Summer I Turned Pretty: ‘Endless, wonderful melodrama’

The third season of the Amazon teen drama has become a certified phenomenon, encouraging watch parties and intense fan reactions It’s after work on a Wednesday night, and I’m at a sports bar in downtown Manhattan. It looks exactly like what you’d expect of a bar in the Financial District. Men in button-up shirts stand around a tall table with folded arms, ranting about the current season as multiple baseball games are playing on TV screens all around the bar. I feel out of place as I wait for a friend, but I know it’s only a matter of time until things change. A stream of women slowly trickles in, group by group. The mood abruptly changes when the TV screens flicker on to a clip of sparkling water. The bar cranks up the volume, a wistful three notes plays over the speaker, the brief theme song of what has become a show so popular that sports bars in Manhattan are throwing watch parties for women who, like me, are years older than the show’s protagonist. Continue reading...