Teaching listening skills has, for many, become a contentious topic. Only this morning I read an article saying that we shouldn’t use prompts like ‘eyes looking’ or ‘sitting still…

It seems there’s always a planned chapter I end up leaving out of one of my books - sometimes because I go cold on an idea but more often because it simply ends up not feeling like the right fit for t...

Our schools are a dated mix of single glazing, dodgy pipes and atriums like Kew hothouses. They urgently need retrofitting for a changing climate, says architect Harry Paticas

There's a heatwave happening across Europe at the moment, and in my day job with schools there's one topic that everyone want to talk about: overheating. It's chronic in British schools, and very common across hospitals and healthcare facilities, as well as ordinary homes. In discussions about this problem, the go-to solution is air conditioning. Our buildings overheat, therefore we need air conditioning.

Last week Britain recorded its highest ever May temperature, at 34.8C – and it did so comprehensively. This is a full two degrees warmer than the previous record. That kind of heat would have…