THE WEEK Wisdom Wit & I needed a password eight
characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Most popular joke at the
Edinburgh Fringe, told by comedian Nick Helm
www.theweek.co.uk
Britain’s leading current aff airs digest rounds up the main education stories exclusively for First Eleven magazine
Horrid Henry’s creator
Francesca Simon is a literary megastar. Her series of Horrid Henry books has sold 16 million copies worldwide. Yet her young protagonist is no hero – on the contrary, Henry is a menace with no redeeming features. “I’m very much infl uenced by Seinfeld: the ‘no hugs and no morals’ rule,” she told Paul Bignell in The Independent on Sunday. “I never wanted to have the theme: ‘I have a brother and he’s really a bit of a nuisance,’ then at the end: ‘Yeah, but I wouldn’t be without him.’ I always wanted Horrid Henry [and his brother Peter Perfect] to be like Cain and Abel – the absolute fi ght to the death. In a way, there’s a catharsis there.” Children love Henry’s sheer badness, but Simon (an American who
has lived in the UK since her student days at Oxford) also reckons she was lucky with her timing. “People used to ask me: ‘Don’t you mind that Jo Rowling is taking all the attention?’ And I’d say: ‘What attention?’ No one had the slightest interest in children’s authors [before Harry Potter]. There was no attention. She’s created this whole renewed interest in children’s books. Children’s authors should feel very indebted to her.”
Exchange of the week
The importance of school uniforms
To The Guardian I was no fan of uniforms as a child but at least I developed an awareness of dressing for the occasion, whether appearing in court or a job interview. For many children school uniform is the only time in life
where this valuable lesson presents itself. Ironically, the children who least need this lesson from school are the ones most likely to receive it. Like language, the ability to switch dress code is a valuable component of cultural capital that has been pulled from under the feet of less privileged children. Dr Andrew Wilson, Nottingham
10 FirstEleven Michaelmas 2011
www.fi rstelevenmagazine.co.uk
To The Guardian People claim that “uniforms are an egalitarian form of social levelling”. No, they are not. Just imagine how excluded you would feel if you were one of the students not in the same uniform as all your fellows because your family could not aff ord to provide clothes within a set regime. Your jumble-sale rags/hand-me-downs will stand out far more if everyone else is wearing a uniform than if there is an assortment of clothing all around. Special sales of second-hand uniforms will help a few, but may not reach all who need them. Please, let’s get rid of the social divisions emphasised by school uniforms. Chris Johnson, Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire
To The Guardian Many moons ago, as the mother of fi ve children, I blessed school uniform rules. Twenty-fi ve clean shirts each week plus blazers, skirts or trousers, and I was done and dusted. No arguments over breakfast and no burrowing through the ironing pile for some favourite piece of clothing. Let them grumble about uniform. It keeps the little darlings occupied. Maureen McGregor, Edinburgh
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