Tag Archives: fiction

5 smiles and the MBacc

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Congratulations to everyone that has received their examination results this summer. The waiting time is always a nervous one, especially for those that are experiencing the wait for the first time. So, to my third holiday post.

Staying in a range of hotels and two overnight train trips, set me thinking about how hotels have traditionally been classified, often by using a star grading from one to five. There is also an alternative of rosettes.

On this trip, I wondered about a classification based on smiles? One smile for the quality of the greeting by the door staff – earned if you are greeted with a smile and help with luggage. The second smile comes for the reception staff. Are they welcoming, however harassed they might be, do they make you feel welcome and build upon the feeling of enjoying the fact that you are using their hotel that started with the door staff?

Smiles three, four and five can be a little more general: housekeeping staff, if you pass them in the corridor,  food and drink service staff whether in the bar or restaurant and any other staff you might encounter, from car parking to pool or arranging excursions. Do they all treat you as a person and a welcome guest?

On this trip, we have encountered some really good service, and some that might be better forgotten about.

So, why call this post, 5 smiles and the Mbacc? Perhaps, because hospitality ought to one of the key strands in the post-16 offering, whether a young person wants to continue to take a degree in the subject or starting working in the industry at 18,  and hopefully before with a part-time job that allows the classroom theory to be experienced in practice.

Sadly, graduates, whether in hospitality of any other subject, will find accessing the working holiday vias scheme with Australia more of a challenge.

This excellent scheme that has allowed many Australians and Brits to visit the other’s country is now subject to a ‘slowing down’ by the Australian government in Canberra. The slowdown is a part of Australia’s response to a perceived need to cut immigration into The Commonwealth.

It will be interesting to see whether the UK government responds in any way. However, certainly for teachers, the numbers using the scheme are not what they were when it was first introduced. The link between the UK and Australia is not what is once was for generations such as mine, brought up on stories of the ‘outback’, Ned Kelly and Waltzing Matilda. Australia now looks much more towards the Pacific Region than the northern Hemisphere: one wonders about the remaining links with Britain and the future of the monarchy in Australia? Will Andy Burnham, the maker of the MBacc, also be the Prime Minister to preside over the ending of the links between the UK monarchy and Australia?

Three cheers for books

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Book fairs are fun. Today, was the Wolvercote Book Fair in north Oxford. A small local event, but I sold enough of my book to cover costs and have some enjoyable chats with other publishers, authors and booksellers. See does your library | Search Results | John Howson for details of my book of posts from this bog, available either from Amazon or direct from me by ordering through the comments section.

What struck me today, for the first time, while talking to authors, is that the current drop in the birth rate is going to make life harder for the book trade, and especially those selling into the markets for pre-readers and early readers. I guess that the big publishers will manage, but smaller publishers, and the growing market of self-publishers might notice fewer customers for their writing. However, I suspect that many authors in this market aren’t publishing to earn a living, but either as a side line or even, just because one can these days.

Between 2025 and 2030, the nursery and primary school population in England is expected to shrink by around 300,000, from 4.5 million to 4.3 million. When the latest estimates appear next month, this number may have grown even larger. Release home – National pupil projections – Explore education statistics – GOV.UK

Eventually, this downturn in pupil numbers will affect textbook sales and purchases by secondary school libraries, as the secondary school sector is also affected by falling student numbers. If, at the same time, school budgets come under pressure, and in order to support staffing costs, then anything related to pupil numbers, such as books and other resources, may well be high on the agenda for cuts in spending.

I wonder whether there is now a space for competition to Amazon as a publisher for the self-publishing market that is both easy to use and cost effective. Any scheme would need to cover both ebooks and physical books, and to allow for the downloading a copy at home by purchasers. This latter opportunity offsetting the postage and packing costs of a physical copy of a book with the cost of the paper and ink. Would it work, even if it is on paper and doesn’t look like a traditional book. Afterall, articles have been available on-line for years.

I have often wondered why schools, and especially MATs and local authorities, don’t do more to sell resources to each other. I know that some schools and colleges do so, but I wonder whether there is scope for more initiatives of this kind now that publishing is so easy. How about a publisher in residence, to sit alongside the artist and musicians in residence to encourage teachers and pupils to generate material for publication and use by others.

Finally, I was asked if I would produce a 100 best posts from the 13 years of the blog. Now there’s a though. No 1 most read post is the one about how much holiday do teachers really have? This was first published on May 30th 2002, and is still available to read.