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Jamie Oliver, Turkey Twizzlers and teaching
23rd February 2011 | 4 comments | 1 person likes this
After his mission to eradicate Turkey Twizzlers from school menus, Jamie Oliver is now switching his attention to what children learn in the classroom.
Next week sees the start of Jamie’s Dream School, a seven-part Channel 4 series where the TV chef recruits a host of celebrities to teach 20 disillusioned teenagers who left school with few qualifications.The science teacher is fertility expert Lord Winston (who’s already hit the headlines for... -
Vodka teapots and leaving home
14th September 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
After the agonising wait for exam results and the scramble for university places, thousands of teenagers will be leaving home in the next few weeks.
My 18-year-old daughter is one of them. She’s off to London and is busy packing clothes, books, pots, pans and her prized collection of Vogue magazines into two modest suitcases.In the midst of the chaos, an anxious friend texted her. “How’s your mum coping?” said the... -
Proenza Schouler and the Wish Tree
18th August 2010 | 0 comments | 2 people like this
If the arguments were anything to go by, finding a holiday that suited both my 18 year old fashionista daughter and my bike-mad 16 year old son seemed impossible. She craved sunshine, art galleries and shops while he wanted high-octane action and excitement, preferably somewhere outside Europe.
In the end there was only one place that fitted everyone’s requirements. New York. Even so, the pair of them had to agree to compromise.... -
The benign Lord Mandelson
23rd July 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
I don’t know what came over me. Of all the events to take a BMX-loving, YouTube-obsessed fifteen-year-old to, why did I choose a talk by Peter Mandelson to celebrate the publication of The Third Man? The LSE was packed for the occasion, which saw Times editor James Harding quiz the ex-business secretary on everything from the Blair years to the fevered days following the May 2010 election. At a guess,...
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My sporting life
30th June 2010 | 0 comments | 2 people like this
Sport is a bit like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. I won a running race at primary school once and reached the heady heights of the under-12 netball team a few times but that’s about it. Until two months ago, that is. My teenage daughter suddenly decided to join the gym and after a few sessions declared it would be much more fun if we went together....
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Trickier than it looks
5th May 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
Michael Gove’s promise that under a Conservative government teachers would have more power to discipline out-of-control pupils is fine in theory. But if politicians tried teaching they’d soon find it isn’t half as easy as it looks. With reports that some school corridors have become virtual no-go zones while others have brought in their police officers, CCTV and even airport-style scanners to ensure pupils aren't carrying knives, teachers deserve a...
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Mud, Glorious Mud
1st October 2009 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
I’m living in a madhouse. My teenage son, still recovering from smashing his collar-bone in three places, has gone and signed up to do an event called Tough Guy. It’s billed as one of the hardest events a body can endure, takes place near Wolverhampton in freezing January and consists of a cross-country run followed by an assault course through concrete tunnels, muddy ditches and burning bales of hay.
As if... -
Pyjama mamas
3rd September 2009 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
Mornings have never been my strong point. In term-time I rush out of the house at 7am looking as though I’ve been pulled through a hedge backwards - without a scrap of make-up and my hair sticking up on end. After I’ve dropped my teenage daughter at the bus stop I dash into Sainsbury’s to buy the papers, hoping I don’t scare the cheery man on the till or, horror...
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The house with no name
28th July 2009 | 4 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
The first time I heard about my tumbledown farmhouse in the South of France was when a friend sent an email saying: “Beautiful place. Great potential. South-facing, with its back up against a wooded hillside. Very old farm with heaps of charm.”
Much to my horror, and before I’d even set eyes on the place, my husband sped south on the TGV (train à grande vitesse) and made an offer on... -
The very best summer reads
14th July 2009 | 1 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
Just when the long summer holidays are here my fearless teenage son has gone and toppled ten feet off a Warwickshire hill on his mountain bike. As well as his wounded pride, he’s broken his collarbone in three places and is now out of action for the entire summer. No sailing. No skateboarding. Certainly no biking. As the lovely staff nurse in the children’s ward told him: “Well, you could...
CONTRIBUTOR
Emma Lee-Potter
Emma Lee-Potter is a journalist and author of four novels. She has two teenage children and spends her spare time worrying about the ramshackle farmhouse she bought in the south of France. The wreck has half a roof, assorted wildlife and an alarming damp problem but her friends assure her it all be perfect by 2020. She writes a weekly blog for Easy Living magazine.
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