-
1 month ago | 
thetimes.com | Nicola Woolcock |Helen Davies
-
Dec 6, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Sian Griffiths |Helen Davies
London dominates as an educational powerhouse in the UK: 15 out of the top 20 schools in the joint league table of independent and state school exam performance are in the capital, and most are single-sex. Top of the class is the £31,593-a-year (excluding VAT) St Paul’s Girls’ School in Hammersmith, west London, where the daughters of KCs, doctors and bankers compete to gain admission. It wins the Independent Secondary School of the Year for Academic Excellence 2025 award.
-
Dec 6, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Sian Griffiths |Helen Davies |Nick Rodrigues
A handful of outstanding state schools have beaten some of the most expensive and famous private schools in the UK, turning in better A-level and GCSE results this summer, according to the 2025 Sunday Times Parent Power league table. But overall, since the pandemic state schools have slipped down the combined rankings* as private schools surge ahead.
-
Dec 6, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Helen Davies
Liz Gregory took up her post as head teacher of the Maynard School in September 2022, and her vision, based on investing in pedagogy and evidence-formed practice, has borne fruit. The school, in Exeter, has risen 37 places to make it into the national top 100 independent schools, is the only one in the regional top ten that went up in the rankings, and takes the title of Independent Secondary School of the Year in the Southwest 2025.
-
Dec 6, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Sian Griffiths |Helen Davies
The schools in the southeast are back to their winning ways. The region is home to four in the top 20 of our combined academic rankings for state and independent schools, and a third of institutions in the top 100. Reigate Grammar School (RGS) in Surrey is Parent Power’s national Independent Secondary School of the Year 2025.
-
Dec 6, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Helen Davies
Cowbridge School may have dropped “comprehensive” from its name, now that it has become a 3-19 school and joined a research group of 33 schools in Wales, but it is continuing on its inclusive mission. “We talk about children and not statistics,” Debra Thomas, the head teacher, says. “We will get to know the children well as they grow through the school.
-
Nov 29, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Helen Davies
It’s a case of the good, the bad and the furry. In this year’s round-up of the finest life writing, we are recommending a funny, unconventional biography of Queen Elizabeth II, a memoir of a self-confessed sociopath and the tale of living with a rescue hare. Al Pacino gives us a burst of Hollywood glamour with his autobiography — and Lisa Marie Presley’s life reminds us of the downside of fame. And if you want your heart broken, read Charles Spencer’s memoir about his time at boarding school.
-
Oct 12, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Helen Davies
Nearing 50, James Rebanks, the Oxford graduate, writer, conservationist, farmer, husband and father, found himself faltering. The acclaimed author of English Pastoral was isolated, angry, unhappy and increasingly lost. And his reaction to this midlife crisis was far from ordinary. He fled to the outermost islands of Europe just below the Arctic Circle, staying on one rocky outcrop called Fjaeroyvaer with two strangers, Anna and Ingrid — with the blessing of his wife, Rebanks assures us.
-
Aug 25, 2024 | 
counselling-directory.org.uk | Helen Davies
Project matrescence: supporting first-time mums navigate the transition to motherhood (matrescence). A psychotherapist-led circle supporting first-time mums navigate the transition to motherhood (matrescence). Connect with self, with other new mothers, to creatively explore the real impact of becoming a mother on identity, relationships and emotions in a safe, small group environment. Who: First-time mothers, 6-12 months post-partum, living in Warwickshire.
-
Aug 3, 2024 | 
thetimes.com | Helen Davies
Life is messy. Being a human is a near constant condition of chaos, contemplation, curiosity and challenge. If you need help — and more of us seem to in the 21st century — then confessing your deepest fantasies, overwhelming anxieties and seeking solutions (even absolution) is now more likely to take place on the therapist’s couch than in a church confessional. In small, nondescript rooms all over the country, desperate people try to “fix” themselves.
