The FT’s Sarah O’Connor unleashed a bit of a storm when she wrote recently that teaching state-school kids firm handshakes was patronising, and that ‘character education’ had no place in the national curriculum. I should like to contest this both as the Chairman of Gordonstoun school, which invented character education, and as a state-school educated Scot who was lucky enough to attend Lucie Clayton Finishing School in Kensington one summer. Read More
Today I am off to the Regatta, and here is my black and red Day 1 Ascot hat. The Season. How frightfully British. Many moons ago, my Aunt sent me to Joanna Lumley’s alma mater as an MBA graduation present – Lucie Clayton College, in Kensington. Upstairs, on the parquet floor, they still had a model of the front half of an old blue sedan car on which we could practise our getting in and out strategies. For the curious: your entry strategy is an imaginary 50p between the knees; your exit strategy is a high chin to minimise cleavage, lest the paparazzi be hovering, and we were only taught about the passenger seat, as Ladies have Drivers. While we did spend a bit of time on this sort of thing, the whole course remains the most useful thing I’ve done. Here is a digest for you, since Lucie Clayton College is no more. Read More
