Now we're here

They say a week is a long time in politics, and so too in education. Last week I had campaigning and constituency work backed up. Now my day job - I teach at Notre Dame in the City Centre - takes centre stage. On Tuesday I attended a full meeting of school governors, Wednesday a trip to London for an exam board training event and tomorrow is Sports Day at the UEA! Still, there has been time to pop over to Norwich North for some leafleting and a campaign meeting tonight. Last time I checked it was Monday - now we're here in Thursday. Fast huh?

Could this become a fantastic new home for the Wendene lads?

The Wendene Wanderers do just that; with no home ground they wander around Norfolk looking to play football. They are made up of lads from some of the toughest areas of Norwich and are supported by a great team of adults - they're not bad at the game, either! I got involved with the club when the council tried to charge them for legal fees (I mean, how could we do that to a group which provides such a service?) and arranged for them to drop it. Now we have a much bigger task - a home ground. The team have been fundraising and have done well to generate some money and now they want a permenant fixture. The area of land above is an overgrown parcel of land between the Dereham Road, Wendene and the Power-League at Bowthorpe. They want a fix aside pitch and maybe even a club house. It would be a great reward for the work that this club does. They are the amazing invisible army of volunteers and this home ground, if they got it, would be their just reward.

If you have any objections to this, please let me know because we want to put a powerful community case to the council for getting some funding for this project.

I am working with the council on play improvements in Chapel Break, North Earlham, Clover Hill and The Runnell in Three Score - we can make a real difference to these kids' lives if this go the go ahead.

I will keep you up-to-date with the campaign.

LibDems want to abolsih competition in school sports

LibDems around the country who want to be taken seriously as a force in British politics - even one that is a third party - must hold their heads in their hands and weep everytime something like this happens.

From the party that wanted rights for fairground goldfish comes the notion of abolishing competition in school sports, just as the rest of the nation finally agrees it is a good thing.

LibDem MP Sandra Gidley made the point in a recent House of Commons debate and I hope that the leadership of her party make her suffer for this. Why, I hear you think?

I am about the only person in my school who doesn't think that sport is the absolute cure-all for every problem in the system - including under-achievement and poor behaviour. I think PE is a nice run around a few hours a week, helps towards health and fitness and gives the kids a much needed laugh. I was the fat kid who was always last to be picked - but I didn't care because generally I enjoyed the sport despite being absolutely awful at it. But that aside I think the one thing it does teach the pupils is that you can't win all the time ... unlike academic subjects where "deferred success" has replaced "failure" in our lexicon, PE remains a bastion of reality. You win some, you lose some. Fact of life, etc etc.

Only the LibDems, who are becoming increasingly illiberal on such issues, want the blandness of "everyone wins a prize" to be injected into school sports.

I wonder what former Olympic runner Sir Ming Campbell would have to say about this...