News and Opinion

Leicester’s need for civilised discourse on religion and belief A criminal prosecution was recently brought by Leicester’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) against a man who publicly demonstrated his opposition to religion by ripping up a Koran in public and throwing it to the ground. The case ended with a hung jury and a decision by the CPS not to pursue it further.   The failure of the jury to reach a verdict reveals a problem with the law.    Tearing up a holy book is not an effective way to take issue with religion but the right to free expression valued by jury members is so fundamental to our way of life that it must be protected even when its exercise involves bad taste or insult.    Many religions take it on themselves to seek to persuade people of other religions or of no religion to convert.   Dire consequences of failing to believe in this or that god are often cited in these attempts.   Likewise, atheists sometimes seek to expose the fallacies in religion, h

Posted on behalf of Peter Flack Teachers must be valued for what they do Teaching is an unusual job.   It involves taking responsibility for the education of other people's children.   It is also a daunting one.   You enter your classroom and are normally out-numbered 30 to 1.   You are expected to control and manage the class, ensure their safety, address their individual needs and at the same time stimulate and enthuse them about learning. To do so requires skill, knowledge and the ability to capture and retain the attention of children of varying abilities who may be ill-fed, tired, abused, or living in squalor.   To do so requires belief in what you are teaching, belief in the importance of learning and a huge amount of self-belief in your abilities as a communicator.   That is why morale is important.   If you lose that self-belief and start to doubt what you are doing then you cannot teach well. Despite the impression often given, teachers face long working hours