So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone.

The FIFA World Cup 2026 edition has started and with it a host of great lessons to be learned for educational leaders, coaches, football players, and spectators.

Spain are one of the favourites to win the World Cup but the small African Island nation of Cabo Verde held them to a scoreless draw. It was a totally engrossing game that showed a really well organised team holding the line against a team of superstars.

Yesterday, Sweden and Germany had big wins against much lower ranked nations but that doesn't mean much at this stage. In fact, I can remember plenty of examples of teams winning big at previous cups, but not building and sustaining that success.

I'm definitely not writing off Spain, and you can never write off the Germans. It should be a really interesting tournament. I'm loving it!

Be bold - and mighty forces will come to your aid (Basil King)

Some weeks zip by, others are a slog to get through. This week has felt like wading through molasses.

I can put this down to a few things - it's week eight in an eleven-week term; Monday was a long day with online parent interviews; Wednesday was a Jammies for June fundraiser; that meant I had two days to go.

The Jammies for June day was stressful in that the students dressed in their pjs and dressing gowns for the day, and staff were expected to participate. Well, expected is over egging it, but I did feel pressure to join in with the other staff. Which I did. It's a worthy cause - to supply pjs to needy kids, but I felt really out of my comfort zone all day.

Luckily, no photos were taken (to my knowledge). In the end it wasn't too bad now that I think of it. Basically, I shouldn't have thought too much about it on Monday and Tuesday.

Anyway, it's now Thursday (a five-period day) and Friday has the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony - that will gee me up for the weekend.

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day (Thornton Wilder)

A trendy, new agey approach to Thornton Wilder's idea may be 'Nourish the soul'.  

We all need to be inspired by something each day. It's pretty easy for me to do that because I read every day, listen to music every day and I'm often inspired by things I see.

The recent Guardian Weekly had an excellent article by Jonathan Freedland - Arsenal's title win should be studied by politicians everywhere.

He explains why in the article, via ideas like vision, stability, perseverance, patience and cheering success.

That approach by Mikel Arteta and the Arsenal board applies to education as well.

If you have knowledge, let others light their candle in it (Margaret Fuller)

Photo by RUT MIIT on Unsplash

Recently, I attended a well-run professional development workshop for English teachers on the Scholarship programme. It was a heartening experience in many ways.

Scholarship is intended for the top Year 13 students and is largely an unchanged concept that has been around since I started teaching in the 1980s.

Other Year 13 qualifications like Higher School Certificate, University Bursaries, and soon NCEA level 3, have come and gone, but Scholarship keeps on ticking.

It's an add-on for those top students - not a timetabled class in most schools. Interestingly, I've never participated in it because I've always had more qualified or more interested people leading the charge.

My current Head of English suggested I attend the PD workshop, so I did.

Along the way, the experts taking the workshop made the startling, revolutionary statement that we could learn from the experience of those who have taught Scholarship before - that this was a valuable exercise.

What a breath of fresh air!