Jamie Shields

Vice Principal responsible for Standards and Inclusion. Specific focus on attendance, SEND, AP.

[Clive Lewis MP @labourlewis]

Westminster may finally be about to have the argument it has spent 40 years avoiding.

If Andy Burnham returns to Parliament, the political class will know how to cover it. A leadership drama. Who is up, who is down, whether Keir Starmer can survive, whether Labour is once again turning inward. The familiar machinery of Westminster psychodrama will whirr into life.

That framing misses the larger point. Burnham’s possible return matters not because of what it says about Labour’s leadership, but because of what it reveals about the British state: what it can still do, what it has forgotten how to do, and what kind of country it must become if it is serious about resilience.

Britain is finally having a more serious conversation about national security. The Strategic Defence Review, the pivot back towards Europe, the recognition that hybrid warfare turns citizens, infrastructure and civic institutions into part of the front line: all of it marks a real shift in how the state thinks about its own survival.
But at the centre of that conversation lies a question that the defence establishment, and most of Westminster, still does not want to answer. What kind of society do you need to be before resilience is possible?

Finland is now the model everyone cites. Comprehensive security. Whole-of-society defence. Civilian preparedness woven into military planning. British strategists admire the Finnish system and ask how it might be copied. But the admiration stops short of the uncomfortable question: why does it work there?

The answer is not geography or history or some mysterious quality of Finnish national character. It is structural. Nearly 80% of Finns say they would defend their country if attacked. In Britain, the figure is closer to 33%. That gap is not an accident. It exists because Finland has spent decades building a society in which people have a genuine stake in what they are being asked to defend. Energy is affordable. Housing is available. Public services function. Institutions command trust. The Nordic welfare state is not a sentimental add-on to Finnish security policy. It is the foundation of it. You cannot ask people to defend a country that does not work for them.

Britain has spent 40 years building the opposite. The privatisation of essentials – energy, water, transport, housing – transferred wealth upwards from households to shareholders while making the basics of everyday life more expensive. The state, stripped of the tools to control costs at source, has been reduced to compensating after the fact.

Out of every pound the Government spends on housing, 88p goes to subsidising private rents. Just 12p goes to building homes. When energy prices spiked in 2022, the Government spent £40bn in a single winter cushioning the blow, not because it had a resilient energy system but because it lacked one. Debt interest now consumes more than £100bn a year. Britain has the highest debt servicing costs in the G7: the compounding price of financing failure rather than eliminating it at source.

This is what bond market dependency actually looks like. It is not an abstract fiscal condition. It is the consequence of a state that has been stripped of the supply-side tools that would let it cure the problems it now pays, indefinitely, to manage. And here is the paradox the Treasury refuses to confront. The countries that borrow most cheaply are often those that have retained the public investment model Britain abandoned. The spread between UK and Dutch borrowing costs has widened sharply not because markets fear public investment, but because they have lost confidence in a model that borrows to subsidise private failure while never addressing its causes.

This is the connection Britain’s defence debate is missing. The familiar framing, that social spending is what must be sacrificed to meet the NATO target, is not merely politically toxic. It is strategically illiterate. Cutting the foundations of social cohesion to fund the hardware of national defence is self-defeating. You end up with planes and no pilots, submarines and no crew, an army that cannot recruit because the society it is meant to protect has stopped believing in itself.

I think Burnham understands this. That is why his programme is more interesting than the leadership gossip suggests. What he has been building in Greater Manchester – public control of transport, expanded social housing, investment in the productive foundations of the city economy – is not a nostalgic rerun of postwar nationalisation. It is a proof of concept for a different kind of state.

The Bee Network is the most visible example, but the argument behind it travels. A state that can shape markets is not condemned to subsidise their failures. A state that produces affordable energy through public generation does not need to spend tens of billions cushioning every price shock. A state with a serious public housebuilding programme does not need housing benefit to rise endlessly in line with private rents. A state that builds institutions people can see, use and trust begins to restore the civic confidence on which resilience depends.

The real constraint on Britain is not money. It is capacity: the workers, institutions, supply chains and public purpose needed to turn national will into national renewal. Britain’s tragedy is not that it has run out of money. It is that after 40 years of hollowing out the state, it has made itself less able to act.

Burnham’s critics will reach for the familiar warning. Borrow more, spend more, spook the gilt markets, repeat the Truss disaster. But this misunderstands both the problem and the opportunity.

Bond markets do not have ideological preferences. They have functional ones. They prefer clarity, credible revenue streams, productive investment, and a state with a plan. What they punish is not public ambition but incoherence. A properly designed productive state programme would not be a leap into fiscal fantasy. It would be an attempt to end the much costlier fantasy that Britain can keep borrowing to compensate for broken markets while refusing to repair them.

The defence conversation and the economic conversation need to become the same conversation. Finland did not build national resilience by choosing between welfare and security. It built resilience by understanding that they are inseparable: that a country in which the basics work, where people trust one another and the institutions around them, is one that can face danger with something more than anxiety.

That is the deeper argument Burnham represents. Westminster will be tempted to treat him as a leadership story. It should resist the temptation. The question is not whether Burnham can return to parliament. It is whether Britain can return to the idea that the state should make life work. Because a country that cannot command the confidence of its people cannot truly defend itself.

[Tom Sherrington @teacherhead]

Teaching for understanding: Schema-building and generative learning. https://t.co/yB2z72webo via @teacherhead

[Mary Myatt @MaryMyatt]

Year 9 is where ambition goes to die in too many schools
.
Options are chosen, GCSEs are looming and the curriculum quietly thins out. Teachers know it, pupils feel it. And yet we treat it as inevitable, a structural feature of secondary education, as opposed to a design flaw

[Martin Lewis @MartinSLewis]

The £9bn car finance mass redress scheme's just been CONFIRMED. This is Martin’s instant help video on how to complain, & what if you already have complained, to see if you're due an AVERAGE £830 (some get more some get less)

Free complaint tool: https://t.co/nivrD7gRYd

[Tom Sherrington @teacherhead]

Behaviour Management: A Bill Rogers Top 10 https://t.co/igX6EbfYlE 450,000 views!!!

[exheadteacher @exheadteacher]

We’re told children under five should have just one hour of screen time a day. I’ve been looking at the numbers behind the new government report, and the math doesn't quite add up. Screens aren't the problem. The connection between parent and child is. https://t.co/1MPIVwvM8F

[Jamie Shields @jshieldsSLT]

@Samstricko181 The ban must come with bans / age restrictions on VPNs. Otherwise the work around is too easy.

[Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel]

Here are the effects of phone free schools from one of the largest studies:

https://t.co/Ins2e8dlO0

[Jamie Shields @jshieldsSLT]

@JonHaidt I am reading free range kids off the back of reading your book, both are great! Really made me think about my role as a dad and educator

[Jamie Shields @jshieldsSLT]

@FreeRangeKids I am half way through your book and loved commandments 10-13! Such a great book! Trying to convince my wife to read it!

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

We have overprotected our children in the real world and underprotected them online. This is not just about phones and iPads; it's about childhood.

Let them have adventurous play, with small risks. It's safer and healthier in the long run.

[Top Science @isciverse]

Smartphone addiction has negative impacts on student learning and overall academic performance.

The greater the use of a phone while studying, the greater the negative impact on learning.

The skills and cognitive abilities students needed for academic success are negatively affected by excessive phone use.

The results of this meta-analysis implied that addicted users show a diminished level in learning.

[Paternal Legacy @PaternalLegacy]

26 weapons grade parenting tips:

1/ Give them a "heads up," 5 minutes until bedtime, 10 minutes before leaving the playground

2/ Look at the world more through their eyes

3/ Don’t discipline like an angry madman. Stay calm and firm, model how you want THEM to resolve conflict

4/ Let them argue their case respectfully. Teaches negotiation and critical thinking

5/ Skip the long lectures

6/ Use natural consequences: forgot homework? Let them explain it to the teacher. Forgot their lunch? They'll figure it out

7/ Be consistent and follow through. "We are leaving the playground if you don't stop..."

8/ Make "How can I help?" part of YOUR vocabulary. It builds reliability

9/ Share your unseen efforts: hustling for work, hitting the gym. Actions speak louder than words but when they can’t see it, TELL THEM

10/ Teach accountability by modeling it yourself: “I was wrong. sorry”

11/ Create family traditions like weekly movie nights, Sunday pancakes, whatever works

12/ More game nights

13/ Take an interest in their interests: video games, books, sports... do it with them.

14/ Hike together. Nature slows time and generates gratitude

15/ Build something. LEGO, puzzles, a fort, the Amazon delivery box

16/ Teach them skills: tie knots, start a fire, read a map

17/ Introduce chess or checkers. Start early

18/ Let them plan a family outing or navigate you there (they can get you through the airport)

19/ Always greet your wife with love. That moment sets the tone for the family

20/ Share some challenges (age appropriate)

21/ Respect their privacy. Knock before entering their room

22/ Teach the value of money early: "wants vs. needs," compounding, saving, etc

23/ Let them see you sweat

24/ Teach them to cook. Start small: eggs, pancakes, cookies. Embrace the mess

25/ No screens at meals ever

26/ Prioritize movement as a UNIT: family walks, workouts, hikes, dance-offs- whatever gets the everyone in synch

[Jamie Shields @jshieldsSLT]

@MartinSLewis Why are families still being punished by the 100k super tax? (Loss of childcare support) Why is this still being assessed individually? And not as a combined figure?

[Jamie Shields @jshieldsSLT]

@educationgovuk Again, bad messaging here. Families are not an inconvenience and promoting it as “time back” is completely the wrong message. The social media team are not hitting home runs at the moment.

[Jamie Shields @jshieldsSLT]

@dave_mcpartlin I can’t believe this is actually real

[Jamie Shields @jshieldsSLT]

@oldandrewuk This also says a lot, but doesn’t actually say anything at the same time.

[Jamie Shields @jshieldsSLT]

@vicgoddard The conspiracy theorists are up early

[J.D. Haltigan, PhD 🏒👨‍💻 @JDHaltigan]

Nobody should be surprised by this. A hyperfocus on emotions makes emotional regulation more difficult. Mental health awareness training in schools is a fraud & simply creates one giant Longhouse.

[Greg Ashman @greg_ashman]

A centrepiece of my presentations on cognitive load theory in recent years has been this slide
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