1. Never mind Brexit! Never mind Covid! What’s the biggest story in all the UK papers today and the first item on all the TV and radio news bulletins? Football! Specifically, the plans by twelve of the richest clubs to establish a European Super League to make themselves even richer. Here’s The Guardian’s account of what the President of UEFA calls “a disgraceful and self-serving proposal from clubs motivated by greed”: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/apr/19/super-league-players-face-world-cup-and-euros-ban-warns-furious-uefa-chief

Even Boris is getting involved https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/apr/19/ministers-urged-to-take-action-over-european-super-league-plan

That second link includes a good short video explaining what all the fuss is about. Good material for a role play with club owners, managers, players, fans (and some people who can’t stand football)? https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/role-play

2. Eclectic? I should cocoa! The Lancaster Literacy Research Centre programme covers topics ranging from Reading, Writing and Rebellion at 10:00 UK time this coming Friday, through a prosopographical (me neither!) look at Ancient Babylon, to the role of Minecraft in education research. Click on the booking link for each event for more info http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/literacy-research-centre/

3. And while we’re talking about Lancaster, a reminder that their MOOC on Dyslexia and Foreign Language Teaching starts today: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/dyslexia/7

4. Thinking of becoming a head teacher? Read this OECD report first! https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/what-are-the-roles-and-salaries-of-school-heads_97d6b7a5-en PDF below.

5. And, finally, how stressed should I be that I only discovered this morning that April is Stress Awareness Month every year? Maybe this test will help me find out https://www.stress.org.uk/individual-stress-test/