A social-emotional focus of sorts to today’s message …

1. The international launch of a new report, Beyond Academic Learning, based on the OECD’s survey on Social and Emotional Skills, takes place at 15:00 UK time on Tuesday 7^th September. More info and registration here https://msftedumarketing.eventbuilder.com/event/48213 and a flyer on the survey below

2. Here’s nine social and emotional learning tips from eSchool News, including ‘thresholding’ and ‘brain breaks’ https://www.eschoolnews.com/2021/08/23/9-social-emotional-learning-tips-to-take-into-this-school-year/

3. We all know that our capacity for friendship is limited to 150 people, don’t we? Robin Dunbar has just published a new book explaining why.

Here’s The Guardian’s review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/21/friends-by-robin-dunbar-review-how-important-are-your-pals

here’s a video of an interview with him explaining his ideas https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/mar/14/my-bright-idea-robin-dunbar

and here (below) is a graphic that I think might work quite well in the classroom

4. The Hay Festival in Queretaro, Mexico started yesterday – sorry!

Full programme here, a mixture of Spanish and English and almost invariably translated https://www.hayfestival.com/queretaro/inicio

Check the timings!

5. I’m not at all sure that this week’s phobia qualifies as a phobia, if you take the (fairly typical) definition from the Cambridge English Dictionary: an extreme fear or dislike of a particular thing or situation, especially one that is not reasonable https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/phobia What’s irrational or unreasonable about taphophobia?