This doesn’t happen often: Channel 4 news gave me a call a few Saturdays back, asking if I would be interviewed about the interim report from the Nutbrown Review. I said no – partly because I wasn’t sure if I had enough time to get home and get changed from being out in London, meaning I'd end up appearing like the stereotype of an inner London teacher (jeans, T-shirt, unshaven, scruffy, soft on standards, etc. And not even trendy.)
But the serious reason behind my "no" was that the tone of the media discussion would probably have made it impossible to say anything sensible about the Interim Report. More than a week after it appeared, the Times and the BBC suddenly got hold of it and focused on the idea that Cathy Nutbrown was saying that nursery staff are generally illiterate and innumerate, the sort of people who shouldn’t be let loose on pets and farm animals, let alone children. The Telegraph topped them both with: "nursery workers so illiterate they struggle to read stories aloud." Now, where in the report was that?
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