Author Archives: Cambridge Town Owl

Listening to a local primary school teacher earlier today – someone who has known me since I was a toddler, I found out that Cambridgeshire is doing great things on all things citizenship and PSHE at primary school level. Yet this hasn’t fed through into GCSE citizenship entries. What’s missing? In 2022 only 145 entriesContinue reading “How can Cambridgeshire libraries support democracy-learning? And how can we support our libraries?”

The papers for the CPCA’s Skills & Employment Committee meeting have been released – and there are a host of questions that arise from the papers linked to my blogposts over this summer. But as the standing orders only allow one question per person, I’m inviting readers living in Cambridgeshire & Peterborough to pick upContinue reading “Public questions to the Combined Authority on adult education & lifelong learning – can you help?”

Attempts to educate the general public on ‘citizenship’ from a central government perspective are doomed to fail – especially if it doesn’t help people solve local and day-to-day problems. That’s my take-away from the social and contemporary historical reading around the subject area. Of which I’ve done more than is sensible. But it’s in myContinue reading ““Citizenship? Sound’s great! What’s for tea?””

I’m not going to go into detail on this because I made my point at the local elections in 2023. But for those of you who are following developments… See the Cambridge Independent at: There are over 500 pages of papers to read Which is why in my previous blogpost I made the point aboutContinue reading “Cambridge road user charge becomes peak-time C-charge as inflation hits other GCP projects”

Jeffery Francis Quarry Switzer gave a lecture in 1962 the text of which was included in a book that I fortuitously picked up from Plurabelle Books on Coldham’s Road by the Computer Museum which covered Cambridge’s town planning problems of the era. You can read the transcript here. Six decades on and I wonder whyContinue reading ““Cambridge people don’t understand their town planning problems!””

Before I begin, for those of you that find this interesting/useful, and are willing. &able to do so, please consider supporting my research costs via https://ko-fi.com/antonycarpen. (And thank you to those of you who do- you’ve enabled me to purchase some books for some future workshops!) Now…town planning. (Why are there no evening classes onContinue reading “Scrutinising the formal application to redevelop The Beehive Centre – it’s massive!”

What impact have they had in the past, and are things changing? Ploughing through this collection of books that I’m somehow intending to distribute at future citizenship & democracy / how Cambridge functions & malfunctions workshops is that many reports come up against the same barriers time and again.. In Cambridge, the debate on howContinue reading “What impact do social policy academic reports have on public policy and UK politics?”

You’ve seen the headlines, but how can local government tax the one-day coach tourists? Cambridge Connect Light Rail provides part of the answer. It was the leading headline in this week’s Cambridge Independent. See the article by Gemma Gardner here. Essentially the proposal is for a levy on visitors staying in overnight accommodation, similar toContinue reading “A tourist tax for Cambridge?”

The Education Secretary hardly covered herself in glory with an off-the-cuff remark that reflected a lack of awareness on the impact of exam results in our teens. Why not listen to the teenagers and young adults themselves to suggest ideas for an overhaul? Which then begs the question: Why bother with all those exams (andContinue reading “It’s not fair on the teenagers – I hope young voters make exams an election issue”

Only 37 people have downloaded Qasir Shah’s paper for UCL (have a read here), yet his paper identifies the similar gaps I’ve been blogging about for ages. Given the way public policy works in the UK, elected politicians could put these findings to ministers and combined authorities in order to boost lifelong learning – andContinue reading “The need for adult citizenship education – going beyond jobs and income success measures”