End of year reflections 🎉🎄😀

It's time to send out the festive greeting/graphic and put on the out-of-office, but before I do here's a few hastily gathered thoughts and reflections on the year just gone.

It's hard to believe it's over three years since I took a leap of faith and stepped away from nearly 26 years with City & Guilds. My former employer has been in the headlines lately as a result of its sale to PeopleCert and particularly since the emergence of its new owner's apparent plan to squeeze £22m out of the organisation. I haven't yet spoken at length to any of my former colleagues about these changes or really been able to gauge the current mood within the organisation, but generally I do worry about how any remnants of social purpose within England's awarding sector are continuing to ebb away and how far the interests of learners risk being supplanted by those of shareholders or private equity investors. I'm not misty-eyed about how City & Guilds has been run in recent years, yet I do recall Chris Humphries remarking when he stood down as Director-General in 2007 that the Institute's leaders are just temporary custodians. If nothing else, it's notable how quickly and easily 147 years of history can be swept away.

The first half of the year was dominated by continuing to hold the fort at North West Migrants Forum (whilst the actual boss was away being Mayor), and for much of the rest of the year I've staying involved in supporting this fantastic organisation. Much excitement lies ahead with the official launch next month of the Intercultural Cross-Border Inclusion Programme (ICIP) , as well as the continued rollout of its flagship Hidden History NI project. It's great to have played a small part in both of these.

From The Guardian | 14 June 2025

The scourge of racism and anti-migrant hatred has loomed large throughout these islands over the past year, with the appalling disorder in Ballymena at the start of the summer (about which I was quoted in the Guardian) and even community ESOL classes starting to attract the ire of vile mobs posing as 'concerned citizens'. I don't sense this climate of hostility and intolerance improving anytime soon, although as I recently remarked in Running, just to keep up..., it's incumbent on all of us who value living in an open, tolerant, multicultural and multilingual society to fight back.

Addressing the opening plenary at NATECLA Conference 2025 #NATECLA25

As the year ends, we're marshalling arguments and allies to oppose plans by the Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire to defund all ESOL programmes when she gains control of the Adult Skills Fund next summer. Andrea Jenkyns of course has form for nasty dog-whistle politics, but her attempts to frame language vs literacy learning as a zero-sum game that pitches 'newcomers' against 'locals' (even though more than a third of ESOL learners in England are British citizens!) are especially pernicious.

I still feel extraordinarily privileged to be Co-Chair of NATECLA (even though I'm now nearly two-thirds of the way through my term), and it has continued to be a pleasure to work alongside Naeema Hann, the other trustees and staff team as we face an environment where it feels like the case for publicly-funded language learning is having to be remade from the bottom-up.

Visiting the Scottish Parliament as part of the Forward Thinking project

I'm also proud to be have been involved in two fantastic projects with the Holywell Trust: the Leadership Collective has brought together a diverse group of leaders and influencers across counties Derry, Tyrone and Donegal to tackle the historic regional imbalances that have afflicted this part of the island of Ireland, whilst Forward Thinking is working to foster informed conversations about Ireland's constitutional future and the inter-connectiveness of these islands. Both have been great opportunities to build connections and friendships, as well as to share insights. Highlights have included study visits to Dublin, Stormont and Edinburgh/Glasgow. I'm hugely looking forward to both projects/networks continuing into 2026 and especially travelling to Euskal Herria in April.

So in short it has been quite a frenetic and eventful year. I'm looking forward to a bit of chillout time over the next couple of weeks before inevitably having to find more productive things to do in the New Year.

If/however you're celebrating, do have a good one! 😀

Nollaig Shona agus 2026 faoi mhaise duit!🎄😀