This is a short, first burst of writing, exploring ‘Medium’ as a blogging platform.

This was the fifth Sunday Times Wellington College Festival of Education, and it felt as if it had finally become an established part of the educational landscape. There are lots of reasons for this: we had a great line-up of speakers, our sponsors played a very active role in the whole programme, there was a big growth in numbers, and, no doubt, the weather helped as well. But there was something more at work: education feels at the heart of a national debate about many things, ranging from the economy to British identity, and to some extent this is because the current Secretary of State has instigated a profound reassessment of what we want from our schools. We started the Festival to cut through the (often) negative and divisive debates surrounding education; we wanted to bring together a diverse range of contributors who could add their own ideas to this national (and international) conversation. This year’s Festival felt like we had achieved this. Hopefully, on Twitter (and Medium) we can continue the debate.