Into the early hours of Wednesday morning, I was sitting on a Cisco Live panel discussing technology and education, to a gathering from all over the globe. I say I but really it was my alter ego avatar, and the audience was likewise made up of avatars. It was a genuinely interesting discussion for me but a truly weird experience in some respects. I found myself oddly inattentive at intervals because besides the human figures, some more exotic than others in Cisco’s rather sumptuous auditorium, was a creature which looked like a cross between a five foot grey squirrel and a Racoon, which went by the name of Steve. I know this may sound hard to believe, but it was the first time I’ve ever lectured to a mansized rodent and I have to admit to being constantly distracted by Steve.

Wednesday in comparison, was dramatically down to earth. I was at Queen’s College Cambridge sitting in as a guest for one day of The Prince's Teaching Institute summer school for Maths and Science teachers. The Institute’s aim is to provide teachers with the kind of intellectual stimulus and excitement which almost certainly drew them into the profession in the first place, and it certainly provided that. Professor David Spielgelhalter’s presentation on the maths of risk and uncertainty was terrific. The way he applied maths to topics as diverse as the national lottery, The Premier League and Harold Shipman was amazingly informative, even to a literary critic!

Michael Gove was also speaking and his description of the current educational landscape was not just accurate, but amusing and provocative for anyone who has had to deal with the Department for Children Schools and Families. His interest in refocusing it on what it used to do, education, is fine by me and seemed to strike more than a chord or two with his audience. It was also a real pleasure to sit in on an educational event that wasn’t stifled by political correctness, and Bernice McCabe’s leadership of the afternoon panel discussion was just exemplary. It’s not a pretty sight when political posturing in the shape of John Coles from the TDA comes up against high tensile steel scholarship…but it is fun!