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The view of the English Channel from the beach in Bognor Regis. One annual trip by the Year 9 girls of Fulham Cross is a bit like a right of passage. It is the last of the off-timetable days that they'll have in Key Stage 3 and it's a fitting end to their time in lower school. On Friday 13th May 2016 , three bus loads of hyperactive girls were dispatched in the direction of Bognor Regis once more. As with last year, the girls had a carousel of activities in the morning focusing on coastal defences, poetry and seaside history. When the afternoon came, following on from fish and chips, it was time to let them loose on the beach. Whilst they ran around like crazy, I of course decided it was Instagram time. The weather being markedly better than last year , I was able to take a few pictures that really brought out the blue-green of the sea and the yellows of the shingle.  On a day like this, a trip to Bognor Regis is well worth the sunburn.

Cover image © Penguin Books. I work in an English department at a secondary school so, naturally, my boss likes to buy all of his members of staff at book for Christmas. Having a little time to think about it, he chose the best thing possible for his cycling-obsessed English teacher; The Climb by Chris Froome. In a manner similar to other sports autobiographies, The Climb  is actually ghostwritten by the journalist of Lance Armstrong-hunting fame , David Walsh. The inimitable style of the Irish journalist is evident throughout the book, but it is easy to overlook this and believe that the words written are probably quite close to what Chris Froome would probably say. Although my Head of Department tells me that the decision was purely based on Froome's sporting merit, he was quietly smug about the fact that the majority of Chris Froome's childhood was actually spent in Kenya. The East Africa connection, for me, is obviously something that I find difficult to ignor