Latest news with #Trailfinders
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Trailfinders sign Gallagher from Leicester
Trailfinders Women have signed Canada international Claire Gallagher from Leicester Tigers. The full-back has followed Meg Jones and Francesca McGhie to the London club. Gallagher won her first international cap against New Zealand in 2023. Advertisement "I first became interested in joining Trailfinders after having played against them the past two seasons and liking their playing style and freedom on the pitch," Gallagher told the club website. "What reassured my decision was hearing from my Canadian teammates how awesome the team culture is and the buy-in from the group. I'm looking forward to playing my part."
BBC News
03-06-2025
- General
- BBC News
Trailfinders sign Gallagher from Leicester
Trailfinders Women have signed Canada international Claire Gallagher from Leicester full-back has followed Meg Jones and Francesca McGhie to the London won her first international cap against New Zealand in 2023."I first became interested in joining Trailfinders after having played against them the past two seasons and liking their playing style and freedom on the pitch," Gallagher told the club website, external. "What reassured my decision was hearing from my Canadian teammates how awesome the team culture is and the buy-in from the group. I'm looking forward to playing my part."
Times
03-05-2025
- Times
This charming capital is a perfect — and affordable — city break
Summer will have well and truly arrived in Europe by the end of June. But while the crowds flock to the Med's beaches, you can avoid peak prices by looking elsewhere. Slovenia's small but charming capital, Ljubljana, is often overlooked but makes the perfect summer city break, with fantastic museums, fairytale architecture and pavement cafés on the banks of the River Ljubljanica. Plus, with temperatures in the mid to high twenties, June is the best time to take advantage of the city's forest hiking trails, open-air markets and street performances that form part of the annual Ljubljana Festival (June 20 to September 12). Stay just outside the cobbled old town for the best prices. Three nights' B&B at Austria Trend Hotel Ljubljana, including flights from Gatwick with easyJet and an entrance ticket for Ljubljana Castle costs £419pp with Trailfinders, departing on June 24. An under-seat cabin bag is included, but you can add a 23kg suitcase for an extra £83pp return. Taxis from the airport cost about £30, but it's easy to hop on the No 28 bus to Ruski car station, a 15-minute walk from the hotel (£3, buy in cash on board; The modern four-star hotel is three miles north of the capital's centre, but is a five-minute walk to Posta, where the No 6 or 8 bus will whisk you to the old town for £1. A taxi costs about £7. Rooms are sleek and spacious with clean lines, large, white-tiled bathrooms and punchy mustard yellow and olive-green accents. Downstairs there's a restaurant serving an extensive buffet breakfast, including regional specialities such as strudels, and an evening à la carte menu. A lounge is open all day for burgers and craft beer from Slovenian breweries. There's also an impressive spa with a huge gym and sauna circuit featuring Turkish, Finnish and infrared options. Get your bearings in the old town with a free twice-daily walking tour (11am and 3pm; then visit the 16th-century hilltop Ljubljana Castle for views over the rooftops and mountains beyond. Your package includes an entrance ticket so you will only need to pay for the glass-walled funicular — or you can hike the signed wooded path instead (funicular £5 return; Afterwards potter round the old town's pedestrianised cobbled streets, taking in the 19th-century wooden shopfronts and courtyards of the old market square, Stari trg. Peek in the Cathedral of St Nicholas to marvel at its extravagant pink marble interior (free) then visit Plecnik House, the former home of Slovenia's most celebrated architect (£8; Make the most of the June sunshine by picking up picnic supplies from the Central Market (Mon to Sat) then head to the sprawling Tivoli Park with its lawns and woodlands. Forested hiking trails leading to the Roznik and Siska hills are accessed from the western side of the park, or see more from the water by joining a stand-up paddleboard tour on the river, right through the heart of the city (£50; Celebrate afterwards with a pint of local beer at the 160-year-old brewery Union (drinks from £3; • This spectacular tiny country is returning to its glory days • Return Gatwick-Ljubljana flights, departing on June 24• Ljubljana Castle entrance ticket• Three nights' B&B at Austria Trend Hotel Ljubljana ( Feeling flush? If you're inspired by Ljubljana but have more to spend, try one of these … If you would rather stay within walking distance of the main sights, Antiq Palace Hotel and Spais a good option. The 16th-century former diplomatic residence on one of the city's most prestigious streets has 16 rooms, including a two-bedroom apartment. Original details, including 300-year-old frescoes, glossy wooden floors, full-length windows and 4m ceilings, are complemented with shades of rich cream and oatmeal, carved wooden beds and chandeliers. There's a garden and inner courtyard for pre-dinner drinks, a lounge with a reading area and a restaurant and wine cellar. The river is a five-minute walk. Details Three nights' B&B from £697pp, including flights ( • Read our full guide to Slovenia Grand Hotel Union Eurostars is the city's most celebrated hotel and has welcomed everyone from Queen Elizabeth II to the Dalai Lama. A five-minute stroll from the main square, Preserenov trg, the 1905 art nouveau building has bags of historical charm, including a dramatic sweeping staircase, floor to ceiling windows and gorgeous chestnut parquet floors. Rooms have smart grey marble bathrooms and velvet furnishings in deep burgundy. Elsewhere, there's a small shopping arcade, a spa, a rooftop pool with castle views and a renowned café that has been serving Slovenian dishes and local wine to the city's high society for more than 100 years. Details Three nights' B&B from £1,275pp, including flights and a day trip to Miramare Castle in Italy (
BBC News
23-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
England vice captain Jones joins Trailfinders
England vice-captain Megan Jones has signed for Trailfinders Women for the 2025-26 Premiership Women's Rugby season from Leicester who can play as centre and fly-half, has spent the past two seasons with the Tigers and has also previously represented Bristol Bears and 28-year-old has been capped 24 times by the Red Roses and has scored three tries in three games during the Six Nations as England close in on another Grand Slam said she was looking forward to "challenging" herself in a new environment at the Ealing-based club."The club has that community feel which I love, and there's a passion and ambition to push on that really excites me. I really like the way the team play, and I can't wait to join up with the group and get going," Jones said. Cardiff-born Jones has also represented Great Britain in rugby sevens, winning bronze at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and competing at the Tokyo and Paris Olympics. She made her England debut in 2015 as an 18-year-old, and before the start of this spring's Six Nations, she was named vice captain of the squad by head coach John Mitchell."Megan is a world-class player with a remarkable rugby pedigree," said Trailfinders head coach Barney Maddison. "Her experience both at the domestic and international levels will bring invaluable leadership to our squad."Trailfinders finished seventh in the PWR table last season.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why there are no male teachers
Aidan Phipps started his working life as a sales representative, working for the travel company Trailfinders. Although he enjoyed his work, after 15 years in the job, he was starting to find it soul-destroying. On the suggestion of a friend, and after 10 days of work experience, he decided to retrain as a primary school teacher. Now 52, having worked in a Lewisham primary and currently settled at an autism specialist school near Sevenoaks, Kent, Phipps's passion for his job is unequivocal. 'It's phenomenally hard work,' he says, 'but it's also extremely rewarding. The harder your class is at the beginning of the year, the more satisfied you'll be by the end. You have to put an awful lot into it to get that result, but do it well and there's an intrinsic reward.' And, he adds, 'when you see them [the children] make progress and you've made a contribution to helping them, it's phenomenally rewarding.' Phipps could be the poster boy for Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, who, in the wake of the recent public debate surrounding Netflix's hit show Adolescence, declared that Britain needs more male teachers so that boys have better role models. 'Schools can't solve these problems alone, and responsibility starts at home with parents,' Phillipson acknowledged. 'But only one in four of the teachers in our schools are men… I want more male teachers – teaching, guiding, leading the boys in their classrooms.' Phillipson is not wrong that teaching is a female-dominated occupation – not just in the UK, but across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. As Phillipson pointed out, since 2010, the number of teachers in British schools has increased by 28,000, but just 533 of these are men. In 2023/24, only 30 per cent of new entrants to postgraduate teacher training (PGCE) courses were male. Although this did represent a two-percentage-point increase from the previous year, the overall trajectory has been downwards: a 2020 Education Policy Institute Report found that the proportion of men in secondary schools had fallen year-on-year since 2010 to 37.1 per cent, and stagnated in primary schools. Women make up 76 per cent of school teachers, and just one in seven teachers in nursery and primary schools today are men. Nearly a third of primary schools do not have a single male classroom teacher, according to a report published by Warwick Business School in 2023. So why don't more men want to go into teaching? And would recruiting them really make such a difference? Oliver Stevens trained as a teacher more than a decade ago, after working as a teaching assistant at Scarcroft Primary School in York, where he works today. 'Both of my parents were teachers, so I was heavily influenced by that,' he says. But, he says, more generally, 'there is a huge pastoral, caring element to the teaching profession, and I think that this puts some men off. Particularly pre-30 years old, and pre-children, many men I know don't consider themselves to have that caring side.' Phipps agrees. 'I'd never considered in my 20s or 30s becoming a primary school teacher. I thought of primary school teachers as being like Miss Honey or Miss Trunchbull [from the Roald Dahl story Matilda], whereas I'm quite a blokey bloke. I think a lot of men see it as something they couldn't do and wouldn't want to do.' Sir Anthony Seldon, the former headmaster of Wellington College, in Berkshire, and of private Epsom College, in Surrey, says, 'There is a lack of positive role models.' He points out that, in real life and the media, teaching is not made to appear 'sexy or attractive – and it is'. Mark Lehain, the executive head teacher at the Wootton Academy Trust, Bedfordshire, adds, 'Status is a big thing, and teaching is not a high-status profession for a lot of people.' He suggests that men may be more concerned with status in a job than women. Meanwhile, stereotypical perceptions – that men who want to go into teaching small children in particular must be perverted weirdos – have permeated through society to the extent that even fictional inspirational teachers such as Robin Williams's Mr Keating in Dead Poets Society, or Richard Griffiths's Hector in The History Boys, are now viewed less as stimulating pedagogues and more as slightly odd anomalies. We might grudgingly be able to get our heads around an athletic male sports teacher (PE teachers are disproportionately male) or a male head, but why on earth, we think, would a bloke want to wrestle with recalcitrant four-year-olds? Of course, it also comes down to cold, hard cash. Teacher salaries in England have seen a 13 per cent real terms decline since 2010, and although the headline figure is higher, starting salaries – which now stand at £31,650 – have seen a 5 per cent real-terms reduction. The Government's 2.8 per cent pay rise proposal remains unfunded. 'It doesn't pay very well for the amount of work that you do,' says Phipps. 'You could probably earn an awful lot more money working much less in another profession.' Although primary and secondary starting teacher salaries are the same, not only do there tend to be more opportunities to advance the career ladder at secondary level, but senior leadership positions at this level pay more too. Given that the statistics show men are more likely than women to be in leadership positions in education, this only contributes further to male teachers being pulled out of the classroom (or taking themselves out) into management roles. 'Men are more likely to consider finances when deciding to go into, or leave, a profession,' said Joshua Fullard, an assistant professor of behavioural science at Warwick Business School, who authored the report on teacher gender diversity. 'This explains why the persistent decline in teacher's pay has affected male teacher numbers more than their female counterparts.' Fuller's report estimated that three in 10 teachers would be financially better off in another career. 'Whatever you do, it's going to come back to money,' agrees Matthew Jessop, the head teacher at Crosthwaite Church of England Primary School, near Kendal in Cumbria. The problem, he says, is not just trying to recruit more men to work in his school, but in recruiting full stop. 'Education, in real terms, has had its budgets slashed for the past 15 years; recruitment and retention have been at crisis levels for years now.' Teacher starting salaries in England are 29 per cent lower than in Scotland for a start, Jessop points out. 'The bigger question should be why do more people – men and women – not want to go into teaching?' And this, perhaps, is the real nub of the issue, because actually, research suggests that the impact of male teachers on boys and young men is not as powerful as one might assume. A 2010 study of nearly 5,000 grade-four students in Hong Kong found no evidence that boys' reading improved when taught by men. In 2008, a research paper published in the British Educational Research Journal using information from 413 separate classes for 11-year-olds in England found 'little or no evidence' to support the idea that boys will be more motivated by male than female teachers in secondary maths, science and English classes. Furthermore, Australian researchers in 2007 found that there was little evidence to suggest boys see male teachers as father figures anyway; the academics found that between the ages of 10 and 16, a mere 2.4 per cent identified a teacher as a role model. In 2007, Prof Becky Francis concluded that expecting male teachers to teach or relate to pupils in predictable or uniform ways simply on the basis of their 'maleness' was 'absurd'. Prof Francis was last year appointed to lead the Government's review of curriculum and assessment. 'While the idea of male teachers as role models is an alluring one, the plan is deeply flawed,' wrote Mark Roberts, an English teacher and director of research at Carrickfergus Grammar School, in a piece for the Higher Education Policy Institute earlier this month. 'Even if we can persuade lots of men to take up the call to arms to rescue our boys, there's little evidence to suggest that the plan will work.' Full disclosure: Oliver Stevens is my youngest son's class teacher, and I was delighted to learn that for the second year in a row at primary school my eight-year-old would have a male teacher. But researching this piece made me pause to consider why. It's true that Stevens this year and my son's teacher last year have both been excellent. But their excellence is not because they're men; it's because they're good teachers. It's been the same for all three of my sons throughout their school careers: when I ask them about their best teachers, they cite a mixture of men and women. 'Yes, I have strict boundaries, and the children have consistency and I have high expectations of them, but so do all my other colleagues,' says Phipps. 'It helps that I am a male voice in a predominantly female environment, because I'm a man with two kids who likes football – that gives me a way in. But that's not the be-all and end-all; that's just me. 'Actually, what the kids need is role models, consistency, compassion and understanding. I don't think it matters if you're a man or a woman.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
