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    Lucy Kellaway

    Former Associate Editor and Work & Career Columnist

    Lucy Kellaway was an Associate Editor and management columnist of the FT. For 15 years her weekly Monday column poked fun at management fads and jargon and celebrated the ups and downs of office life.

    She is the co-founder of the charity Now Teach.

    Email Lucy Kellaway

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    • Saturday, 8 July, 2023
      UK schools
      Starmer is right to speak up for the dreadfully named ‘oracy’

      This word may be reminiscent of dentistry but speaking skills should be central to education, as Labour’s leader argues

      Students raise their hands as a teacher writes on a whiteboard
    • Friday, 28 April, 2023
      Life & Arts
      Dame Edna was my nanny

      Lucy Kellaway recalls the years Barry Humphries lived with her family and left her unmoved by his prototype alter ego

      People sit in the garden
    • Saturday, 22 April, 2023
      UK schools
      Forcing maths on teenagers is cruel and counterproductive

      Rishi Sunak would be better focusing on primary schools than making students study the subject to age 18

      A maths class in a Cardiff school
    • Friday, 24 March, 2023
      UK schools
      Sweep away Ofsted grading and allow teachers to teach

      On joining the profession I was taught to fear the inspector’s call — it destroys morale and inhibits recruitment to fill shortages

      Protesters outside a school in Newbury, Berkshire, after the death of the primary head Ruth Perry
    • Friday, 6 January, 2023
      Claer Barrett
      Why do Brits hate maths? Go figure

      Poor numeracy is a problem, but Rishi Sunak needs to show his workings for compulsory maths until age 18

      A secondary school pupil in a maths lesson
    • Friday, 23 December, 2022
      The Weekend Essay
      Lucy Kellaway’s lessons on life from moving to the North East

      Six months after relocating from London, the former FT columnist has a new perspective on what really matters

    • Friday, 9 September, 2022
      Life & Arts
      What Esther Perel taught me about starting anew

      I’m teaching students I don’t know in an unfamiliar school. What could possibly go wrong?

    • Friday, 2 September, 2022
      House & Home
      Is there life after London? Why Lucy Kellaway left after 63 years

      What possessed Lucy Kellaway, a self-confessed ‘caricature Londoner’, to move to northern England?

    • Friday, 5 August, 2022
      The Weekend Essay
      The anxious generation — what’s bothering Britain’s schoolchildren?

      As her students await their A-level results, Lucy Kellaway reports on what schools are doing to tackle a mental health crisis

    • Tuesday, 8 March, 2022
      Career change
      Four big lessons for getting the most out of a career change

      Quitting journalism to start again as a 50-something teacher taught the value of timing and being radical

      Lucy Kellaway in front of a maths classroom
    • Wednesday, 19 January, 2022
      Travel
      Can Cliveden’s CBD spa cure insomniac Lucy Kellaway?

      A new ‘sleep experience’ at the historic English hotel promises to ‘re-energize and rejuvenate’ guests

    • Friday, 14 January, 2022
      The Weekend Essay
      Why is it still considered OK to be ageist?

      Lucy Kellaway on an unspoken prejudice — and a puzzling discrimination against our future selves

    • Friday, 19 November, 2021
      FT Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign
      Crypto in the classroom: Lucy Kellaway on the kids’ new craze

      In an age when trading apps have made investment cool, understanding money is more important than ever for school children

    • Tuesday, 14 September, 2021
      FT Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign4 min
      How to achieve financial literacy

      Patrick Jenkins, FT deputy editor, introduces the mission of the FT's Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign (Flic)

    • Monday, 9 August, 2021
      Managing yourself
      Necessary but corrosive: Lucy Kellaway on ambition

      The former FT journalist was brought up to despise aspiration. Now she considers it a good thing, but it must be proportionate

    • Friday, 30 July, 2021
      Life & Arts
      The summer that changed my life

      From Hawaii to the Himalayas, Simon Schama, Lucy Kellaway and other FT writers on the holidays that stayed with them 

      Images by photographer Iris Humm
    • Wednesday, 7 July, 2021
      ReviewBiography and memoir
      Re-educated by Lucy Kellaway — an absorbing and delightful tale

      The former FT journalist writes with warmth and wit, turning her teaching experience into a frank discussion about the role of schools

    • Friday, 2 July, 2021
      The Weekend Essay
      Can you change yourself? Lucy Kellaway on the reality of reinvention

      As the pandemic prompts millions to reconsider their life choices, FT columnist-turned-teacher offers the benefit of her experience

    • Wednesday, 10 March, 2021
      ReviewFT Books Essay
      Beyond Order, by Jordan Peterson — more orders from chaos

      The culture warrior and YouTube philosopher comes across as an earnest preacher in his life-coaching sequel

    • Friday, 5 March, 2021
      The Weekend Essay
      Lucy Kellaway: what is the point of schools?

      After a year of Covid disruption, it is time to rethink our attitude to education

    • Friday, 19 February, 2021
      Management
      Telling staff to ‘buck up’ breaks management’s golden rule

      Reprimanding miserable employees during lockdown is bound to backfire

      Ingram Pinn illustration of Lucy Kellaway column ‘Telling staff to ‘buck up’ breaks management’s golden rule’
    • Friday, 18 September, 2020
      The best of the FT Weekend Festival 202052 sec
      James Suzman: 'In the 20th century, the office became the village'

      The death of the office - and our home-working future - with Lucy Kellaway, Andrew Hill and James Suzman

    • Friday, 11 September, 2020
      Life & Arts
      Lucy Kellaway heads back to school — anxiously

      After a sleepless night, a return to her classroom in an east London comprehensive brings reasons for concern — and delight

    • Friday, 10 July, 2020
      Life & Arts
      Lucy Kellaway: what my students have taught me about race

      In an east London classroom, the realities of racism come sharply into focus

    • Friday, 15 May, 2020
      Life & Arts
      Lucy Kellaway: We will miss the office if it dies

      As an FT columnist she skewered office culture — but, she argues, it is something to treasure

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