Be Kind, Be Courteous and Remember Your Manners

Last week, I spent a morning with staff from two nurseries talking about pedagogy. Kindness and what it means was central to the discussion on social and emotional wellbeing. It's quite the topic of the month with the Duchess of Cambridge saying it was more important to be kind and compassionate than to excel at sport or maths. Blimey, I bet that made a few politicians choke!

Mrs May talks about creating an inclusive society and the British Values requirements were introduced, albeit in a clumsy method, to provoke a conversation about democracy, rule of law, tolerance and mutual respect. They might have been better understood if we had used the words of kindness, compassion and courtesy which I believe are the underpinning behaviours.

In a city as crowded as London, we need to dig deep into our ability to be kind and courteous. Call me old fashioned but in a very mixed city we need some common rules to make life easy and reduce the dirty looks and kissing of teeth.

So confused are people as to what are the common rules of courtesy in this modern world, that 10,000 have written to Debrett's for guidance on social manners. Questions like: