Judging a book by its cover

Ms Sibsey taught me for two years during middle school – years four and seven. Having entered a the school ready to embark on a new academic structure, the motto she picked for her fresh-out-of-first-school class was ‘there is no such thing as can’t.’ And as her young but eager pupils embarked on subjects such as French and History for the first time, when we struggled she would refer back to these words of wisdom, encouraging us to try again and not give up.

In year seven as we prepared for secondary school, the motto she picked was ‘never judge a book by its cover.’ On reflection, this was a wise choice as she knew it would be key in the different surroundings, structure and new faces that we would find ourselves immersed in by the time we transitioned schools the following year.

I still find myself referring back to these sayings today – when things get difficult I try, adapt and try again.

The latter is a harder motto to maintain. Taking the saying literally, I’m the first to admit that when standing in the airport bookshop browsing the top 20 fiction list searching for my holiday read, my selection is based on cover and cover alone. From there I will select a couple, read the back and whittle it down to make my final choice.

In literal terms, it’s hard not to judge a book by its cover on a daily basis – from the newspaper I pick up based on its cover story, to the websites I visit.

You will notice this week that OT has revamped its online wrapper so to speak, going live with a new and improved homepage.

This fresh look (along with associated landing pages) is designed to act as a more informative one-stop-shop, serving you with all of our latest content at a glance from a single window.

It is also designed to show you more content within each of our specialised navigation areas – be it science and vision, industry, professional support or in practice – with ease.

At just a scroll you can see the latest CET exams, as well as job vacancies.

So have a look at our new and improved ‘cover’ and please do judge us so to speak. Let us know what you think by emailing [email protected]

Image credit: Getty