Laura McInerney | Schools Week

DfE u-turn over school fire sprinklers

The government are reportedly dropping plans to weaken fire safety standards in new schools. The Observer has learned that ministers are re-examining changes to school safety guidance and that sections weakening the language around safety requirements – including sprinklers – will be removed. It follows a front page investigation by Schools Week into the dramatic dip […]

Silence (from politicians) is golden

England’s government was unusual for not having really bothered about schools until about a hundred years after everyone else. While America and Germany, and just about everyone else in the developed western world, created a network of publicly funded schools in the 19th century, England dilly-dallied. It wasn’t until 1902 that a state board of […]

Jill Wood, headteacher, Little London Primary School

Last month, when the Standards and Testing Agency sent its exam papers for 11-year-olds to Little London primary school in Leeds, they went into a cupboard and stayed there. The pupils did not sit them. Instead they went on learning trips to Whitby and Ingleton Waterfalls. Now, their headteacher Jill Wood is facing investigation for […]

Justine Greening stays as education secretary in May reshuffle

Justine Greening will remain as education secretary in Theresa May’s new minority government. After a turbulent weekend during which the prime minister scrambled to put together a minority government, Greening has retained the position she was first appointed to in July last year. Greening held her seat by only 1,554 votes on Thursday but has made […]

‘Modest pilot’ for grammar schools, says influential Tory MP

Graham Brady, head of the influential 1922 committee of MPs, which Theresa May has been told she must now listen to, has said he believes the party will now look at a “modest” pilot of grammar schools. Over-turning the ban on selective schools was a key pledge in the Conservative manifesto, however the party’s failure […]

What happens to grammar schools in a minority Conservative government?

Can the Conservatives still push through their plan for new grammar schools now they are a minority government? Editor Laura McInerney explains what we know so far. The first rule of a government is that almost nothing will stop one implementing an outrageous policy if they really, really want to. I learned this back in 2010 when […]

Some images of injustice are hard to erase

Some images are hard to shake. Year 6s crying for fear they will “fail” their primary tests. Year 11s drawing on each others’ shirts as they disappear for study leave. Michael Gove making speeches about his knowledge of “Indian sex manuals” (it’s three years now and I’m still not over it). But, from this week’s […]

General Election 2017 | a closer look at election pledges

When I wrote my last general election supplement in 2015, I never thought I’d be doing another over two years. But that’s the world we live in now, so here we go again. Click here to download the supplement Education is once again a key issue on the campaign trail and in these 20 pages, […]

Mary Myatt, education consultant, speaker and author

There’s something about Mary Myatt that rings of a Hollywood star. Perhaps it’s her exquisite style. She is bedecked in beautiful materials and natty jewellery. Or perhaps it’s the rebellious glint in her eye, reminiscent of Katharine Hepburn who once said, “I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun” – a […]