SEND

Councils splurge £18m on private special schools with repeated failures

Millions funnelled in just one year to settings that have failed independent school standards

Rosa Furneaux
Rosa Furneaux
Ofsted

Ofsted looks at renaming new ‘secure’ grade

Watchdog has been warned parents may not know where the word fits on its proposed new sliding scale

Lydia Chantler-Hicks
Lydia Chantler-Hicks
News

Oli de Botton appointed ‘expert adviser’ to Starmer on education

Former head will leave role at the Careers and Enterprise Company this month

Freddie Whittaker
Freddie Whittaker
Nursery

Revealed: The first 300 schools splitting £37m nursery cash

Ministers announced last June they would repurpose empty primary school classrooms to create 100,000 childcare places in 3,334 settings

Freddie Whittaker
Freddie Whittaker
School funding

Teacher union reports ‘surge’ in concerns about redundancies

NASUWT leader says he raised ‘serious concerns’ with government about funding in December

Freddie Whittaker
Freddie Whittaker
AI

Using AI to judge writing could ‘revolutionise’ assessment – trial

No More Marking says its trial found AI is ‘very good at judging student writing and is a viable…

Freddie Whittaker
Freddie Whittaker


Ofsted

Peerage for ex-Ofsted chief ‘inappropriate’ say heads

Concerns follow reports Amanda Spielman will be elevated to the House of Lords by the Conservatives

Lydia Chantler-Hicks
Lydia Chantler-Hicks
Schools

Struggling readers spotted by eye-tracking software trial

Schools point to ‘amazing’ results, but privacy campaigners raise concerns about use of data

Rhi Storer
Rhi Storer
Exams

The schools working hard for the ‘forgotten third’

Every year, about a third of GCSE pupils in England do not achieve a grade 4 in English and…

Lydia Chantler-Hicks
Lydia Chantler-Hicks
Oracy

Oracy chair reassured it ‘will be woven’ into curriculum review final report

Geoff Barton speaks of need to get oracy into ‘bloodstream of the profession’ before final review report

Rhi Storer
Rhi Storer
School funding

Schools warn of staff cuts as Reeves snubs sector

Leaders face having to make redundancies, curriculum squeezes and cuts to programmes supporting the poorest pupils

Jack Dyson
Jack Dyson
School funding

Cost-cutters’ savings ‘won’t compensate’ for inadequate funding

DfE advisers identified £400m of potential cuts last year, but although schools cut more, they could still only implement…

Jack Dyson
Jack Dyson