Alix Robertson | Schools Week

Academy trust rapped over boss’ £23,000 ex-gratia fee

A government investigation has uncovered a swathe of financial and governance failings at a single academy trust – including “potential irregularity” over football tickets costing more than £4,000. The investigation into Westfield Academy, a mixed secondary school with a sixth form in Hertfordshire, also found a former finance boss had been paid a £22,600 honorarium […]

Government teacher vacancy website extended to London and south-central England

The government’s Teaching Jobs Vacancy Service is being rolled out in north-west London and south-central England, as part of the second phase of its introduction across the country. The free service, developed by the Department for Education, allows schools to publish and edit all full-time, part-time and job share vacancies themselves and is aimed at reducing […]

London academy trust given ‘maximum’ time to repay DfE debts

An academy trust has been given seven years to repay a government bail-out to shore up its budget shortfall – a timeframe experts have suggested is unprecedented. The Teddington School in Richmond-upon-Thames has been told by the Education and Skills Funding Agency that it has until August 2025 to repay the advance funding. The schedule […]

Teacher drop-outs rise in every subject, and 8 more workforce findings

The rate of teachers dropping out of the classroom increased for every single subject between 2015 and last year, new figures show. The Department for Education has published its latest analysis of data on teacher supply, retention and mobility. The analysis is published twice a year. Officials analysed the school workforce census data and initial teacher […]

St Neots Learning Partnership investigation to remain unpublished

The government has said it will not publish the results of an investigation into payments made by a failed Cambridgeshire academy trust to two private companies. The St Neots Learning Partnership was issued a financial notice to improve in August over ten-year “grant advances” it had made to the unnamed companies. The Education and Skills […]

Angela Rayner: Full text of Labour Conference 2018 speech

Conference, we’re at our best when we work together. That is what we did when we stopped the Tories in their tracks last year. Just look at their manifesto. If you can find a library they haven’t closed, you’ll find it under ‘political fiction’. And if you read now what they claimed they’d do then, […]

DfE seeks university language students to mentor year 9 pupils

The government is turning to university students in a bid to plug the falling number of GCSE pupils taking modern foreign languages. The Department for Education is offering a £100,000 contract for a company to run the ‘languages mentoring project’, part of a new push to encourage pupils to “think globally”. Under the scheme, modern […]

Mexborough school finally set to transfer to Delta in November

The last of the 21 schools abandoned by the Wakefield City Academies Trust 12 months ago has finally secured a date to transfer to a new sponsor. Mexborough Academy in South Yorkshire has proved the toughest WCAT school to rebroker due to its hefty private finance initiative (PFI) contract. Mexborough pays £1.6 million a year […]

Lord Nash’s Future Academies expands into Hertfordshire

The academy trust established by former academies minister Lord Nash is expanding outside the capital with the confirmed takeover of a secondary school and rumours it is also eyeing a primary in the region. Future Academies currently runs six schools, five of which are in London. The most recent addition, the Laureate Academy, opened its […]