Billy Camden | Schools Week

Career education under microscope as part of £1m evidence drive

Traditional careers programmes such as work experience and CV clinics will be trialled under a new £1 million pot to establish the most effective ways to deliver careers education. The fund is aimed at boosting future job prospects for disadvantaged pupils, and will be run under a partnership between the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), the […]

School leader development charities rebrand as Ambition School Leadership

Two education charities that provide training courses to develop future school leaders have merged and re-branded as Ambition School Leadership. Teaching Leaders and The Future Leaders Trust (TFLT) will now be run under one roof and led by James Toop, who was chief executive of Teaching Leaders. Toop said the new organisation aims to combine […]

Teach First should shun London to boost social mobility

Training provider Teach First should ditch London and instead place its top graduates into schools in the country’s ten lowest-performing local authorities, says the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission. The recommendation formed part of the commission’s fourth annual “state of the nation” report, published this week. It said the government’s current approach to school-led […]

Thanks? No thanks: Why only 1 teacher received a thank you letter from the education secretary

The government has written one thank-you letter to a retired teacher in the past four years, despite launching a campaign to reward their contribution. The Department for Education (DfE) unveiled a scheme in 2012 in which outgoing teachers who made an “exceptional contribution to education” could be nominated for a personal letter of thanks from […]

Social mobility commission: Force schools in worst local authorities into improvement programmes

The government should force schools in the country’s ten lowest-performing local authorities to take part in improvement programmes to ensure not a single school is rated “inadequate” by Ofsted by 2020, the social mobility commission has said. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission this morning published its fourth annual report – “The State of […]

EBacc leads to job insecurity for creative arts teachers, report warns

Teachers of creative arts and technical subjects are increasingly suffering from job insecurity with many facing redundancy as a result of the EBacc, a report has warned. Research by King’s College London for the National Union of Teachers has uncovered “serious problems” with the EBacc, which has been described by the union as an “attempt […]

Education honours committee wants three new members

The government is on the hunt for three people to join the board of the education honours committee. Members recommend who should receive honours, including damehoods and knighthoods, awarded biannually through the New Year’s list, announced on New Year’s Day, and the Queen’s Birthday list, announced in June. Candidates are put forward by the public, […]

Non-teachers should be hired to plug school leader shortage, says report

Schools should hire business people with no classroom experience for non-teaching executive roles to plug an expected shortage of up to 19,000 school leaders in England by 2022, says a new report. School Leadership Challenge: 2022, published today by the Future Leaders Trust, Teaching Leaders and Teach First, warns of growing school leadership recruitment problems […]

DfE doesn’t know which interventions are ‘value for money’, education secretary says

Justine Greening failed to mention grammar schools in her speech today, given as the schools minister was grilled on the issue in the Commons, but she revealed that the government doesn’t know which school interventions are “value for money”. The education secretary (pictured above) ignored the topic of grammar schools during her speech at an […]