Billy Camden | Schools Week

Free school sixth-form offer £500 recruitment ‘incentive’ to pupils

High-achieving students in Doncaster are being offered £500 in a bid to lure them to a new free school sixth-form. New College Pontefract applied to the Department for Education (DfE) last month to set up New College Doncaster, which would open in 2016. The website for the new sixth-form advertises an ‘academic scholarship’ in which: […]

Regional school commissioners begin to flex their muscles

A local authority’s choice of school sponsor has been vetoed, in a first sign of the government’s new regional schools commissioners (RSC) showing their muscle, Schools Week can reveal. Lincolnshire County Council had proposed that academy trust CfBT establish a new academy, but the headteacher board led by Jenny Bexon-Smith, commissioner for the east Midlands […]

College of Teaching to have three year ‘incubation’

It will take three years for a proposed College of Teaching to get up to full capacity after its initial launch, the team behind the plans has said. The group backing the plans has been given two consultants by Accenture to work on a business plan pro bono. They began work in July and will […]

Double-funded academy say there will be ‘no difficulties’ in repaying

A free school in south London that opened with 17 pupils has said it will have no problem paying back overfunding, after it emerged that it was being funded for almost double the number of pupils it had on roll. In September, Schools Week reported that Trinity Academy in Brixton had 17 pupils, rather than the […]

No link left behind for edu watchdogs’ website move

Exam regulators Ofqual and school inspectors Ofsted, both independent bodies, are to move their information and services to GOV.UK, the single government website. Last month Ofqual announced its intention to move after digital manager Philip McAllister posted a letter to visitors of their existing website, saying the reason for the move was to “put your […]

Unions slam Osborne for classifying teacher pensions as ‘welfare’ spending

Teacher pension costs are being classed as ‘welfare’ in tax advice statements being sent out by the government, and teaching unions have reacted angrily. The Treasury has said that around 24 million people will receive statements breaking down how tax collected from their pay last year is spent, in a move hailed as a “revolution […]

Two funding bodies but no pay rise for Lauener

The government is to save a £142,000 chief executive salary by also giving the boss of the schools funding body oversight for adult further education. Peter Lauener, chief executive of the Education Funding Agency (EFA), this week took up the role of chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency, without a pay rise. The SFA […]

In a flash: Priory Witham students show off their love of books

A Lincoln academy turned its students into a live flash mob to mark the opening of a new £8,000 library last week. The opening ceremony of the new reading space at Priory Witham Academy saw all 1,000 primary and secondary students file outside the school with their favourite book, assembling on the playing field within marked […]

Connor takes the top prize

One lucky pupil from a Liverpool school has been picked out of more than 2,000 children as the winner of a national summer reading challenge. The National Literacy Trust teamed up with publisher Orchard Books to give away books to children across the country who entered the challenge: reading for more than 11 hours, at […]