Author: Billy Camden

The Department for Education has confirmed plans to withdraw funding for 163 qualifications that “overlap” with A-levels – including 76 BTECs. Ministers announced in March that they were considering withdrawing funding for “duplicate” qualifications, amid concerns some do not provide the same high-quality education as A-levels and other equivalents. Now the list of qualifications facing […]

The government is to reopen the option for sixth-form colleges to academise – widening its pool of potential sponsors. Nearly all sixth-form colleges have been able to convert to academy status since George Osborne, then chancellor, changed the rules in November 2015. Many took up the opportunity as it freed them from VAT bills. However, […]

An expanding academy trust is backing its chair despite the government referring his giant private training provider to the police following a second investigation. Peter Marples, a multi-millionaire businessman who co-founded training provider 3aaa in 2008, joined the Spencer Academies Trust in December 2015 as a trustee and became its chair in the 2016-17 academic […]

Sector leaders have urged Ofqual to reconsider its proposal to only allow T-level exams in the summer, as it means pupils would have to wait a whole year for retakes. One representative body warned the plan represents a “significant capacity risk for the whole exam system” while also being “overly burdensome” on pupils. Ofqual received […]

The education secretary has promised to clamp down on academy trusts which hand out lucrative contracts to family and friends, as well as excessive chief executive pay. From April 2019, all related-party transactions worth more than £20,000 will need to be declared to the Education and Skills Funding Agency for approval, Damian Hinds announced. Academy […]

A new campaign to tackle the “historic underrepresentation” as governors of ethnic minorities and younger people has been launched. ‘Everyone on Board’ has been created by the National Governance Association (NGA) and Inspiring Governance. It centres on a film which features six governors who explain how having volunteers from “different places who think different things” […]

Another struggling university technical college has denied distancing itself from the UTC brand, despite ditching its name and joining a multi-academy trust. The Harlow-based Sir Charles Kao UTC, a 14 to 19 vocational school, has changed its name to the BMAT STEM Academy after joining the Burnt Mill Academy Trust. The trust’s chief executive insisted […]

George Osborne, one of the driving forces behind university technical colleges, would consider scrapping the starting age of 14 if he were still in charge at the Treasury. The former chancellor told the parliamentary education committee that he had been examining early issues with the 14 to 19 vocational schools just before he left office […]