Expert Contributor | Schools Week

No school should be forced to rely on Amazon wishlists

Most schools are now too poor to buy all the necessary learning resources, which Patrick Hayes believes is a shocking state of affairs Schools are increasingly being forced to use Amazon wishlists to persuade parents to stump up the cash for much-needed classroom resources, as was reported in last week’s Schools Week. The news comes […]

Banning the hijab in schools is a liberal act

Banning the hijab is actually a liberal act, suggests Dr Alka Sehgal Cuthbert I consider myself a liberal. For instance, I publically supported Ofsted when it backed the head of a primary school in east London who wanted to ban the hijab. On the other hand, I can’t support the Danish government’s decision to join […]

How to close the vocabulary gap in the classroom

Building children’s vocabularies opens doors to harder, more rewarding curriculums and lifelong learning, writes Alex Quigley, but it needs careful focus We know that talk is a well-established solution for developing children’s vocabulary. The daily lives of the “word rich” are characterised by lots of talk around the dinner table, alongside debate and discussion in […]

Schools need more protection against vexatious complaints

There may not be many of them, but one or two unreasonable parents can make running a school very tough indeed, writes Russell Holland As an education lawyer, I see it as my job to help schools get on with the most important job, teaching children, by making legal issues as simple as possible to […]

The OECD’s PISA gender reporting reinforces unhelpful stereotypes

The OECD’s analysis of the gender gaps in education simply regurgitates centuries of educational bias, and it’s wrong, writes Markus Meier The PISA studies are received by the scientific community and the general public alike as a kind of educational verdict, distributing bragging and blaming rights. There has been a lot of criticism, sure, but […]

Are police officers in schools a force for good?

Hundreds of police officers are now based in schools but we don’t know enough about the work they do, or the impact their presence has on pupils, insists Dr Amanda Henshall The presence of officers in schools is part of a massive package of surveillance measures, including more CCTV in schools, that make children and […]

What are the routes to opening new VA schools?

To open a new school three things are needed: a proposer, permission, and capital funding, explains Simon Foulkes The government announced this month that it “will develop a scheme to help create new voluntary-aided (VA) schools for faith and other providers to meet local demand, supported by capital funding. The VA route already allows for […]

Without a foundation in fact, oracy isn’t sufficient

Of course pupils need to learn to express themselves, says John Blake, but the fact is that without a firm basis in knowledge, their rhetoric will fall flat There are not many people who think literacy and numeracy are inessential objectives of our children’s education, even if there is far less agreement about how best […]

You don’t need facts to win a debate, you need confidence

Knowledge isn’t enough to navigate the world: children need to be taught the power of their own voice, argues Anthony David It’s not often that Parliament is silenced by a 15-year-old who is struggling not to cry as they try to convey the importance of being able to speak out, but that is what happened […]