Expert Contributor | Schools Week

Ofsted is right about the knowledge-rich curriculum

The inspectorate doesn’t always get things right, says Mark Lehain, but its latest review is important Ofsted gets a lot of hate from teachers. It’s just so easy to blame it, and wish it wasn’t there, especially when school leaders cry “it’s what Ofsted wants” when introducing a new initiative. (Spoiler alert: it isn’t.) While I […]

How and when money matters in education

We shouldn’t just throw money at the system, says Luke Sibieta; we have to use it smartly. School funding was a source of much controversy during the recent general election campaign, and the Department for Education changed its spending plans soon afterwards, to enable a freeze in school spending per pupil in England between 2017 […]

Is pushing the cadets really in pupils’ best interests?

Cadet units are not a social panacea but a recruitment tool, says Emma Sangster An interim report praising the social mobility benefits of the cadet forces was published last week by the University of Northampton. It states that cadet units can improve attendance and educational achievement, supporting children in ways that schools cannot, and was […]

Will short inspections solve the Ofsted problem?

The watchdog’s new consultation on short inspections needed to be much further-reaching, says to Colin Richards Almost all schools and inspections are “-ish”. Only a few schools are clearly and uncontroversially ‘outstanding’, and only a few are undoubtedly ‘inadequate’. The vast majority are ‘good’-ish or ‘requiring improvement’-ish. Inspection is not a science but an art; […]

What did the party conferences say about education?

Not all party conferences are created equally. Niamh Sweeney was at all three main ones, and discusses the many differences in tone, from Labour’s upbeat event to the Conservatives’ funeral march I have just about survived three weeks on the political party bandwagon travelling to the party conferences. What did I learn? Education is still […]

Teacher training deregulation doesn’t solve the supply crisis

Once again, DfE meddling is making teacher training harder to pull off, says Prof David Spendlove The new initial teacher training allocations for 2018/19 are possibly the most significant confirmation that the government has lost all hope of developing an effective teacher-supply strategy. It also confirms that the sleight-of-hand allocations system has now ended in […]

Academisation makes it harder for local schools to work together

Changes to governance and organisation structures are starting to make it more challenging for schools to work collaboratively, says Anna Hennell James. In Ipswich, where I work, we have a cluster of local schools made up of two high schools and seven feeder primaries. Schools in the area have historically worked around school-based “pyramids”, which […]

Teaching apprenticeships will work if used wisely

There’s no reason why teacher apprenticeships can’t train new educators to the highest standards, says David Owen In 1947, my father, aged 17, left the Welsh market town of Carmarthen to start an engineering apprenticeship at Austin Motors in Longbridge, Birmingham. This was the start of a successful career in the car industry; he became […]