Author: Expert Contributor

Teachers face two types of demand that affect how they perceive their workload, says Ben White – which is why senior leaders must keep an eye on how staff feel about significant job changes When Justine Greening told a recent Department for Education event that excessive workload is mainly a product of inefficient working practices, […]

Many academy heads seem to have swapped local authority and government bureaucracy for strict trust controls, says Christopher Toye One of the main drivers used to persuade schools to opt into the academies programme was that it would set heads and teachers free from micro-managing bureaucrats and from central and local government diktats. Heads knew […]

The reality of budget cuts for many teaching assistants are proposed new contracts and a loss of up to £4,000 a year, says Megan Charlton Teaching assistants may be the canary in the mine as staff face the fall-out from shrinking school budgets. I was in contact recently with a teaching assistant (TA) in the […]

Those in charge of multi-academy trusts are not power-mad, says Alison Critchley – but government needs to be clearer about how trust governance should be structured If you work in an academy, do you know the “members” for your trust? And, most importantly, do you know what they are responsible for? No?Well, you’re not alone. […]

The messages that teachers and school leaders give students about the value of GCSEs does have an impact, says David Putwain – although it may not be the impact intended For the past decade I have been researching how students interpret and respond to messages about the value of GCSEs; what sense they make of […]

Most school issues – from curriculum to uniform changes – affect parents. But often they are the last people to know, says Emma Williams More schools are appealing to parents for donations to plug the funding gap. Headteachers and unions also have been lobbying parents to sign petitions, to join public meetings and to write […]