Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

DfE advisers DIDN’T back keeping school building reports secret

The government’s excuse for keeping key school condition reports secret has been called into question after members of its own advisory group said they were not involved in the decision. The Department for Education has repeatedly refused to publish condition data collection reports for 50 schools in the first phase of the new school rebuilding […]

Most £184m NPQ scholarships limited to those in deprived schools

Scholarships for four of the six new national professional qualifications (NPQs) will be limited only to staff in the most deprived schools, the Department for Education has announced. The reformed NPQs for experienced teachers and school leaders will launch in the autumn term, as part of a range of changes to school staff training and […]

Unity Howard to stand down as New Schools Network director

The director of the New Schools Network Unity Howard is to step down this year, the charity has said. Howard, who has run the free schools support organisation since July 2019, will step down in September and be succeeded by Sophie Harrison-Byrne, currently the NSN’s director of programmes. The NSN has not said why Howard […]

Covid: Poorer pupils missed 30% more school days last autumn

Poorer pupils missed almost 30 per cent more school days due to Covid in the autumn than their better-off counterparts, new data shows. The Department for Education has updated absences data for the autumn term with statistics broken down by pupil characteristics. It shows pupils eligible for free school meals missed 8.5 per cent of […]

ESFA chief executive Eileen Milner to stand down

The chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) Eileen Milner is to stand down, Schools Week can reveal. The senior civil servant told staff today that the “time has come” for her to “go to a new challenge”. Milner was appointed in 2017 shortly after the organisation formed through the merger of […]

Williamson working to ‘relax Covid measures in schools’

The education secretary has said he is working with colleagues to “relax Covid measures in schools”, after new figures showed another steep rise in absences related to the virus. Gavin Williamson said he would be “looking closely” at the issues “around the need for ongoing isolation of bubbles”, and the outcomes of a trial of […]

‘Permissive’ national curriculum gives schools too much freedom, says Ofsted director

The national curriculum has become too “permissive”, and making more subjects compulsory at key stage 4 could help “lever change and improvement”, a senior Ofsted official has said. Sean Harford told the House of Lords youth unemployment committee yesterday that schools had responded “in a way that has been unhelpful” to decisions to stop requiring […]

Attendance: 1 in 20 pupils absent due to Covid as isolations soar

More than one in 20 pupils were off school last week due to Covid, with more than a quarter of a million children isolating due to potential contact in school, new data shows. The latest attendance survey data from the Department for Education shows an estimated 384,500 pupils, or 5.1 per cent of pupils, were […]

DfE behaviour consultation seeks views on mobile phone bans

Schools will be asked for information about their behaviour strategies, their use of so-called “managed moves”, and how they deal with mobile phones as part of a six-week consultation launching today. This is an operational decision for schools, not something that can be micromanaged from Westminster The call for evidence was pledged by education secretary […]