Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

Attendance data shows stark divides in Covid disruption across England

Some areas of England had more than one in ten secondary pupils absent because of potential contact with Covid in school towards the end of last term, new attendance data shows. The Department for Education has published attendance data by local authority area for the second half of the spring term. It comes after national […]

Ofsted to visit ‘sample’ of schools where sexual abuse has been reported

Ofsted’s review of sexual abuse in schools will see the watchdog visit a “sample of schools and colleges” where abuse and violence cases have been highlighted. The review itself will “not report on individual schools or cases”, but identification of “serious and widespread” failures in safeguarding arrangements will lead to an immediate full inspection. Ofsted […]

NEU conference votes to survey members on teacher pay strike action

The country’s largest education union will survey its members to “build towards a ballot for national strike action” if its pay demands are not met. Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced last year that school staff earning over £24,000 a year won’t receive a pay rise in 2021, while those earning below the threshold will receive a […]

Retain ‘teaching technologies’ and online parents’ evenings after Covid, say NEU members

New ways of working with technology in teaching developed over the past year and online parents’ evenings should be retained as we emerge from the pandemic, members of the country’s largest education union have said. The genie is out of the bottle so there is no reason to stick by the dead wood of a […]

Profile: Dr Robin Bevan, NEU president and grammar school head

Given newspaper headlines about militant union bosses plotting against ministers’ plans over the past year, it is perhaps surprising that the president of the generally anti-selection National Education Union is the headteacher of a boys’ grammar school. But Dr Robin Bevan, who has found himself having to help lead the country’s largest education union at […]

Starmer: ‘Supporting and empowering’ teachers ‘central’ to Labour’s education vision

The Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has told a union conference that “supporting and empowering” teachers to “deliver a world-class education” is “central” to Labour’s vision for education. However, the leader of the opposition did not expand on his party’s plans to back teachers. In a short video message to the NASUWT conference, Starmer said […]

Teachers ‘treated with contempt’ during Covid, says NASUWT leader Roach

Teachers have been “treated with contempt” by the government during the Covid-19 pandemic, the leader of NASUWT will say today, as he warns school staff must not take the fall for another exams fiasco. In his speech to the teaching union’s annual conference, general secretary Dr Patrick Roach will say that teachers have been “applauded […]

Improving teacher training ‘central’ to Covid recovery plan, says Williamson

Improving training for teachers throughout their careers will be “central” to the government’s Covid recovery plan, the education secretary has said, but he’s keeping quiet for now on how such improvements will be made. Gavin Williamson told the NASUWT teaching union conference this afternoon that the country needed “to go further, faster, to improve the […]