Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

DfE faces £263k bonus bill for staff who helped set up mass testing scheme

The Department for Education faces a bill of up to £263,000 after asking staff to work over Christmas to prepare for its ill-fated schools mass testing programme. It was reported in December that the DfE had offered staff a “one-off £1,000 bonus” to help set up the programme over the break. But the mass testing […]

Heads demand transparency over £1 billion school rebuilding programme

Leaders want transparency from ministers over how they select rebuilding projects after it emerged two schools getting a share of £1 billion in capital funding had major building works recently. The 50 schools being rebuilt in the first phase of a ten-year, 500-school rebuilding programme, were announced last week. We don’t know where we stand […]

Report 11-plus results and link them to pupil data, say campaigners and academics

Academies have backed calls from campaigners for 11-plus entry test data to be shared with government and linked to pupil records so the fairness of the assessments can be evaluated. A letter from Comprehensive Future, backed by 24 well-known academics and educationalists, calls for the grammar school entry test data to be “subjected to the […]

‘We don’t want these volunteers’ – heads reject catch-up proposal and demand more cash

Headteachers have rejected suggestions that volunteers could supervise extra lessons and summer schools, warning that more cash and opportunities for teachers to take the time back are needed to make catch-up approaches work. Longer school days and an extension of the summer term are among suggestions put forward to help pupils catch up. Some have […]

Covid-19: Trainees can get qualified teacher status based on progress again this year

Trainee teachers unable to complete their courses because of Covid disruption will once again be able to achieve qualified teacher status based on their progress, new guidance has confirmed. The Department for Education has updated its guidance to state that initial teacher training providers will be able to recommend trainees for QTS if they are […]

Almost six in ten students improved GCSE grades in autumn exams

Almost 60 per cent of students who took autumn exams in GCSE subjects other than English and maths improved on their grades issued in the summer, new data shows. The Joint Council for Qualifications has published results for all remaining GCSE exams taken in the autumn. English language and maths results were published in January, […]

1 in 8 LA-maintained schools now in deficit as primaries’ financial health worsens

One in eight local authority-maintained schools were in deficit in the last financial year, up from less than one in ten the year before. Local authority school expenditure data, published by the Department for Education today, found the proportion of LA schools in deficit rose to 12 per cent in 2019-20, up from 9.9 per […]

Revealed: The 77 schools set to run new £65m ‘teaching school hubs’

Seventy-seven schools have been selected to run 81 new teaching school hubs across England, with £65 million in funding made available by government. It takes the total number of hubs to 87. Six initial hubs were announced in January last year with £1.1 million in initial funding, though this represented a scaling-back of the original […]

Gibb: ‘Challenge’ schools with low EBacc entries to address ‘unequal opportunities’

Schools with low EBacc entries must be “challenged” to address “unequal opportunities” in the system, Nick Gibb has said. The schools minister told MPs this morning that the government needed to “double down” on its reforms since 2010, as he warned some settings still had very low take-up of the EBacc suite of academic subjects. […]