Skip to content
31 May 2026

Author: Freddie Whittaker

Fewer than 1 in 5 teachers support calls for full school lockdowns

Fewer than one in five teachers want schools to close, but over two in five think rotas should be enacted, a new poll has found. A survey of over 8,000 school staff by Teacher Tapp found that just 17 per cent wanted schools to close to all except the children of keyworkers and vulnerable pupils […]

Schools to remain open during second national lockdown, PM confirms

Schools in England will remain open during the month-long national lockdown due to begin on Thursday, Boris Johnson has confirmed. The second national lockdown announced by the prime minister today will see pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops shut and socialising between households banned indoors in all parts of England from 12.01am on Thursday. But schools, […]

Multiple rule breaches found in Dunham Trust ESFA investigation

An academy trust that paid out tens of thousands of pounds to related parties, spent over £1,000 for staff to attend a summit in Jordan and paid an employee’s parking ticket broke academy funding rules, an investigation has found. The Education and Skills Funding Agency investigated the Dunham Trust last June after receiving “allegations around […]

Year 7 pupils ’22 months behind expectations’, finds writing study

New year 7 pupils are 22 months behind where they should be, an online assessment provider has said after testing the writing skills of over 112,000 children. But it is not clear whether the fall in attainment is as a result of “disruption due to COVID-19 alone”. No More Marking, a company that produces comparative […]

MAT to lose its four schools after ‘breakdown of trust’ among local governors

An academy trust will lose its four schools following a “breakdown in trust” between its central operation and local governors. The Learning Link Multi-Academy Trust, which runs the Dudley Wood, Netherbrook, Kates Hill and Sledmere primary schools in Dudley, was warned in July that if it didn’t address serious concerns about the way it was […]

School 21 founder to lead Careers and Enterprise Company

The founder and headteacher of School 21 in east London is the new chief executive of the Careers and Enterprise Company. Oli de Botton will officially take over at the head of the government-funded quango next year, replacing Claudia Harris, who left in July. The company said School 21 had “pioneered new ways of working […]

DfE and agencies’ performance-related bonus spend rises to over £6m

The Department for Education and its agencies paid out over £6 million in performance-related bonuses in 2018-19, an increase of almost 7 per cent on the previous year. Data on non-consolidated performance-related payments shows the DfE itself paid out £4,611,694 last year, up from £4,482,570 the previous year, while Ofsted paid out £1,181,764, up from […]

Coronavirus: Attendance rates vary hugely across England, finds EPI report

School attendance rates vary hugely across England, new research has found, prompting concerns that pupils in some parts of the country are more likely to be left behind. Analysis by the Education Policy Institute found that secondary school attendance rates in October ranged from 61 per cent in Knowsley in the north west to 94 […]