Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

No joint SEND inspections in the autumn, but Ofsted and CQC will still ‘visit’ areas

Joint area SEND inspections will not resume in the autumn term, Ofsted has announced. But the watchdog and the Care Quality Commission will conduct “a series of visits” to council areas to understand the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and support local areas to “respond effectively”. The inspectorate will also produce a new area SEND […]

Broadcast Oak Academy lessons on TV, says education committee chair

Recorded lessons such as those put together by the Oak National Academy should be shown on television, the chair of the Parliamentary education committee has said. Robert Halfon has written to culture secretary Oliver Dowden to ask what “incentives and funding could be put in place to encourage the creation and transmission of such content […]

Schools to get energy-efficiency grants from £1bn fund

Schools will be able to apply for grants from the government to make their buildings more energy-efficient under a new public sector decarbonisation scheme. The Treasury confirmed today that schools would be among the public sector organisations eligible for the scheme, which will attract £1 billion in funding over the next year. According to the […]

Seven things we learned from Ofqual’s 2019-20 annual report

The exams regulator Ofqual has published its annual report for the 2019-20 financial year. Here’s what we learned. 1. Sixteen disqualified over Pearson maths A-level leak The leak of Pearson’s Edexcel A-level maths paper is described by Ofqual as the “most significant security breach in 2019”. However, the paper had been targeted before, and […]

Attendance rates continue to rise as proportion of reopened schools flatlines

The proportion of schools that have reopened more widely has flatlined, but pupil attendance has continued to rise, new figures show. The Department for Education estimates that 88 per cent of primary schools and 75 per cent of secondary schools were open to at least one of the returning year groups as of last Thursday, […]

Primary art and D&T ‘missing’ from Oak’s initial 2020-21 lesson plans

Lessons in primary art, secondary relationships, sex and health education and design and technology do not feature in the Oak National Academy’s initial lesson plans for 2020-21. The online platform is due to publish plans for thousands of lessons today, but admitted it is still “missing some bits”, and that schools will have to wait until […]

SEND rules back to normal from September (but prepare for local relaxations)

The government will end nationwide relaxations over providing support for SEND pupils for September – but it will still consider easing requirements at local level. July marks the third month since the government began relaxing the duty of councils to provide support for SEND pupils during the coronavirus outbreak, to which they face a legal […]

DfE extends breakfast clubs pilot over summer – but there’s no extra money

The government’s national school breakfast programme is to be extended over the summer, but there’s no extra funding available. The Department for Education announced today that the 1,800 schools taking part in the programme will be helped to continue offering breakfasts over the summer break. Charities Family Action and Magic Breakfast, which co-ordinate the national […]

Questions over league tables, but no Ofsted until January

Schools are none-the-wiser about whether league tables will return next year as the government attempts a return to “business as usual” – but proper Ofsted inspections won’t resume until January. Although the government’s guidance on school reopening in September confirmed the suspension of league tables for the 2019-20 academic year, it did not do so […]