Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

MATs to take charge in ‘left-behind’ areas

The government will shift its focus to expanding “good” multi-academy trusts over the next 12 months to raise standards in left-behind areas. The Department for Education has advertised for two senior officers, one to lead its multi-academy trust capacity and school improvement unit, the second to head its mainstream free schools policy unit. MATs are […]

DfE spends £££s spinning Covid response

The government has spent tens of thousands of pounds in an attempt to present its response to the impact of coronavirus on education in a positive light. The Department for Education diverted an external PR agency promoting teaching vacancies to highlight its efforts to boost remote learning. It reallocated about 10 per cent of a […]

Dame Christine Ryan appointed chair of Ofsted

The former chief inspector of the Independent Schools Inspectorate has been appointed as chair of Ofsted. Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, announced today that Dame Christine Ryan will replace Professor Julius Weinberg in the role from August 1. Ryan was chief inspector and chief executive of the ISI, which is responsible for inspecting over 1,000 […]

Autumn 2020 exam dates confirmed

Dates for the autumn exam series have been confirmed by the Joint Council for Qualifications. The organisation, which represents exam boards AQA, OCR, Edexcel and WJEC, said today that AS and A-level exams will take place between October 5 and October 23, and GCSEs will go ahead between November 2 and November 23. The autumn […]

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, […]