Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

Councils failing on SEND provision risk takeover from government commissioners

Councils failing to improve their SEND provision after repeated warnings from inspectors risk being taken over by government commissioners. A Schools Week investigation has found the number of town halls given a second warning by inspectors over failing SEND services has almost doubled in less than six months. It is clear that addressing the pressure […]

Just 1 in 6 breakfast clubs in £26m scheme are actually new

Just 286 new breakfast clubs have been created under a £26 million government scheme, ministers have finally admitted. The government claimed last month that its national school breakfast programme had “created or improved” around 1,800 clubs in schools across the country. Time and time again the figures they use turn out to be a misleading […]

Head claims DfE’s new funding website doesn’t add up

A leading headteacher has criticised the government’s new school funding website for displaying figures for his school that are hundreds of thousands of pounds higher than the sum he will actually receive. The Department for Education launched a new online tool last week that allows anyone to find out how much money their local school […]

NEU advises members not to work as Ofsted inspectors

England’s largest teaching union has urged its members to stop working as Ofsted inspectors, as it backed a campaign by leading headteachers to challenge the current school accountability system. The National Education Union’s leadership council, which represents school leaders that are members of the union, has backed the #PauseOfsted campaign, launched at the Headteachers’ Roundtable […]

Schools to make teacher body cams permanent to blitz bad behaviour

Three secondary schools in England are piloting the use of body-worn cameras for teachers to tackle bad behaviour, with two already vowing to deploy them in the long term. Southfields Academy in south-west London, together with a further two unidentified schools, are deploying the surveillance technology amidst its growing use within the public sector. At […]

DfE extends academy trust capacity fund to rural maintained schools

Rural local authority-maintained schools will be given access to government expansion funding for the first time next year to encourage them to academise and form new chains. The Department for Education has added a fifth “strand” to its trust capacity fund, which launched last year. However, the amount of funding on offer – £17 million […]

Can’t afford the zoo? Then weed the allotment for activities week

A school plans to charge pupils to do weeding during lesson time as part of a range of options during activities week, whilst other pupils go abroad. At £1 for the day, ‘clearing the weeds and helping out on the allotment’ is at the bottom end of options set out by Sir William Romney’s School, […]

School league tables 2019: MAT progress scores improve, and 5 other findings

New figures published by the government today reveal how well the country’s multi-academy trusts are performing. The Department for Education’s MAT league tables rank chains based on their progress scores and other metrics recorded in last summer’s GCSEs. The data covers 102 trusts with three or more schools that have been with them for at […]

School league tables 2019: How did your academy trust perform?

The government has published its multi-academy trust league tables for 2019. The annual data release gives a ranking of trusts above a certain size by various measures, the most important being progress 8. Here are how the trusts fared last year. Well Above Average Star Academies 0.74 Dixons Academies Charitable Trust Ltd 0.72 The Cardinal […]