Author: Freddie Whittaker

Bonuses paid to men working at the Department for Education were on average 3.8 per cent larger than those paid to women last year. Although the overall gender pay gap at the department continues to decrease, new figures show that in 2019, men received larger bonuses than women for the first time since records began. […]

More evidence is needed to measure the impact of efforts by universities to widen participation, a new review has found. The Education Policy Institute concluded that there was “still a lack of available evidence on the impact of outreach interventions on actual enrolment rates”. Although disadvantaged pupils are now 61 per cent more likely to […]

Schools are falling foul of a legal duty to improve provision for disabled pupils, new research has warned. Disabled learners and their parents are “largely uninformed” about the existence of accessibility plans, despite a legal requirement for schools to create, regularly review and implement them, the study claimed. The Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE) and […]

More than half of teachers and school leaders don’t trust claims made by education technology companies, a new poll has revealed. A poll by Teacher Tapp commissioned by tech firm Sparx also shows that 79 per cent of teachers and leaders want to see clear proof that ed tech works in the classroom. The figures […]

New beefed-up evaluations of multi-academy trusts could see inspectors examine whether the curriculum is being narrowed across groups of schools, Ofsted has said. The watchdog’s annual report, released today, revealed its leaders are looking at a “methodology refresh” of “limited” trust summary evaluations to give a “a far richer picture” of how organisations run their […]

The Chartered College of Teaching’s flagship CTeach programme is to be delivered overseas after the professional body partnered with a group of schools in the United Arab Emirates. Schools Week can reveal that a partnership between the UAE Research Schools Network and BSAK Leadership and Learning Academy is one of 11 providers selected by the […]

Ofsted has now investigated more than 600 possible illegal schools, new figures show. In an update published this morning, the watchdog said its illegal schools taskforce had opened 618 investigations as of the end of last August, up from 521 in April 2019. The taskforce was assembled in 2016 to tackle growing concerns about the […]

The number of cases of SATs maladministration investigated by the government increased by 32 per cent in 2018, new figures show. The Standards and Testing Agency, which presides over tests at key stages 1 and 2, investigated 793 cases across both stages in 2018, up from 599 in 2017 and 524 in 2016. The large […]