Author: Freddie Whittaker

Per-pupil funding is currently 1.9 per cent lower than it was in 2010 in real-terms, the government has admitted. New statistics published by the Department for Education lay bare the extent of real-terms cuts to school budgets over the past decade. In 2019-20, schools received on average £5,940 per pupil. The amount they received in […]

The government’s new teacher training application portal will replace UCAS’s system by 2021, ministers have announced. Nick Gibb, the schools minister, has today announced the launch of “DfE Apply”, an online government-run service that lets would-be trainee teachers and teacher training providers manage applications. Last year’s teacher recruitment and retention strategy pledged to “radically simplify […]

The exam board AQA breached rules relating to the re-marking of exams again last autumn – despite having just been handed the largest ever fine by Ofqual for the same offence across earlier years. But the company will not be handed an additional fine for the latest incidents, after being ordered to shell out more […]

Up to three quarters of universities and colleges appear to have ended the controversial practice of “conditional unconditional” offers, the University and College Admissions Service has said. Just over a quarter of school leavers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland received a “conditional unconditional” offer in 2019, up from just 20.9 per cent last year. […]

Downing Street will launch a new website to challenge the union’s School Cuts service, as a new law to force councils to pass on minimum funding levels to schools is brought before Parliament. The prime minister’s office said parents will be able to find out how much extra funding their local school is due to […]

Robert Halfon has been re-elected unopposed as the chair of the Parliamentary education committee. The Conservative MP’s re-election was confirmed in the House of Commons today by deputy speaker Eleanor Laing. Halfon, a former skills minister who served in the role from 2017 to 2019, said it was a “true honour” to have been re-elected. […]

One in 20 teachers report having a long-lasting mental health problem, but teaching isn’t the only profession hit by an increase in issues with wellbeing, a new study has found. Research by the UCL Institute of Education found around 5 per cent of teachers in England now say they suffer from a long-lasting mental health […]

Ofsted wants to introduce a new “quality of education and training” judgment for its inspections of initial teacher education partnerships, according to a consultation launched today. The watchdog also wants to switch from a two-stage to one-stage model of inspection, meaning partnerships will only be visited once for a four-day, on-site inspection, and only during […]

Schools should be banned from using “cruel and demeaning” isolation booths, an MP has said. Alex Sobel, the Labour MP for Leeds North West, told the Lose the Booths conference today that he supported demands for a “blanket ban” on the use of the controversial punishment, which he described as a human rights issue. I […]