Author: Freddie Whittaker

Former Conservative Party researcher and policy chief Innes Taylor has been appointed as a special adviser at the Department for Education. Schools Week understands that Taylor has replaced Katharine Howell, Gavin Williamson’s former policy SpAd, who moved to Downing Street last month following the election. According to her LinkedIn, Taylor was head of policy at […]

The head of an academy trust with just one school saw his pay rise to at least £280,000 last year – despite already being one of the best-paid school bosses in the country. New accounts show Telford City Technology College Trust, which runs the Thomas Telford School in Shropshire, increased the salary of its highest […]

Gavin Williamson has vowed to send Ofsted inspectors into every ‘outstanding’-rated school in England within five years, as he confirmed an earlier pledge to lift their inspection exemption. The education secretary announced last September that the exemption, introduced by Michael Gove in 2012, would finally be abandoned. It followed repeated warnings from Ofsted that it […]

The exams regulator Ofqual is launching a competition to find out if exams can be marked by artificial intelligence. In a blog published today, the organisation said it wants to “understand whether there might be a role for AI in marking”, and is “particularly interested in whether using AI as a second marker or as […]

A policy adviser who worked on the government’s academies programme has admitted the schools “have not, at least yet, worked everywhere”, as she called on ministers to now focus on helping the “quiet majority” of parents. In an article for ConservativeHome today, Rachel Wolf, the founder of the New Schools Network and a former education […]

The government has claimed it remains committed to the Erasmus+ programme, despite most of its MPs having voted against a call to make future membership an “objective” of negotiations. Last night, Conservative MPs voted against an amendment to the European Union (withdrawal agreement) bill 2019-20 that would have made it an objective for the government […]

The government should force all pupils to learn a foreign language during key stage 4, a new report by the Higher Education Policy Institute has said. But pupils should be offered the chance to study vocational language qualifications instead of GCSEs, which should be recognised in the government’s EBacc performance measure alongside a wider range […]

Ministers are facing calls to publish data on all pupil moves into alternative provision, not just permanent exclusions, after analysis suggested “unexplained exits” could be hiding a wider issue. The Centre for Social Justice think tank, founded by the former Conservative leader Iain Duncan-Smith, found one in five local authorities recorded below-average permanent exclusions, but […]

Only around 1,200 schools will benefit from an improvement scheme intended by ministers to reach 2,000 institutions, the Department for Education has said. The government has been forced to scale back the first phase of its teaching school hub programme after a recruitment drive failed to attract enough high-quality bids. Teaching school hubs are the […]