Author: Freddie Whittaker

The Labour Party’s official manifesto for the 2019 general election has officially been launched this morning in Birmingham. Besides the party’s school spending plans and a few other nuggets, the document is mostly made up of pledges either made in 2017 or announced since. Here’s what’s in there for schools.   Schools policies in the […]

The proportion of A-level and AS-level entries made late by schools has dropped to the lowest level in at least a decade. Ofqual statistics released today show just 2 per cent of A and AS-level entries were made late in 2018-19, down from 2.7 per cent in 2017-18 and 2.3 per cent in 2016-17. Apart […]

The Liberal Democrats will halve the amount schools pay towards high needs provision, abolish the EBacc and force all headteachers to adopt gender-neutral school uniform policies, the party has pledged in its manifesto. Currently, schools have to pay the first £6,000 of the cost of additional support for pupils with education, health and care plans […]

The Liberal Democrats will pledge to increase teacher numbers in English schools by 20,000 over the next five years. In its manifesto, to be launched tomorrow, the party will also promise to increase the schools budget by £10 billion by 2024-25. A further £7 billion would be allocated for new school buildings and maintenance over […]

The Green Party has pledged to increase the schools budget by at least £4 billion if it wins the election, escalating an education bidding war in the run-up to December’s election. Party co-leaders Sian Berry and Jonathan Bartley launched their manifesto at an event in London today. The document reaffirms the party’s commitment to scrapping […]

Schools that were part of the failed Wakefield City Academies Trust won’t get back any of the money that was transferred to the chain before its collapsed, the government has confirmed. According to the Guardian, Vicky Beer, the regional schools commissioner for Lancashire and West Yorkshire, has written to MPs confirming the trust is in […]

The number of school attendance orders issued to home-educated pupils by councils across England has soared, as pressure mounts on politicians to approve plans for compulsory registration of home-schooled children. A survey by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services revealed a 171 per cent increase in the number of school attendance orders issued in […]

Failing schools need time to turn around, despite the Department for Education’s expectation of “quick” results, says a former regional schools commissioner. Jennifer Bexon-Smith said “broken” secondary schools needed a “minimum” of five years for improvement. I’ve worked at the DfE, expectations are much quicker than that. But realistically I do think some of these […]