Author: Freddie Whittaker

David Earnshaw, the chair of the Outwood Grange Academies Trust, will chair a new academy trust set up to take on schools shunned by other sponsors, Schools Week can reveal. Earlier this month, Gavin Williamson, the new education secretary, announced plans to pilot a specialist academy trust to take on those institutions often dubbed “schools […]

The national reference test will take place in selected schools between February 24 and March 6 next year, Ofqual has announced. The National Foundation for Educational Research, which administers the English and maths test for year 11 pupils, is in the process of contacting the schools selected to take part next year. At each school, […]

GCSE English language should be replaced with a “passport in English” qualification to be taken flexibly between the ages of 15 and 19, according to a commission set up to look into the plight of those left behind by the current exam system. ASCL’s “forgotten third” commission has recommended the introduction of a new “competency-based […]

Christine Blower, the former leader of the National Union of Teachers, will be made a Labour peer, it has been announced. The trade unionist and Jeremy Corbyn supporter, who lost out to Jennie Formby in the race to become Labour’s general secretary last year, has been nominated by the leader of the opposition to become […]

New activities including figure-skating, water polo and windsurfing have been approved by the government for assessment in PE qualifications. Following a review of the activities that can count towards a GCSE or A-level in PE, the government has published an updated list. As well as the added activities, the Department for Education has also approved […]

Professor Toby Salt, the chief executive of the AQA exam board, has stepped down after just over two years in the role, citing health and family reasons. Salt, who led the Ormiston Academies Trust before replacing Andrew Hall at AQA in 2017, said he had received a “serious” but not life-threatening health diagnosis, and also […]

Councils will be ordered to pass on new minimum per-pupil funding levels to schools from next year as the government finally seeks to “harden” its new national funding formula. Although councils will continue to set their own local funding formulae in 2020-21, the government will make the use of its new minimum per-pupil funding levels […]

The government’s standards for food served in England’s schools won’t be watered-down in the event of a no-deal Brexit, Gavin Williamson has insisted. The education secretary told MPs in the House of Commons this afternoon that he will not suspend or weaken the rules around how schools feed their pupils, despite the threat of food […]