Author: Freddie Whittaker

Almost a fifth of schools are not managing asbestos in line with government guidance, a long-awaited report has revealed. The Department for Education has finally published its asbestos management assurance process report, based on an extensive survey of schools that launched well over a year ago. The survey confirms that the overwhelming majority of participating […]

More prescriptive guidance forcing primary heads to teach about LGBT relationships would not have prevented protests outside schools in Birmingham, the schools minister has said. Nick Gibb told the House of Commons today that new statutory guidance on relationships and sex education deliberately left it up to schools when to teach about LGBT issues in […]

Dame Martina Milburn will be paid £350-a-day for her work as the chair of the Social Mobility Commission after taking on “more responsibilities” in the role, the government has announced. The chief executive of the Prince’s Trust was appointed last year to head up the relaunched commission. The role was initially unpaid. However, education secretary […]

The Department for Education will consult on plans to bring the transparency of spending in local authority maintained schools in line with that of academies, it has been announced. The government will shortly publish a consultation “to address the disparity between transparency of financial reporting in local authority schools and academies”, a spokesperson said. Ministers […]

Fifty-four thousand fewer pupils are now learning in ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’-rated schools than were two years ago, the Department for Education has said. The government has today published an “ad-hoc notice” on school inspection outcomes, which reveals the number of pupils in schools with the top two Ofsted grades stood at 6,731,000 as of March […]

Lord Agnew, the academies minister, has pledged to look at whistleblowing procedures for academy trusts to ensure those who report foul play are protected. Answering questions in the House of Lords about the financial arrangements and auditing of academy trusts, Agnew told peers that whistleblowers “play an important part in the regulation of the system”, […]

Twenty-eight per cent of teachers believe their school is not ready to teach new relationships and sex education lessons, which become compulsory next year. A poll of more than 2,000 teachers by the NSPCC children’s charity and National Education Union also found 47 per cent half lack confidence in their own ability to deliver the […]

Sixty-five per cent of pupils achieved the government’s “expected standard” in reading, writing and maths in this year’s key stage 2 SATs, up from 64 per cent last year, according to interim results published by the government. The results show that the proportion of pupils reaching a scaled score of 100 or more rose in […]