Author: Freddie Whittaker

Ministers are concerned about the “continuing drift” of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities into special schools and alternative provision, it has been revealed. According to documents published today, the government fears decisions about the education of SEND pupils are being taken “primarily to avoid financial pressures from falling on a particular institution, by […]

MPs will investigate whether careers funding is value for money after the government abandoned plans to make the Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC) pay for itself. Meg Hillier, the chair of the parliamentary public accounts committee, says it wants to look into the Department for Education’s careers spending, most of which goes to the CEC. […]

More than 1,600 schools have been offered improvement support by the government after ministers changed how they intervene in failing schools. Damian Hinds, the education secretary, announced last year that the government would no longer intervene in schools deemed to be ‘coasting’. Instead, new triggers for “offers of support” from the government were drawn up, […]

The government will seek the views of schools on whether special needs funding should be reformed to make it “more effective”, Damian Hinds will announce today. The education secretary will launch a “call for evidence” on SEND funding arrangements at the National Association of Head Teachers annual conference. The department is seeking views from schools […]

Academies minister Lord Agnew faced a grilling from MPs this morning over school funding, academies, exclusions and other issues facing the education sector. He appeared alongside Dominic Herrington, the national schools commissioner for England. Here’s what we learned. 1. Bill for cost-cutting advisers will rise to £4m Agnew announced this morning that he expects his […]

The government will seek to “tighten accountability” over school exclusions following a landmark review, a minister has confirmed. Lord Agnew, the academies minister, told MPs this morning that the long-awaited Timpson review will propose that schools that exclude pupils will keep “some ownership of that child’s progress”, and that “we are proposing that the accountability […]

The government should consider handing schools more pupil premium funding for those children with long-term disadvantage, the Social Mobility Commission has said. The commission, appointed by the education secretary Damian Hinds to promote and monitor social mobility in England, wants a government review into whether pupil premium funding is effectively targeted at disadvantaged students, and […]