Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

‘Stay in school and become a scientist’ Hinds tells climate strikers

Pupils in England should stay in school and become climate scientists to help solve the problems of the future, not walk out to take part in protests, the education secretary has said. Damian Hinds told MPs today that those pupils who take part in events like the school strike for climate were disrupting learning for […]

Forced out: The experienced teachers losing their livelihoods as schools cut costs

Hundreds of teachers have seen experienced colleagues forced out to make room for cheaper workers, new data has revealed, as a union acknowledged older staff were put under “intense pressure” to leave their jobs. A survey by Teacher Tapp of 3,568 school staff found that 10 per cent were “confident” that teachers on the upper […]

Careers and Enterprise Company will continue to rely on public cash, admits DfE

The Careers and Enterprise Company will continue to be reliant on government handouts after ministers dropped their ambition for the quango to become self-sustaining. Announcing the creation of the company in 2014, former education secretary Nicky Morgan, said that “in the longer term the company will sustain itself”. But CEC’s new sustainability plan, seen by […]

DfE didn’t look into failed UTC’s finances

The government chose not to investigate when auditors were unable to properly scrutinise the finances of a failed university technical college. Accounts for the Greater Manchester UTC for 2016-17, published last month after missing the deadline by more than a year, reveal auditors gave a rare “disclaimer of opinion” on the state of the UTC’s […]

MAT chairs work more than double recommended hours, study finds

Chairs of trustees work the equivalent of a fifth of a full-time job running academy trusts, a new study has found, raising concerns over whether the workload is sustainable. A survey by the National Governance Association found the average trust chair works 49.6 days a year – the equivalent to 21.4 per cent of what […]

Don’t shy away from seeking science specialists, urges new report

Advertising for general science teachers is no more effective than seeking those with subject-specific qualifications, according to new research. Analysis by SchoolDash of teaching job adverts found roles for specialist positions were less likely to be re-advertised than for those general positions, contradicting a “common assumption that specialist positions are harder to fill”. The results […]

Dominic Herrington made permanent national schools commissioner

The government has appointed Dominic Herrington as its permanent national schools commissioner. Herrington, also the regional schools commissioner for south London and south east England, was appointed on an interim basis last September to succeed Sir David Carter, but will now take on the job permanently. He will also oversee “operational changes to the work […]

Edexcel maths paper leaks referred to prosecutors

Police investigating high-profile leaks of Edexcel A-level exam papers in 2017 and 2018 have passed their first case to the Crown Prosecution Service. Pearson, the exam board’s parent company, has announced today that officers “have made progress in their investigation” from the first “limited” breach in 2017, and have referred their first case to prosecutors. […]

DfE pledges to publish breakdown of cost-cutters’ savings

Ministers will publish a breakdown of recommendations made by its team of cost-cutting advisers later this year. The Department for Education refused a request by Schools Week last December for documents showing a breakdown of the £35 million of savings that academies minister Lord Agnew claimed his school resource management advisers had helped schools identify. […]