Author: Freddie Whittaker

A new downloadable “activity passport” aimed at encouraging school pupils to ditch their gadgets and pursue “new interests” has been launched by the education secretary. The printable document, which allows pupils to tick when they’ve completed 140 prescribed activities such as searching for butterflies and taking part in a Roman banquet, is part of a […]

The Department for Education has refused to release any details about the £35 million of savings its new cost-cutting consultants identified under a pilot project to help schools balance their budgets. Lord Agnew, the academies minister, told the Institute for School Business Leadership conference in November that the government’s school resource management advisers had identified average […]

An award-winning teacher who learned the basics in many of the languages spoken in her London school in order to reach marginalised pupils is to receive the MBE for her services to education. Andria Zafirakou, a London art teacher who earlier this year won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize, is one of 32 people […]

An academy in Northumberland has been told it must use cost-saving resources provided by the government or face having its funding removed. Berwick Academy has been issued with a financial notice to improve by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. The document outlines a series of conditions the school must meet to avoid being rebrokered […]

Dozens of schools in London have been targeted with fake Ofsted banners by youth activists as part of a protest over the government’s plans for a new relationships and sex education curriculum. The campaign group StraightJacket claims new compulsory RSE lessons being prepared by the government are “insufficient” on LGBT+ issues, and that young people […]

Ofsted has won its appeal against a decision by the High Court to quash its negative report into the troubled Durand Academy in south London. The Court of Appeal ruled today that that the judge was “wrong to conclude that Ofsted’s complaints procedures are unfair in serious weakness/special measures cases, and that it was wrong to […]

Two in three academy trusts are under-performing with regard to poorer pupils, a new report has found. New research into how the sponsored academies programme has served the interests of disadvantaged pupils across the country has found “significant variation” in outcomes for pupils eligible for free school meals. Analysis by professors Becky Francis and Merryn Hutchings found […]

The academies minister Lord Agnew and three advisers were flown to Argentina this summer at a cost of more than £9,000, government documents reveal. A record of ministers’ international travel published by the Department for Education lists a “return international flight to Argentina” taken by Agnew and three officials in September this year as having […]

It “may be appropriate” for schools to vary their SATs timetables in 2021 because the test week is set to coincide with the Muslim festival of Eid, the Department for Education has said. The government has revealed today that key stage 2 SATs are timetabled from Monday May 10 to Thursday May 13 in 2021. […]