Author: Freddie Whittaker

Soaring numbers of academy trusts are being wound up, and many are collapsing with deficits of millions of pounds, a Schools Week investigation has revealed. Our analysis, using Companies House records, found at least 91 multi-academy trusts had closed or were in the process of being wound up since 2014. However, more than half (46) […]

Progress scores in a trust founded by the academies minister plummeted after a fast-track qualification was removed from government league tables in a move to clampdown on gaming. The average Progress 8 score this year at the Inspiration Trust, which was founded by Lord Agnew, dipped more than in any other trust that entered most […]

The bosses of dozens of tutoring companies have been threatened with imprisonment after the government launched a clampdown on suspected illegal practices in the industry. Schools Week understands the Employment Agency Service (EAS) inspectorate, an arm of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), has written to as many as 50 tutoring company […]

The government will not confirm how many new school breakfast clubs have been set up under a £26 million scheme, despite boasting that “thousands more children” are now receiving a morning meal. Nadhim Zahawi, the children’s minister, announced earlier this month that “500 new or improved” breakfast clubs have signed up to the government’s programme […]

Four schools in the east midlands have been warned they face losing their funding and being rebrokered to new sponsors. The Department for Education has today published four “minded to terminate” letters to sponsors of schools in Derbyshire and Leicestershire. The letters were sent to the trusts on September 6, but went unpublished for more […]

Anne-Marie Trevelyan, an aide to education secretary Damian Hinds and his fellow education ministers, has resigned over the government’s Brexit deal. The Conservative MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, who campaigned for Brexit in 2016, tweeted her resignation letter this morning. It follows the more high-profile resignations earlier today of Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and work and pensions […]

The Department for Education has set out the rules for its new times tables test for eight and nine-year-olds ahead of the voluntary roll-out of the new test next year. Year 4 pupils will get six seconds to answer each question in the on-screen test, which should take no more than five minutes to complete, […]

The government won’t publish the results of its much-anticipated school asbestos survey until next spring, a minister has revealed, prompting fears the report could come too late to influence long-term spending plans. The Department for Education has today re-opened its “asbestos management assurance process”, which asks schools to declare whether or not they are compliant […]

The government is “considering” calls from MPs for a review of the inspection exemption for outstanding schools, the schools minister has revealed. The influential parliamentary public accounts committee said last month that current rules – which have left some schools uninspected for over a decade – should be re-examined. At the time, the Department for […]