Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

Ex-Pearson boss Jill Duffy is new OCR chief executive

Jill Duffy, a former senior vice president of Pearson’s schools arm, is the new chief executive of the OCR exam board. Cambridge Assessment, OCR’s parent company, has announced that Duffy, currently a consultant, will take over on November 5, replacing interim CEO Janet Morris. “I am delighted that Jill will be joining us,” said Saul […]

Conference diary: What did we learn from four days with the Conservatives?

After four days of politics but very few policies at the Conservative Party conference, schools are still none the wiser about how the government can make life easier for them. Reporting from Birmingham, Schools Week chief reporter and political editor Freddie Whittaker rounds up what school leaders learned from Damian Hinds’s first conference as education […]

Hinds pledges £10m to help teachers deal with bad behaviour

Damian Hinds will announce plans for the first substantial review of government behaviour guidance in over three years, along with £10 million in funding to train teachers. The Department for Education’s guidance on behaviour and discipline in schools was last re-issued in January 2016, but hasn’t been fully reviewed since September 2015. Ministers are under […]

Three in five teachers still required to triple mark, survey reveals

Around three in five teachers are still told by their schools to do frequent triple or “deep” marking, despite an insistence from Ofsted and the government that it isn’t necessary. A survey of around 11,000 teachers by the National Education Union revealed today how 63 per cent of primary teachers and 59 per cent of […]

The 5 schools policies in Damian Hinds’s Conservative Party conference speech

Schools will get access to funding to improve behaviour and careers advice, the education secretary will announce today. Damian Hinds is due to address the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham this afternoon, where he will set out his plans to create “a world class education for everyone, whatever path you take, whatever your background”. However, […]

Former Ofsted inspector warns inspections are ‘not very accurate’

Ofsted inspections are “not very accurate”, according to a former inspector, who has called for a “root and branch” review of the service provided by the watchdog. Richard Sheriff, the president of the Association of School and College Leaders, warned during a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference that Ofsted does not have the […]

‘It is illegal and we will take action’ – minister’s message to schools on off-rolling

The government will take action against any school or multi-academy trust found to be illegally off-rolling pupils, the children’s minister has pledged. Speaking to Schools Week at the Conservative Party conference, Nadhim Zahawi said he was “very clear” that “any form of informal exclusion, whatever term they want to give it, that sort of off-rolling […]

Ignore the ‘fibbers’ over London’s school successes, says Hinds

Anyone who says they know why London’s schools have improved over the past two decades is a “fibber”, the education secretary has said. Damian Hinds told a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference that the reasons behind the transformation of educational performance in the capital are “much more complicated” than just one public policy programme. […]

Government to publish ‘school sport action plan’

Ministers will take action to get more pupils to play competitive sports in school, Damian Hinds has announced. The education secretary has set out proposals for a new “school sport action plan”, which will aim to increase opportunities for pupils to play more sports and train more teachers to lead and coach those opportunities in […]