Author: Freddie Whittaker

Spending by schools on education consultancy increased almost threefold between 2002-03 and 2016-17, according to official Department for Education documents published today. New statistics published as part of a drive to cut school costs show that consultancy, back office costs and education support staff were the spending areas which saw the biggest real-terms increases over […]

The Department for Education plans to spend £2.3 million on at least 160 money-saving advisers who will be parachuted into struggling schools to help them cut costs. A team of school resource management advisers has been working with a small number of schools since January, providing “impartial, expert business advice” on how to make best […]

The release of a new government toolkit to help schools cut costs will make headteachers “justifiably furious”, the National Education Union has claimed. Damian Hinds, the education secretary, will today publish the government’s school resource management strategy, a document which aims to help schools save “up to a billion pounds through better procurement and buying strategies”. […]

New guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office about the impact of data protection rules on access to exam results has prompted a series of news stories about the rights of pupils. Here’s what schools (and their pupils) need to know.   1. The ICO guidance According to the ICO, pupils have a right to request […]

Nine pupil referral units, councils and charities will split £4 million from the government’s new “alternative provision fund”, the schools minister has announced today. Nick Gibb has named the four successful bidders for cash from the fund, which was announced in March alongside a review of exclusions by the former children’s minister, Edward Timpson. Bradford Central […]

Blameless school staff were left in limbo and fearing for their jobs for months as a result of unclear “disqualification by association” rules, a Schools Week investigation has found. Previously unseen data has today laid bare the extent of the misery caused by rules which disqualified teachers, heads, support staff and volunteers from working in […]

Nine schools will split £2 million in government funding to become “modern foreign language hubs”, after a scheme to boost Spanish, French and German teaching was extended by ministers. The Department for Education announced today that £4.8 million will be spent on creating a language “centre of excellence” with nine “hub” schools. These schools will split […]

More than £10 million in government school improvement funding will be handed to 28 academy trusts, councils and teaching schools. The Department for Education has announced the names of successful bidders in the latest round of the strategic school improvement fund, or SSIF. Here’s the full list. Organisation name Organisation type Local authority Number of […]

Trade union membership among school teachers and leaders in England has dropped to its lowest level in seven years. Schools Week analysis of membership figures submitted to the government and Trades Union Congress over the past eight years shows that England’s teaching and leadership unions had 805,736 paying members as of last December, down from […]