Author: Freddie Whittaker

A coalition of businesses and charities will be asked to help boost school readiness among young children by encouraging their parents to read and learn with them at home, the education secretary will announce today. Damian Hinds will say that the government must address the “last taboo in education policy” – the home learning environment […]

The four exam boards responsible for GCSEs and A-levels in England have launched an independent review of exam cheating. Sir John Dunford, the former general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, will chair the malpractice commission on behalf of the Joint Council for Qualifications, which represents exam boards AQA, Edexcel, OCR and WJEC. […]

The number of unconditional offers made by universities has jumped by 32 per cent in just one year, and almost a quarter of pupils now receive at least one offer of a place that doesn’t depend on their A-level grades. New analysis by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service shows the number of unconditional offers […]

New mental health support teams will start working with schools “by the end of 2019”, the government has confirmed. Ahead of their official response to a consultation on children and young people’s mental health, the Department for Education and Department of Health have announced they will proceed with plans to employ thousands of extra staff […]

The Department for Education has announced that pay for some classroom teachers will rise by up to 3.5 per cent next year, with extra government funding available to help schools pay for the increase. The 3.5 per cent rise will apply to the main pay range and unqualified teacher pay range for classroom teachers. The […]

Unions representing hundreds of thousands of teachers and school leaders have revealed their concerns about the pay settlement for teachers announced today. Despite calls by the School Teachers’ Review Body for a 3.5 per cent rise in teacher and leaders’ pay across the board, ministers confirmed today that only those on the main pay range […]

The government has confirmed teacher pay arrangements from September, but the big rise touted by ministers is not all that it seems. Some classroom teachers will see their pay increase by 3.5 per cent in 2018-19, but others will get less. There’s extra money available too, but it won’t fully cover the rises, and schools […]

Ministerial payoffs, senior staff bonuses and millions in written-off debts have been revealed in the Department for Education’s annual report and accounts. The revealing document has been published on the last day before parliament rises for the summer recess. Here are some of the things we learned. 1. There were ‘fundamental weaknesses’ in the DfE’s […]

The mayor of London Sadiq Khan is under pressure to take action over the capital’s “special needs timebomb”. The London Assembly’s cross-party education panel, which holds the mayor to account on policy matters, said Khan should lobby the government for more high needs funding for the capital’s schools, more flexibility over finances for local authorities, […]