Author: Freddie Whittaker

A Church-backed academy trust in the east of England has been praised by Ofsted for improvements to pupil outcomes. Following a focused inspection of six of the 30 schools run by the Diocese of Norwich Education and Academies Trust, the chain has been lauded for the “upward trajectory” in pupil outcomes. Between February 27 and March […]

A University Technical College has been issued with a financial notice to improve after it failed to set a balanced budget. The Education and Skills Funding Agency has written to Watford UTC, a technical school for 14 to 19-year-olds in Hertfordshire, over concerns about “failures in governance and financial management”. The intervention follows several requests from […]

More than 500 days after the consultation closed, the government has finally published its response to the ‘Schools that work for everyone’ green paper. However, far from presenting a clear picture of the exact number and proportion of respondents who supported which proposals, the official analysis of the thousands of responses provides only vague indications […]

Respondents to a high-profile government consultation on grammar schools mostly wanted them take all their pupils from poorer households, it has emerged. The idea that new grammar schools should take 100 per cent of their pupils from lower-income backgrounds was the most popular among the 5,274 people who answered a question in the consultation about the proportion […]

Plans to lift the 50-per-cent admissions cap on new faith schools have been abandoned, almost two years after they were first proposed. The Catholic Church lamented the move as a “broken promise”, but it has been hailed as a victory by secular campaigners. Ministers will instead make it easier for faith groups to open new […]

A private Christian school in east London is under investigation over “serious concerns” about its governance. The Charity Commission has frozen the bank accounts of the Grangewood Educational Association, which runs the Grangewood Independent Primary School in Forest Gate, and appointed interim managers. The watchdog has “serious concerns” about governance at the charity, which was […]

Planned reforms to children and young people’s mental health services “lack any ambition” and will put additional pressure on teachers without providing schools with extra resources, two powerful parliamentary committees have warned. The education and health committees have published ‘Failing a generation’, a joint report that tears apart the government’s green paper on children and […]

The government has ignored headteachers and failed to “pay attention” to the fallout from its own policies, Angela Rayner said today. Addressing headteachers at the annual conference of school leaders’ union NAHT in Liverpool, the shadow education secretary said the government “wouldn’t survive their own Ofsted inspection”, as she attacked restrictions on teacher pay and […]