Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

Schools not up to the job of finding places for excluded pupils, warns academic

Most schools are not in the “best position” to find alternative provision for their excluded pupils, a leading academic has warned. David Berridge, a professor of child and family welfare at the University of Bristol, told MPs today that it was difficult for individual schools to know about the “range of resources” available and avoid […]

Girls better at working together than boys, PISA study finds

Girls outperform boys when it comes to working together in school, according to a PISA study, which identified an above-average gender gap in the UK. PISA’s collaborative problem-solving study involved 125,000 15-year-olds in 52 countries, including 32 of the 35 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The research, conducted in 2015, found […]

Grammar school establishes ‘unsafe space’ for sexism and gender discussions

The grammar school in Kent that was criticised last year for inviting alt-right media personality Milo Yiannopoulos to address its pupils has created an “unsafe space” where its older students can discuss issues relating to sexism and gender without being “criticised for the wrong use of language”. Simon Langton Grammar School, near Canterbury, has created […]

Government faces legal action on pupil nationality data

A campaign group is raising money to take the Department for Education to the High Court over its decision to collect data on school pupils’ nationality and country of birth. The human rights charity Liberty will represent Against Borders for Children, which will focus on whether the policy infringes the rights of pupils. The groups also […]

Budget 2017: £100m National Centre for Computing to train 8,000 new teachers

The government will train 8,000 extra computer science teachers at a new £100 million National Centre for Computing, Philip Hammond is expected to announce this week. In Wednesday’s budget, the chancellor will set out his vision for a “hi-tech Britain”, and acknowledge the need to train more teachers in computer science. The shortage of computing teachers […]

New figures: 18,000 schools face funding cuts

Education unions have revised upwards their predictions for the number of schools facing funding cuts to almost 18,000. The coalition of organisations behind the popular School Cuts website say 557 more schools face real-terms cuts in their funding by 2019 than originally thought. The website, run by the National Education Union, the National Association of […]

Revealed: The government’s definition of a ‘coasting’ school in 2017

The Department for Education has published its definition of “coasting” schools in 2017. Schools defined as coasting by the government are targeted for intervention. For local authority-maintained schools, this can include forced transfer to an academy sponsor, while coasting academies can face being rebrokered to a new sponsor. In 2017, a secondary school will be […]

Failed National Teaching Service was developed ‘in a hurry’, admits DfE boss

The head of the Department for Education has admitted that the failed National Teaching Service was developed “in a bit of a hurry” and did not adequately incentivise teachers or schools to take part. Jonathan Slater, the DfE’s permanent secretary, has told MPs that the service failed because it did not offer teachers enough money […]

National teacher vacancy website trial coming in spring

The government hopes to launch a trial of its new national teacher vacancy service early next year, a senior official has said. Paul Kett, the Department for Education’s director-general for education standards, told a committee of MPs today that a prototype of the website, which will allow schools to advertise their teacher vacancies for free, […]