Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

PISA tests for 5-year-olds – organiser defends pilot amid pupil pressure fears

Organisers of the new computer-based PISA tests the UK is to pilot for five-year-olds have hotly denied claims they will heap pressure on pupils and burden schools. Around 20 English schools and nurseries will take part in a field trial of the OECD’s international early learning and child wellbeing study, which is to be run […]

Bids sought for £10m foreign teacher recruitment drive

The government plans to spend up to £10 million recruiting and training hundreds of foreign physics, maths and languages teachers to meet increasing demand for new school staff in England. A tender published by the National College for Teaching and Leadership reveals proposals to recruit 600 overseas teachers, train them up to qualified teacher status […]

DfE amends grammar schools research after complaint to stats watchdog

The government has been forced to backtrack on claims it made about the popularity of grammar schools following a complaint to the UK Statistics Authority. In an ad-hoc publication put out last October, the Department for Education claimed that demand for selective school places exceeded supply by almost 11,000 places, and that this meant selective […]

Secondary school pupil numbers to rise by a fifth as population bulge hits

A population bulge is expected to send pupil numbers in secondary schools soaring by 19 per cent over the next eight years, government projections show. The Department for Education says pupil numbers in secondaries will rise by 530,000, from 2.8 million this year to 3.33 million in 2025, when the numbers will finally stabilise. This […]

Former minister Robert Halfon elected as education select committee chair

Robert Halfon, a former education minister and staunch critic of the prime minister, has been elected as chair of the House of Commons education committee. Halfon beat opponents Nick Boles, Tim Loughton, Rehman Chishti, Stephen Metcalfe and Dan Poulter to the top job in a vote of MPs today. Halfon got 261 votes, compared to 213 […]

‘Broadly feasible’ to rate governors on nine metrics, study finds

It is possible to judge the quality of school governing bodies and boards based on nine specific metrics, an academic study has found. Research carried out by the National Foundation for Education Research (NFER) and National Governance Association has found that “defining and collecting metrics” on the quality of school governance is “broadly feasible”, and […]

£2.2m for 11 new research schools takes total to 22

Eleven schools across England will split a pot of more than £2 million to become new research hubs, Justine Greening has announced. The education secretary has revealed the names of these 11 new research schools, which will each receive £200,000 to become “focal points of evidence-based practice” in their regions over the next three years. […]

Teachers’ pay cap maintained at 1% for 2017-18

Pay rises for teachers will remain capped at 1 per cent on average in 2017-18, the government has confirmed. The government has this evening announced that it intends to accept a recommendation from the School Teachers Review Body that teacher pay scales for most teachers shift by 1 per cent. The 1 per cent rise […]

Reform grammar schools or pull their funding, senior MP tells ministers

Ministers are under pressure to reform grammar schools or pull their funding after new government data showed that the proportion of pupils at selective schools claiming free school meals rose by a tiny fraction in the past year. Lucy Powell, the former shadow education secretary and one of parliament’s fiercest grammar schools critics, says the […]