Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

Greens pick troubled Isle of Wight academy for education policy launch

The Green Party today launched its education manifesto outside a school facing closure on the Isle of Wight in a bid to highlight issue with the academies and free school programme. Sandown Bay Academy, operated by the Academies Enterprise Trust (AET), faces being merged with another school on the island after its pupil numbers halved in five years. […]

ANALYSIS: Tory areas worst hit by National Funding Formula

With less than four weeks until the general election, Schools Week exclusively reveals the constituencies that face having the worst-funded schools under the government’s new national funding formula Conservative safe seats, including several represented by senior party members, will be the worst-off under the government’s proposed new national schools funding formula. Exclusive analysis of government […]

Leaked Labour draft manifesto reveals national pay bargaining for teachers

Labour is considering the re-introduction of national pay bargaining powers for teachers for the first time in 26 years, Schools Week has learned. The proposal, which also includes the re-introduction of a negotiating body for school support staff, is included in the schools policy section of a draft copy of the Labour Party’s manifesto, which also sets out plans to […]

Labour Party officially launches its ‘National Education Service’

The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, has set out how the Labour Party will build an education service “fit for the new millennium”. Rayner joined party leader Jeremy Corbyn for a campaign event at Leeds City College this morning and spoke about Labour’s plan for a National Education Service which would deliver “hope and prosperity […]

Liberal Democrats promise to ‘protect’ school funding

The Liberal Democrats will spend almost £7 billion protecting school and college funding, the pupil premium and will invest in continuing professional development for teachers if they win the general election, the party has announced. Protection for schools’ per-pupil funding against currently unfunded pressures, at a cost of £3.3 billion, is included in the party’s […]

Unions call for AET to halt £2.6m caretaker cuts

Unions representing staff at England’s largest multi-academy trust, the Academies Enterprise Trust, are warning that some schools in the chain face losing half of their caretaking staff in a £2.6 million cost-saving drive, putting pupils “at risk”. The GMB, Unite and Unison, which represent support staff at AET’s 66 schools, have come together with five […]

Labour pledges £25bn schools spending under new National Education Service

Labour has set out plans to pump £4.8 billion in additional revenue funding into schools, and spend £21 billion on building and maintaining institutions over the course of the next parliament. The party says the additional spending will help it plug a funding gap for schools estimated at £3 billion by the National Audit Office. […]

IFS: Labour’s free meals plan will cost £950m and breakfast clubs might be more effective

Labour’s plan to provide free school meals for all primary pupils “would come at a significant cost” and might not improve pupil outcomes, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says. The think tank estimates giving every seven to 11-year-old a free lunch would cost upwards of £950 million a year, and that other policies, such as free breakfast […]

Anti-grammar schools campaign launches crowdfunding drive

A fundraising bid by a group of academics, authors and child psychologists will seek to challenge the government’s plans to open new grammar schools if the Conservatives win the general election. Theresa May wants to remove the ban on new selective institutions, and Justine Greening, the education secretary, announced at the weekend that she will build […]