Author: Freddie Whittaker

A Labour government will let councils open and run new schools and take over academies, Jeremy Corbyn has told Schools Week. Speaking following his speech to the annual conference of the National Association of Head Teachers in Telford today, the Labour leader expanded on plans set out by the shadow chancellor John McDonnell to “restore” […]

School business leaders are losing sleep over cuts to their funding which are prompting redundancies, larger classes and sixth form closures, according to Russell Hobby. In his last conference speech as general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Hobby said the state of education funding was “rightly” an election issue, and had entered […]

Heads will consider running a four-and-a-half-day school week, refusing to submit their budgets and running a deficit in a bid to fight funding cuts. The National Association of Head Teachers has voted at its annual conference to consider “every available option” if the government does not reverse its “irresponsible education cuts”. The union will now […]

The upcoming snap election could cause the national funding formula to be “delayed or abandoned”, the National Association of Head Teachers has warned. Expected changes to primary testing could also be disrupted as the inner workings of government close-up shop to allow for political campaigning before the general election in June. Valentine Mulholland, the union’s […]

Pre-election “purdah” has put the brakes on the government’s free schools policy, with a number of institutions due to open this September now in limbo until after the election. Disruptions are also occurring to the education select committee and interventions in under-peforming schools because of the election. Schools Week knows of at least one free […]

Half of academies sponsored by grammar schools are rated as requiring improvement or inadequate, casting doubt on the effectiveness of government plans to get more selective schools running other nearby schools. Data released by the government on the day it called the general election shows that eight of the 18 schools sponsored by grammar schools […]

Headteachers have backed Church of England plans to ban parents from withdrawing their pupils from religious education, claiming it is being exploited by ‘interest groups’ and those seeking to incite religious hatred. Under current rules, parents have the right to withdraw their children from RE lessons and collective worship at all maintained schools, including those […]