Freddie Whittaker | Schools Week

Councils paid £100k to write to parents about UTCs

The government has handed out more than £100,000 in funding to councils to enable them to write to parents promoting post-14 education options like University Technical Colleges. A new rule requiring councils to make parents aware of schools with ‘atypical points of admission’ came into effect on February 14, and councils have now received funding […]

Bid to force ‘hostile’ schools to promote technical education succeeds

A cross-party bid to force “hostile” schools to give colleges and apprenticeship providers access to their pupils to promote vocational courses has been approved in the House of Lords. A move to amend the government’s technical and further education bill by former education secretaries Lord Baker and Baroness Morris succeeded last night. Baker, who served […]

Ofqual ‘extremely cautious’ about more primary testing changes

The government should be “extremely cautious” about further changes to primary assessment, Ofqual’s chief regulator has told MPs. Sally Collier told the education select committee this morning that feedback had urged caution about “too much change too quickly”. Ministers have announced a review of primary assessment, with a consultation due to take place later this year, […]

Unfilled places and £30m land deals – NAO takes aim at free schools

The government has been accused of wasting taxpayers’ money on its flagship free school project after an investigation found more than half of new places were in areas they were “not needed”. The National Audit Office found that 57,500 of 113,500 new places in mainstream free schools opening between 2015 and 2021 will create ‘spare […]

Oasis director Andy Yarrow appointed chief executive of CfBT Schools Trust

The CfBT multi-academy trust has appointed a senior director from Oasis Community Learning as its new chief executive, with his brief to lead recently-revealed expansion plans after the trust’s spell on the government’s ‘pause list’. Andy Yarrow has been appointed to lead the CfBT Schools Trust (CST) from mid-March after three and a half years […]

The top 3 priorities for ministers on primary assessment

As the education select committee prepares to grill the schools minister Nick Gibb about primary assessment tomorrow, Nick Brook sets out his three priorities for the government’s upcoming review. As we await the launch of the government’s primary assessment consultation, teachers will be turning their minds to this year’s SATs. Setting work to produce […]

Government considers council MAT for vulnerable Kent primaries

The government is in talks with a council over plans to create a ‘spin-off’ multi academy trust to run the region’s rural primary schools. The negotiations between the Department for Education and Kent County Council are understood to be the first of their kind, and follow concerns over a paucity of academy sponsors, especially for small, rural […]

What happened to the old technical schools?

The 1944 Education Act famously created three types of schools: academically selective grammars, selective technical schools, and secondary moderns for the hoi polloi. Grammars and secondary moderns charged ahead. But what happened to the selective technical schools? Few opened and of those that did, several became mainstream grammars before the end of the 1960s. The […]

Parkfield School still without sponsor ahead of move to £35m new site

A struggling Bournemouth free school is still without a sponsor less than two months ahead of its move to a £35 million new site, despite re-brokerage to a prominent multi-academy trust having been proposed last year. Parkfield School is due to move to its new home at a former national air traffic control training centre at […]