Author: Freddie Whittaker

Ofsted inspectors have been accused of “fatally neglecting” the scrutiny of PSHE and sex education in schools after a study found the two subjects were rarely mentioned in inspection reports. Analysis by the British Humanists Association of more than 2,000 inspection reports shows sex and relationships education was mentioned in just 1 per cent of […]

Incentives for schools to offer better careers advice will be reviewed and tougher Ofsted guidance considered as the government finally draws up its ‘comprehensive careers strategy’, a senior minister has revealed. Robert Halfon, the minister for skills, told a meeting in Parliament this morning that schools were to blame for the skills deficit in England because […]

The general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, Russell Hobby, will stand down from the role this year, the union has announced. Hobby, who has been in post for seven years and steered the union through a period of significant policy change nationally, will step down in September. He said it had been a […]

Headteachers have told MPs of the agonising cuts faced by their schools as rising costs and flat funding levels bite. School leaders Kate Davies, from Darton College, Barnsley, Liam Collins, from Uplands Community College and Stuart McLaughlin, from Bower Park Academy, said they had been forced to make teachers and support staff redundant and cut […]

Ministers want more post-16 specialist free schools to open across the country in order to help address regional imbalances in the proportion of pupils studying maths to A-level. Newly released government statistics show the proportion of pupils going on to study maths after achieving a top grade in their GCSEs significantly varies across local authority areas. […]

The government should consider scrapping teacher assessments of writing at key stage 2, a senior Ofsted official has said. Joanna Hall, the watchdog’s deputy director for schools, told MPs on the education select committee this morning that the government should “have the debate” about whether to “remove teacher assessment entirely” from writing in primary schools. Hall said inspectors […]

The government will extend its ‘opportunity areas’ programme to fund schools and councils in six more places – claiming it will help “define a new role” for Britain as it leaves the European Union. Ministers will widen the scheme to include Bradford, Doncaster, Fenland and East Cambridgeshire, Hastings, Ipswich, and Stoke-on-Trent. Schools and councils in those areas will receive […]

Employers should judge the educational attainment of job applicants in the context of their schools’ average performance scores to widen access to top roles, MPs and peers have said. The all party parliamentary group (APPG) on social mobility, in a report published today titled The Class Ceiling, has called on employers to adopt ‘contextual recruitment’ […]