Author: Freddie Whittaker

Pressure is mounting on the government to publish its second consultation on the national funding formula amid concerns the document could be launched just days before schools break up for Christmas. The education secretary Justine Greening and her team faced questions on their funding plans from Labour and Conservative politicians today, but pledged to publish more detailed […]

An investigation into the Standards and Testing Agency following the leak of test papers online has found resource constraints and a “defensive and silo culture” at the organisation, and warned of an increased probability of future errors. The review also highlighted high vacancy rates and “difficult contractual relationships”, and said staff were operating under “significant pressure and […]

Existing grammar schools could lose their selective status or have funding limited if they don’t admit more pupils from low incomes families, Nick Gibb has said. The schools minister told the House of Commons this afternoon that “strict conditions” designed to increase numbers of disadvantaged pupils in selective schools would apply to both new and […]

The establishment of a tutor-proof 11-plus test is the ‘Holy Grail’ for grammar schools, Nick Gibb has claimed. The schools minister told MPs on the education select committee that developing a test for academic selection at 11 which could not be influenced by private tutoring was an objective of the government and something grammar schools […]

A campaign calling for greater emphasis on the development of spoken communication skills in schools has been launched after teachers identified a lack of training and support as ‘barriers’. Voice 21, an organisation linked to School 21, an east London free school, has teamed up with the English-Speaking Union education charity to establish the Oracy […]

Opposition to the government’s grammar schools plan is building among headteachers in both selective and non-selective areas on the eve of a major inquiry into the proposals. In the largest co-ordinated intervention of school leaders to date, all but one of the secondary school heads in Surrey have written to the education secretary Justine Greening […]