James Carr | Schools Week

Paws for thought: Why an academy trust spent £12k on dogs to tackle pupil anxiety

An academy trust has spent £12,000 buying a dog for each of its four schools, claiming that it is a more cost-effective way of reducing stress in the classroom than employing welfare officers. Schools Week has found 12 Ofsted reports since 2016 that have praised schools for using therapy dogs. Two were under the new […]

Government misses secondary teacher training target for SEVENTH year in row

The government has failed to meet its secondary school teacher recruitment target for the seventh year running – with many EBacc subjects falling short. Initial teacher training census data released today shows the government met just 85 per cent of its secondary school teacher target. This included recruiting just 43 per cent of the required […]

University admissions gap between rich and poor students still ‘far too wide’

The gap in university admissions rates between rich and poor students is still “far too wide”, a union leader has said, after admissions body UCAS announced a record acceptance rate. This year, 97.8 per cent of 18-year-olds in the UK who applied for a place through UCAS received an offer of a place, up 0.2 […]

Government testing agency pays Pearson £3m (but won’t say why)

The education giant Pearson has been revealed as the mystery supplier who received £3 million from the Standards and Testing Agency (STA) to settle a legal dispute over outsourcing the management of assessments. The agency’s annual accounts, published last month, detailed the pay-off – but the Department for Education refused to say who the recipient […]

David Cameron’s £67m STEM scheme fails to deliver, new figures reveal

The government is failing to fulfil its promise to upskill 15,000 teachers in maths and science under a £67 million scheme that David Cameron pledged would “pull our country up in the world”. New figures show the Department for Education has failed to fill a third of its teacher subject specialism training (TSST) courses over […]

Reducing class sizes top priority for next government, say teachers

A third of teachers say reducing class sizes is their top priority for the next government as a new analysis finds nine out of ten areas have seen an increase. The National Education Union study found 89 per cent of constituencies in England have seen an increase in average class sizes since 2010. Meanwhile the […]

Just 3% of EdTech Innovation funding goes to resolving timetabling issues

The first wave of EdTech Innovation funding has been dished out – but just 3 per cent of the cash will go towards resolving flexible working timetabling issues. Thirteen edtech firms from across the UK (full list below) will share £1.2 million of funding to develop products aimed at revolutionising education through the use of […]