JL Dutaut | Schools Week

MAT growth: Five lessons from staff to get everyone on board

Staff buy-in is an important part of increasing the scope of MATs. A new survey reveals encouraging trends and work to be done, writes Leora Cruddas The Secretary of State has recently set an ambition for many more schools to benefit from being part of a strong family – in other words, a trust. He […]

Research: Could more education happen outside the classroom?

Research and a recent project shows how all schools can make greater use of outdoor spaces for the benefit of their pupils, writes Loic Menzies A constant stream of teenagers trickled past my office window last summer. As schools closed their doors to most pupils, a decent chunk of Cambridge’s youth hit the meadows to […]

10 things schools get wrong (and how we can get them right)

Stephen Lockyer turns the tables on a listicle book that offers few practical solutions and very little hope 10 Things This Book Gets Wrong. (Number 7 will shock you!) Now I’ve used this book’s strategy of a clickbait title, let’s dig a little further beyond the cover. The book is clearly a cathartic […]

Will shorter summer holidays become a 2021 reality?

The legal powers and precedent make shorter summer holidays a possibility. The question for ministers and schools alike is whether they can sell the idea, writes Esther Maxwell As the UK’s schools welcome pupils back through their doors after a sustained period of remote learning, the education sector is rife with questions around whether going […]

Teaching School Hubs ensure the recovery will be school-led

It’s a change that has garnered little attention, but the new Teaching School Hubs could transform the way we improve teaching and schools, writes Matt Davis Lateral flow tests and the removal of the mute function from their classrooms might be dominating teachers’ attention this week, but schools are reopening to a potentially transformative change that has gathered few […]

How to ease the transition back to school for young carers

As schools reopen, young carers’ needs and concerns remain high. Feylyn Lewis sets out ways schools can support them in the coming weeks and months The interminable months of lockdown have been difficult for everyone. But for the estimated 800,000 plus young carers in England, these have been some of the most challenging times of their young lives. School staff now have a […]

Lockdown lessons: Schools deserve better than back to normal

Announcements and noises off don’t inspire confidence that ministers have learned the lessons of lockdown, writes Kate Chhatwal A whole year. Anyone who has been listening to schools in that time will have learned important lessons – lessons that make snapping back to the ‘old normal’ neither desirable nor practical. As they reopen, knee-jerk reactions to the challenge of ‘catch-up’ are […]

Catch-up? It’s all ambition and no imagination

If the ambition is for the next few months to be transformative, asks Alan Garnett, why do they look set to be nothing more imaginative than a return to normal? The greatest shake up in education since 1944. ‘Transformative,’ promises the secretary of state. There is the ambition, but where is the imagination? Extended schooldays, […]

Research: Is a return to normality what Year 6 pupils need?

New research reveals that potentially damaging ‘dividing practices’ are a normal consequence of the pressure of SATs, writes Alice Bradbury While the reopening of schools is a welcome return to normality for parents, it is also a welcome return to some kind of normality for most teachers. The exception are Year 6 teachers, who are […]