JL Dutaut | Schools Week

What are the consequences of Covid for school leaders and teachers?

NFER research director, Caroline Sharp draws six key lessons from schools’ response to the pandemic so far In May and July 2020, NFER conducted surveys of school leaders and teachers in a representative sample of 2,200 mainstream primary and secondary schools in England. Six lessons emerged that every policymaker and practitioner should be aware of. […]

Those who can’t afford it can’t teach

Amelia Hepburn was left bereft by last-minute cuts to bursaries that mean only those who can afford it can train to teach, and she is not alone There are countless examples of people like me who have all the hope and knowledge to be a part of the teaching profession but lack the means to […]

The Complete Learner’s Toolkit

Reviewer Terry Freedman is underwhelmed by a book with lofy ambitions that delivers little more than a compendium of interesting lesson ideas The subtitle of this book indicates the scale of its ambition: “Metacognition and mindset – equipping the modern learner with the thinking, social and self-regulation skills to succeed at school and in life”. […]

Penny’s podcasts, 19 October 2020

To mark Black History Month, Penny Rabiger chooses five podcasts to inform your assemblies and lessons Witness History @BBCSounds This podcast series is compiled by the BBC World Service and features interviews with people who were actually there at key moments in Black and civil rights history. It has some incredible testimonies from great moments […]

How to ensure trainee teachers don’t miss out due to Covid

Rising numbers of applicants are welcome but how to support them in this challenging environment is a question on every training provider’s mind, writes Paul Thornton A 65 per cent rise in teacher training applications may help to tackle teacher shortages in key areas such as computing, but it also poses challenges. This would be […]

Busting the myths about remote learning

A new legal duty for schools to provide remote education is impending. Tom Middlehurst sorts the myths from the facts Next Thursday it will become a legal requirement to provide immediate remote learning for any individual, groups or cohorts of students who cannot attend school because of Covid-19. While the direction has been widely and […]

The 11 Plus can be accurate or fair, but not both

After a century of the selective entrance test, it’s time to call game, set and match, writes Sam Sims This week sees the climax of two elite competitive events: the French Open and the 11 Plus. On Sunday, Nadal confirmed his status as the ‘King of Clay’ by winning a record thirteenth French Open. There […]

The PM’s tutoring plans offer hope for undoing Covid damage

Delivered to the right children, one-to-one tuition plans could level the educational playing field, writes Sir Peter Lampl If you were to look for one powerful reason to explain the yawning achievement gap between working-class and middle-class children who go to the same school, you’d have to go a very long way to find a […]

Unlawful, unsafe and unaccountable. Education, we have a data problem

A damning ICO report on the DfE’s data handling is a wake-up call for the department that schools can also learn from, writes Jen Persson It’s school census time again. But do you know where the pupil records go every term? Over 21 million people’s names are now in the national pupil database, collected in […]