JL Dutaut | Schools Week

Are schools ready to dismantle period stigma?

Schools are moving in the right direction in tackling stigma around mentruation, but how can we ensure results are sustained? Kate Bowen-Viner looks at the research Last year, I spent time in a secondary school talking to girls about how period stigma can be compounded, and mitigated, by their school environment. Girls shared their frustrations […]

Industry must put its money where its mouth is on careers education

Careers education is too important not to be compulsory, and too important to leave to busy, cash-strapped schools. Ruth Gilbert offers an alternative for delivering the Gatsby benchmarks Despite the Gatsby benchmarks, careers education tends to get bundled in with all the things schools are told they should do but don’t have time to. But […]

Putting policy into practice in education

Calling for change in education is a national pastime but we can all learn from Arkansas about what not to do when implementing reform, writes Jonathan Haslam A famous Pentagon saying, quoted by the journalist Thomas Friedman, is that “a vision without resources is hallucination”. The same might be said of education policies, whether at […]

Profile: Hilary Spencer

JL Dutaut meets Ambition Institute’s new CEO, an ex-civil servant for whom policy is about creating the conditions for everyone’s success The coffee isn’t even ready yet, but Ambition Institute’s new CEO, Hilary Spencer and I have already discussed retiring at 68, the Chartered College’s work on Chartered Teacher Status, and we are moving on […]

The real ‘squander’ is pupil premium’s lost focus

It is imperative that any new additional pupil premium funding in the budget is used solely for its intended purpose, says Simon Barnes Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools Amanda Spielman made waves over the half-term by suggesting school leaders could “squander” any additional money allocated to them in the upcoming budget. For all the […]

Robin Conway’s top edu blogs of the week, 24 February 2020

Whole-staff training, the early years curriculum, implementing research, wellbeing and letting teachers teach are Robin Conway’s top picks of the education topics this week Staff Training Days – what’s your experience? @jillberry102 Jill Berry’s blogs are always thoughtful, reflective and draw on a wealth of experience in different educational roles. This piece is no […]

Looked-after children need better-trained teachers

Looked-after children and their teachers are being let down by a persistent lack of guidance. Closing the training gap is a political priority, writes Dr Sarah Alix As a qualified teacher I always felt frustrated with my own lack of understanding about how best to support looked-after children. I didn’t have the information I needed, […]

The Fundraising Handbook by Lindsey Marsh

Terry Freedman discovers a book with a wealth of useful information that’s sadly hard to navigate One of the chief banes of my life as a head of computing in a comprehensive school was acquiring enough money to develop the subject and to improve the experience of using education technology for everyone across the school. […]

What next for schools after hair discrimination case?

No new precedent has been set in the recent hair discrimination case, writes Esther Maxwell, but our culture is evolving and schools should take note Ten days ago, after a three-year legal battle backed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, 18-year-old Ruby Williams was awarded an out-of-court settlement of £8,500 after her family took […]