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£300,000 will not solve my school’s building woes

The paths in Andy Byers’ school flood, the science prep room is the size of two toilets and less than half of its classrooms are accessible to wheelchair users. It was due to be rebuilt in 2010. Instead, he will again have to apply for funding just to keep existing buildings safe. Schools deserve better […]

What CPD is really worthwhile investing in?

The Chartered College of Teaching believes strongly in the value of teacher professional learning. Yet the term encompasses a huge variety of things; CPD can take myriad forms, many of which are explored in our new report on teacher CPD internationally, full of articles and case studies exploring trends, opportunities and challenges. This variety means […]

Less accountability, more responsibility are key to better CPD

Raedwald Trust is taking matters into its own hands on recruitment, retention and workload, writes Angela Ransby, with a project that moves beyond performance management to professional development As chief executive of a multi-academy trust, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of a teacher’s success has much more to do with the lived […]

Should all teachers complete a Master’s Degree?

It would be fair to say that Friday’s proposal by Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) that all teachers should undertake a Master’s Degree was met with a mixed response. This is perhaps unsurprising in a system where teachers are being asked to do more and more, frequently with fewer resources; where there […]

Profile: Andy Buck

I pass through the glass doors of a tall building in deepest East London and a beaming Andy Buck springs out of a chair. “Hello!” he cries. “I got here early on my motorbike.” Like his choice of transport – in reality a moped – I soon learn Buck’s main concern is not certainty, but […]

How to speak to young people about the future

The ‘raising aspirations’ discourse is dead, and I’m happy to have played a small part in its demise. Over the last decade, a barrage of empirical evidence has shown that few young people in the UK hold ‘low’ or ‘no’ aspirations, or that these are meaningfully linked to their educational attainment and wider outcomes. Seeing […]

Turnaround MATs must look beyond short-term gains

Inspiration Trust’s data on exclusions have shocked some, while its actions to tackle the problem have riled others. Lead trustee for inclusion, Colin Diamond explains that the true story lies beyond these emotive responses Dame Rachel de Souza, CEO of Inspiration Trust (IT), made waves last week when she revealed the trust’s fixed-term exclusion rate […]

In praise of the humble headteacher

Headteacher, Kate Frood has seen the education system transformed as her career has progressed. In an age of chief executives and superheads, she argues something valuable will be lost along with the one-school-one-head model As an experienced head with almost 40 years’ experience in education, I find myself in many meetings these days where I […]

Jon Hutchinson’s top edu-blogs of the week, 28 October 2019

Challenge beyond Bloom’s @adamboxer1 When, in the thirteenth century, Aquinas rediscovered the works of Aristotle, he referred to him simply as “the Philosopher”, such was the comprehensive nature of his genius. I wonder whether two thousand years from now education faculties will refer to Adam Boxer as simply “the Teacher”, with blogposts like this one […]