Jess Staufenberg | Schools Week

We’d planned the first day back at school perfectly. Then it rained

It would be no exaggeration to say the last few months rank up there with the toughest of my career. We’d had a successful year last year and I was feeling positive about driving forward our improvement agenda. But planning for our first day back at school in the midst of a global pandemic was […]

I’ve had to tell 17 SEND pupils they can’t come to school – and I’m furious

Reading a recent report by ASK Research with the NFER about children at special education schools and colleges, I was grabbed by how many of my unknown colleagues are worried their pupils will not be returning. Whether 20,000 children with special educational needs (one in six children attending special schools) really don’t return to school, […]

Refusing to fund Covid costs will plunge schools like mine back into the red

Yesterday felt like the final straw for many school leaders up and down the country. Schools minister Nick Gibb said the funding settlement for schools this year and the next two years has been “very generous”, indicating schools can take the hit regarding Covid-19 costs. Apparently the decision to compensate schools for the costs of […]

Social and emotional learning could be at risk just when it’s most needed

Pupils need social and emotional learning more than ever – but a focus on safety and virtual learning could sideline this crucial area, writes Will Millard Schools will fully reopen in September. The start of lockdown in March feels like an eternity ago, and pupils and teachers alike will be approaching September with feelings of […]

Amarjit Cheema, chief executive of the Perry Hall Multi-Academy Trust

Amarjit Cheema is not a “top down” academy boss who believes in dictating how her schools or communities should approach learning. “The people in the classroom – they know what’s going on,” says the chief executive of the Perry Hall Multi-Academy Trust. “We’re very much about the individuality of our schools and their identity. “If […]

A look inside the only grade 1 UTC

If Lord Kenneth Baker could take a blueprint for the beleaguered university technical college (UTC) and multiply it across the country, it’s likely that he would choose UTC Reading. Baker, who served as education secretary under Margaret Thatcher and who has pushed the UTC model of vocational education within the Department for Education (DfE) since […]

St Peter’s Catholic Voluntary Academy, Middlesbrough

Zahida Hammond, headteacher at St Peter’s Catholic Voluntary Academy, an 11-16 school in Middlesbrough, looks bewildered when I tell her how many schools seemingly don’t have good careers advice. There are eight separate careers criteria, called the Gatsby Benchmarks, and just 1.5 per cent of schools and colleges meet all of them. “It’s about having […]

School hopes fresh air will help clear exam minds

A Surrey school plans to keep its windows open during exams after a physics teacher showed carbon dioxide levels rocketed in classrooms without any airflow. Alby Reid of Reigate Grammar said he would “never close the window” in his classroom again after he tested CO2 levels during a double lesson. After one-and-a-half hours it had […]

Failing schools more likely to improve under LA control, new study claims

Schools with poor Ofsted grades were more likely to improve if they stayed under local authority control than if they converted to academies, a new analysis has found. Not only that, the study found good schools that converted to academies were more likely to lose their strong Ofsted grade, findings which critics say undermine the […]