Jess Staufenberg | Schools Week

REVEALED: The schools where the poorest pupils make most progress

The poorest pupils have made more progress than their better-off peers at just three per cent of secondary schools, new analysis shows. About 100 schools posted a positive Progress 8 score for their pupils on free school meals, or who were on free school meals at some point in the last six year, which beat […]

Excluded pupils must have protective ‘bill of rights’, says education committee chair

Excluded pupils should be protected by a “bill of rights” that would allow proper scrutiny of their school’s decision to kick them out, the influential chair of the education select committee has said. Robert Halfon is concerned about the lack of protection for pupils and their parents in situations where schools may have wrongly excluded […]

Amanda Spielman: Sunday schools must be inspected to prevent extremism

Church of England schools must support the inspection of Sunday schools to protect their pupils from extremism, Amanda Spielman said today. The chief inspector of schools said a move by the Church of England in 2016 to block proposals to allow Ofsted to inspect out-of-school educational provision like Sunday schools was “a matter of regret”. […]

Harris accounts: Redundancy payouts double as Moynihan gets £20k pay rise

Redundancy payouts have more than doubled at London’s Harris multi-academy trust last year, while chief executive Dan Moynihan received a £20,000 pay rise, the chain’s accounts reveal. The documents, published today, show the Harris Federation paid out £470,000 in redundancy pay in 2017, compared with just £189,000 the year before. They also show that Moynihan […]

Headteacher boards swerve post-16 and SEND despite DfE promises

The headteacher boards have been ignoring post-16 and SEND experts in their decisions on academisation – even though the government promised they would be included. The Department for Education said the boards, which advise the regional schools commissioners on rebrokering and academy conversion, would seek “specific advice” from post-16 and special needs experts, but Schools […]

Revealed: Failing schools that received emergency cash

An emergency government funding pot for schools “in danger of imminent failure” handed out £2.6 million to 29 schools in the past year, Schools Week can exclusively reveal. But it hasn’t always helped: one school is in the process of closing down despite three separate handouts worth over £400,000 in total. The emergency fund was […]

Revealed: The hidden cost of free schools

Free schools have cost on average almost three times as much to open as the government originally predicted, according to research that reveals the total cost of the programme for the first time. A new report, written by ex-Department for Education adviser Tom Richmond and shared exclusively with Schools Week, found the average cost of […]

MAT league tables 2017: The best and worst performers, and 4 other findings

More than half of MATs fell below the average for Progress 8 performance measures last year, despite a slight improvement on the year before. The government has today published its multi-academy trust (MAT) performance league tables, based on 2017 exam results. The analysis is based on key stage 2 and key stage 4 exam results, […]

11-plus test provider goes to tribunal over secret scoring methods

One of the country’s largest assessment companies is being taken to tribunal after refusing to release the details of the 11-plus test it runs for grammar school entry. The Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM), which is part of Durham University, will face a parent angered by the “unnecessary secrecy” around how the 11-plus is […]