Author: Jess Staufenberg

Examiners disagreed with each other on the marks they gave nearly three quarters of the time during a recent trial of exam papers. And according to a report from Ofqual, monitors did not agree with the scores awarded to papers marked a second time by their original examiner 60 per cent of the time. The […]

Nineteen local authorities have opened applications to run 19 new special free schools, as new figures reveal that more pupils with special needs are moving into specialist provision in the independent sector. The government has today confirmed that councils want to create an extra 1,600 new special school places over the next three years to […]

Up to 93,000 retired teachers have been underpaid £35 million of their pensions after a calculation “error” went unnoticed for four years, Schools Week can reveal. The teachers, who retired between 2011 and 2015, have missed out on their full pension after the outsourcing firm Capita failed to account for inflation, according to annual accounts […]

Just four per cent of Gypsy, Roma and Irish traveller pupils manage to access higher education in Britain today, far less than the national average of 40 per cent. Unveiled as part of a new report, the findings featured across national newspapers. But what role are schools playing in this? As new figures show the […]

An academy trust will hand all its teachers and school leaders a two-per-cent pay rise, even though the government has capped pay increases at one per cent. The Astrea Academy Trust, which is based in Yorkshire, wrote to its teaching and academy leadership staff to tell them they would get the extra cash from September. […]

The proportion of pupils permanently excluded from school has risen, government data shows. Statistics released by the Department for Education show that 0.08 per cent of pupils in all schools were excluded in 2015-16, compared to 0.07 per cent in 2014-15. It is the second year that has seen a rise in the rate of […]

Half of all pupils who are permanently excluded by their school have mental health issues, though the figure is likely to be “closer to 100 per cent” because so many are undiagnosed, a new report has found. By contrast, just one in 50 pupils in the wider population suffer from mental ill-health research by the […]

The Department for Education has pledged to double its funding for a joint programme with the German government which aims to encourage pupils to learn the German language. The DfE will put in £90,000 per year, up from £45,000 last year, to the UK-German Connection programme, to “build cultural ties and strengthen language learning”. A […]

Headteachers in the best schools can be “disincentivised” to strive for top grades because they do not have enough funding to afford the performance-related pay bonuses staff would earn. In fact, heads are finding themselves frustrated that nearby schools with worse results were not having to stretch their budgets to give extra pay to staff […]