Author: Jess Staufenberg

Pupils score three points higher in verbal reasoning tests if they have a parent who attends parents’ evenings, research has found. Children whose parents never read to them before the age of five also scored almost two points lower in reasoning tests taken at 11, a report by the Social Market Foundation has said. To […]

Schools should establish homework contracts with parents to set out everyone’s responsibilities in making sure it gets done, according to a new report. Pupils with parents who make sure they complete their homework before they do other activities score almost two points (1.93) higher in verbal reasoning tests aged 11, research from the Social Market […]

Education has “not done anything” to improve social mobility and has made inequality worse, according to the education economist Stephen Machin. Speaking at a debate held by the Sutton Trust on Wednesday in central London, Machin said education had been a “dequaliser” because it benefited rich pupils more. “Education has not been the great leveller. […]

Emma Hardy, Labour MP for Hull West and Hessle, has been elected to sit on the education select committee with a pledge to re-prioritise “the arts” in the curriculum and tackle informal exclusions. Hardy, a former primary school teacher, joins four other Labour Party members on the committee, which will be led by newly appointed […]

Teachers at the most deprived secondary schools are 70 per cent more likely to leave their jobs than those working in the most affluent areas, leaving their pupils struggling as a result of the constant stream of inexperienced staff, a new report has found. Schools should have to publish their turnover rates so regional schools’ […]

The government needs to help schools feel there is not “a purely punitive intervention approach” to helping them improve, the education secretary has said. The DfE must drive a “move away from a perception of a purely punitive intervention approach” that schools had about the government and Ofsted, she added. In a speech at a […]

Good comprehensive schools are the best way to reverse stagnating social mobility, ahead of any other kind of educational provision, according to a new survey. Almost half (47 per cent) of the 2,000 people surveyed chose “high-quality teaching in comprehensives” as the best way to help poorer pupils, according to a report on social mobility […]