Jess Staufenberg | Schools Week

Consultation responses reveal widespread resistance to government selection plans

Education organisations have today outlined their opposition to the government’s new selective school proposals. Schools Week has rounded up the key arguments from official responses submitted as part of the government’s consultation on scrapping the ban on new grammar schools, which closes today. The ‘Schools that work for everyone’ green paper also includes plans to […]

Select committees launch joint inquiry into schools’ mental health provision

A joint inquiry is set to investigate how schools and teachers can prevent and intervene in mental health issues among pupils. The education and health select committees will run a new inquiry into “the role of education in promoting emotional well-being in children and young people and preventing the development of mental health problems” in […]

SSAT 2016: Numeracy and literacy focus narrowed the curriculum, says Sean Harford

Science and modern languages are going to get a good look-in too, says Sean Harford. Ofsted will increasingly check that science and modern languages are not being pushed out of the curriculum because of a historical focus on numeracy and literacy – with the inspection body “putting its hands up” to playing a role in […]

SSAT 2016: Teaching to the test is stopping PISA progress, says Debra Kidd

Debra Kidd says pupils are primed for national exams, which is why they struggle in tests such as PISA. An “atomised” curriculum that does not allow for transferable knowledge explains the country’s poor performance in international education league tables, said Dr Debra Kidd (pictured), an author and former teacher. She told delegates that English pupils […]

SSAT 2016: We are in a new education age obsessed with identity, says Andy Hargreaves

English schools are “way ahead of most of the world” in terms of collaborating to improve opportunities for pupils, says Andy Hargreaves. Education has moved from a focus on achievement and effort towards a “new age” anxious about identity and well-being, said Hargreaves (pictured), of Boston College in Massachusetts, but the English education system was […]

PISA 2015: Achievement gap between top and bottom pupils equivalent to 8 years’ schooling

The gap in achievement between 15-year-old pupils in England in key subjects is one of the largest and most unequal among developed countries, a release of international test data showed. But a government report on the results of the tests taken last year by over 5,000 pupils across the country, plays down the importance of […]

PISA 2015: No improvement for a decade … and 10 other oddities

English pupils have not improved their PISA scores for almost the last decade, according to an international data set released today. Though they have managed not to fall in performance, as seen in other high-performing countries. English pupils about to take their GCSEs are strongest in science, just above average for reading (with girls outstripping […]

GCSE English and maths requirement blamed for ‘cliff-edge drop’ in early years recruitment

The low number of pupils achieving a GCSE in English and maths has been blamed for a recruitment crisis in early years education. Experts say that rules introduced in September 2014 that require early years’ educators to have a C or above in GCSE English and maths have caused a “cliff-edge drop” in the number […]

Isles of Scilly’s only secondary school placed in special measures – what now?

The only secondary school on the Isles of Scilly has been placed in special measures and told an academy order will now be triggered, raising the question of how to find a new owner within reach of a remote island. Five Islands School, a 5 to 16 through-school with boarding facilities, has been downgraded by […]