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29 April 2026

Author: Jessica Hill

CEO’s mission to make AI a force for good in classrooms

Priya Lakhani is at pains to express how many of the achievements in her colourful career were driven by a strong moral conviction to make the world a better place. This is because the founder of ed tech firm Century Tech is acutely aware of fears over the potential harms from technology being misused (she […]

‘We support the strikes … but the children come first’

Headteachers say they’re stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to this week’s strikes, with their consciences torn between supporting children’s right to education and their teachers’ right to protest. And while parents have mostly so far been behind the protests, there is concern the two consecutive days of strikes planned […]

ASCL President on why she’s quitting headship

Sleepless nights caused by not enough staff to cover classes has been the final straw for Evelyn Forde. After 23 years in schools – nine as a headteacher – she’s decided to quit. The school she has led for the past seven years, Copthall Academy for girls in a leafy part of north London, has […]

School leaders rebel over raid on reserves amid ‘shameful’ bail-out ultimatum

A council set for a multi-million pound government bailout to bring its soaring SEND deficit under control will claw back “surplus” reserves held by schools to plug the shortfall. Mainstream schools, already struggling under shrinking budgets as councils try to cover high needs shortfalls, face a raid on their reserves as a condition of the “safety […]

The “maverick” headteacher determined to question Ofsted’s ruling

Dr Kulvarn Atwal’s reputation for teacher development recently attracted the entire staff of a Norwegian school to Essex, just to watch him teach. But the headteacher of two maintained primaries in Ilford admits his innovative approach means some consider him a “maverick”. And right now he’s wielding a mighty axe to grind against Ofsted. Its […]

Chris King, the chief executive of the Independent Association of Prep Schools

As a young pupil of Queen Elizabeth’s Hospital school in Bristol, Chris King used to take his cap off as soon as he passed through its castle-like gates into the outside world. “God help us if somebody from another school was passing by, they’d knock it off your head,” he says. But he is worried […]

‘People like me were absent when things were going wrong’

Tony McArdle is the man who holds the purse strings to stop councils going bankrupt – but only if they comply with strict cost-cutting of services for pupils with special needs. McArdle is both saviour and bogeyman for councils with staggering deficits in their budgets to provide education for pupils with special educational needs and […]

How the MAT era is squeezing out small schools

Small schools are the ‘beating heart’ of their community, but their numbers have been falling. Jessica Hill investigates how the push for an all-multi academy trust sector could hasten their decline Small schools can be the last bastion of a sense of place in communities that have lost their local pub, post office, doctor’s surgery […]