Author: John Dickens

Teacher-assessed grades will have to be hauled down by up to 12 percentage points this year so results are not “significantly undermined”. However the regulator has sought to reassure schools ahead of this year’s results day, promising that grades will be “slightly better” than last year. Ofqual revealed today that grades submitted by teachers were around […]

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has this afternoon published its annual report and accounts for 2019-20, revealing academy trust debt write-offs, hefty fraud investigation costs and salary boosts for top civil servants. Schools Week has the main findings:   1. Majority of academy trusts still ignoring pay warnings One of the ESFA’s performance goals […]

The independent body that reviews teacher pay has fired a warning shot over the government’s pay proposals – saying further lower increases for senior staff could result in teacher supply continuing to stagnate. The School Teachers’ Review Body has published its 2020 report today, which resulted in the government approving an overall 3.1 per cent […]

Council-maintained schools will be required to publish on their websites the number of staff earning over £100,000. The government has today published its response to a consultation aimed at bringing financial transparency of council schools in line with academies. Other changes include councils being named and shamed for filing financial returns late and for all […]

The government has confirmed today that starting salaries for new teachers will rise by 5.5 per cent next year, with the upper and lower boundaries of the pay ranges for all other teachers to rise by 2.75 per cent. The recommendations amount to a 3.1 per cent increase in the overall pay bill for 2020-21 […]

Teachers will get a 3.1 per cent pay rise, it has been announced today. The rise is mostly expected – it’s similar to the recommendations made by government to the independent school pay body in January. The government proposed an overall 3 per cent rise that would provide increases for every teacher. However it was […]

The government’s £350 million national tutoring programme won’t fully “ramp up” until the spring term, with schools also not able to access tutors until November. The Department for Education has published further details of how its catch-up programme for next year will work. It follows announcements today that the £650 million for schools will be […]

Teach First will attempt to recruit the trainees it dropped earlier this year to become mentors under the national tutoring programme (NTP). The teacher training charity has been handed a £6.44 million contract to recruit and train up to 1,000 academic mentors to support disadvantaged schools. As part of the government’s catch-up programme, mentors will […]

A scheme being designed to provide extra tuition for disadvantaged school pupils has been slashed by almost £100 million after the government pledged to use a chunk of the funding for 16 to 19-year-olds. Under proposals for a £1 billion Covid-19 “catch-up plan” announced by the Department for Education last month, £350 million was set […]