Author: John Dickens

The government plans to look at how it can strengthen the role of designated safeguarding leads in schools to ensure vulnerable children “achieve and attend”. A consultation due to launch later today will propose changes to the role so the leads have a “greater focus” on improving the academic achievement of children on the edge […]

Exam boards will be required to publish the costs of qualifications on their websites to “create a more level playing field”. All regulated exam boards must publish fee information about their qualifications from October. The information will include the qualification fee, any fees for other products that must be bought alongside the qualification, plus any […]

The national schools commissioner has revealed academy trust bosses can get “a steer” on whether their plans to take over schools would get the go-ahead before official meetings. Important decisions on academies – such as choosing which trusts to take over a school – are made by regional schools commissioners during headteacher board meetings. During […]

Six grammar schools across four local authority areas will split £14.3 million to expand and create an extra 1,100 school places, the Department for Education has announced. The successful schools make up less than a quarter of the 25 schools who bid for the second tranche of the selective schools expansion fund (SSEF). A key […]

Academies minister Lord Agnew is to leave the Department for Education, Schools Week understands. The Tory peer has been promoted to the role of minister of state at both the Cabinet Office and Treasury. His time at the DfE has proved divisive in the sector, as he has led the way on making sure schools […]

A consultation on plans to remove funding for more than 5,000 legacy qualifications at level three and below has been launched by the Department for Education. Those at risk are courses that are currently not being studied by any pupils or have cohorts of fewer than 100, and are coming to the end of their […]

Cost-cutting measures that saved £120,000 at an academy singled out as a success story of Lord Agnew’s controversial resource management adviser scheme were actually already being implemented, Schools Week can reveal. Academies minister Lord Agnew highlighted recently how Chapeltown Academy, in Sheffield, had reviewed its senior leadership structure, saving £120,000 per year, a change it […]

The government is launching a “rapid feedback” service to compare similar schools based on how frugal they are. And academies minister Lord Agnew has warned academy leaders for those not in the top 25 per cent for efficiency to “provide robust challenge” on why. However, the government has reiterated the new tool, to launch later […]

The government is to fine tune its national plan for music this autumn to ‘level up’ the opportunities offered to pupils “regardless of their background”, minister Nick Gibb said today. Music industry and education experts are being invited to suggest ways to improve the blueprint for music education to ensure that all children benefit. The […]