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29 April 2026

Author: Laura McInerney

LocatEd announces first new free school

LocatED, a private company set up by the Department for Education in July 2016 to produce new sites for new free schools, has named its first project: the GEMS Kingston primary academy in south London. The school is to be designed by Architecture Initiative and will be run by the GEMS Learning Trust, which currently […]

Poor pupils eschew music and sports clubs for more core tuition

Poorer pupils are missing out on music and sports clubs because they have to spend more time trying to improve their maths and English, the Sutton Trust has found. On average, year 11 pupils in England spend nine and a half hours per week on additional tuition, including activities outside the normal school timetable provided […]

Children prefer teachers who build relationships, research shows

Children studying in alternative provision favour teachers who they think teach well, according to new research, a perception which significantly contributes to in-class behaviour. Pupils were also found to prefer teachers who build strong and lasting relationships, according to research which studied young people across four alternative provision settings undertaken by Newman University in Birmingham. […]

Folks, we need to talk about exam re-marks

We need to talk about exam re-marks – and quickly, says editor Laura McInerney It’s the first week of term and teachers of exam classes will be poring over papers to decide if any should be sent for re-marking. At A-level the decision is usually made early: if a student misses their university grades, papers […]

School leaders: your ‘5 or above’ GCSE percentage is a headline measure

A lot of school leaders don’t seem to realise that the new “5 and above” rate is the measure on which the school will be judged. That’s because Justine Greening managed to bury the news. Back in March, she said in a letter to the education select committee that the new GCSE grade 4 would […]

GCSE Results 2017: Are changes in your results normal?

GCSE results are out. Each year Ofqual produces boring-sounding variability charts. It’s a dull name, but very important data. These charts show how many centres, i.e. schools or colleges, dropped or increased their results compared with the previous year. This means that if you dropped, say, 25 per cent in one subject, you can see […]

GCSE results 2017: The 7 most interesting things we have learned

GCSE results are out and there is a lot of noise in the statistics. Wales and Northern Ireland have not reformed their subjects in the same way as England, so the UK data is weird. The England all-ages data includes lots more resits of 17-year-olds and some early entries, which also makes things weird. Then […]

A-levels 2017: Exam boards consider additional gender category for results tables

Exam boards are consulting with charities on plans to include an extra gender category in the annual release of GCSE and A-level statistics. At present, the Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ) publishes grades in each subject broken down by males and females. In the future, however, the results could be recategorised to include young people […]