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14 April 2026

Author: Laura McInerney

New school food rules begin today but many still exempt

All maintained schools and new academies must follow new school food standards starting from today – but existing academies can carry on as they are. Under the new regulations, schools must provide at least one portion of vegetables as an accompaniment to each meal, plus one portion of fruit every day, and at least three […]

Books of the Year

People who love learning, usually love reading. Hence, education books can often be “an event” across the school sector, as teachers share their ideas and pass on wisdoms. Where in recent years a variety of big, serious books topped the charts, such as John Hattie’s huge compendium of education research studies, this year took a […]

Year commencing 2014

Harry Fletcher-Wood picks… Michael Fordham, clioetcetera.com Michael Fordham’s blog has been consistently superb, offering robust and thought-provoking argument in elegant prose. I approach each post with anticipation and trepidation (many highlight traps that I’ve fallen into). His thinking is primarily about the discipline of history teaching: as such, some posts act as references (I often recommend […]

8 Things You Might Have Missed in Ofsted’s Annual Report

At 9.30am yesterday Michael Wilshaw launched Ofsted’s Annual Report. As ever, there were pre-arranged sound bites and heavily suggested take-away points. But if you dig down into the report (and its regional ones) there are a few extra nuggets that you may have missed.   1.Too many academies do not receive effective challenge and support […]

Primary school results improve across all subjects

Performance in key stage two SATS has increased across all subjects, newly published figures show. Primary league tables show that 79 per cent of pupils reached the expected level in all of reading, writing and mathematics this year, against 75 per cent in 2013. The largest increases in results came in reading and spelling, punctuation […]

GCSE Science students should complete ‘log-book’ of sixteen experiments, says Ofqual

GCSE pupils may no longer need to undertake practical controlled assessments for their science exams – but instead their teacher would have to present logbooks to exam boards of up to 16 experiments per pupil. In a consultation launched today by Ofqual, recommendations include scrapping the controlled assessment of practical work and instead test students […]

DfE consults on plans for “world-class teaching profession”

A consultation on creating a ‘world class teaching profession has been launched today by the Department for Education (DfE). The document outlines support for an independent “College of Teaching” and additional funding for the Teaching Schools network, designed to drive up the quality of teacher professional development. Education secretary Nicky Morgan and schools minister David […]