Author: Nick Linford

Politicians will discuss the lack of creative subjects in the government’s new EBacc after a drama teacher’s petition was signed by more than 100,000 people. The House of Commons petition committee will consider whether Richard Wilson’s petition to “include expressive arts subjects in the Ebacc” should be the subject of a parliamentary debate. The government […]

Ofsted has taken aim at Reading Council over GCSE results, despite the fact three quarters of secondary schools in the borough are academies. The Labour-controlled council has been warned it still has a “key responsibility” for standards in Reading’s secondary schools, six of which are now academies, with just two still local authority maintained. Bradley […]

A call for help with teachers’ mortgage deposits and for closer work between schools has been backed by school leaders, as a leading education organisation warned of “deeply entrenched” inequality across the country. The Fair Education Alliance, which consists of more than 50 organisations including the National Association of Headteachers, Teach First, Save the Children […]

School leaders may be forced to report parents who purposely keep their children at home during this summer’s SATs, leaving boycotters open to prosecution, jail time and fines of up to £2,500. Thousands of parents have indicated through online petitions that they will keep their children away from school on May 3 in protest against […]

The influence of teachers over their pupils’ career choices should be “explicitly recognised” and “actively promoted” by government in a bid to better promote engineering as a subject, a key sector organisation has said. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers has launched a report, which calls for a re-think of the role of schools in promoting […]

Maths teachers should focus less on marking and more on lesson planning, the organisation that represents the subject at a national level has said. The National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics has issued new guidance to schools suggesting that the “widespread practice of teachers giving individual and unique written tips and targets to […]

Young people who miss school as a result of their mental health are being turned away from services because their conditions are not sufficiently “complex”, a leading think tank has warned. CentreForum has called for mental health support to be a priority for the education sector after its research found that some child and adolescent mental […]

Controversial primary school baseline tests will not be used to track school performance, the government has announced. Following a comparability study, the Department for Education has confirmed it will not be using this year’s results as the baseline for progress measures. It confirms what Schools Week reported in February, and leaves the future of the tests in more […]

The national curriculum should be scrapped for pupils over 14 and responsibility for careers advice taken away from schools, to help young people make the right choices about their future, an influential group of peers has said. The House of Lords social mobility committee has warned in its latest report that young people who choose […]