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28 April 2026

Author: Nick Linford

Election 2015: Education policies of all parties so far

Political parties have yet to reveal their manifestos but they have been making pledges in speeches and newspaper articles. David Foster at the Commons Library has compiled promises made so far (see below for document).   School funding – ‘flat cash’ per pupils New tests for primary school pupils Converting schools that ‘require improvement’ into […]

How the DfE will introduce curriculum and qualification change from now on

A finding of the government’s ‘Workload Challenge’ was that sudden changes to curriculum and performance measures caused undue stress and workload. In response, the government today published a shiny new ‘Protocol for changes to accountability, curriculum and qualifications‘.   It says that from now on new qualification and curriculum changes should: – be introduced at the […]

Tristram Hunt: ASCL Speech Full Text

Tristram Hunt spoke at the ASCL Conference in London today. This is the full text from the planned speech.   TRUST AND TRANSFORM Thank you. It is a tremendous pleasure to be here today at ‘Trust to Transform.’ A strapline which perfectly encapsulates the approach the Labour Party will take to English education’s next reform […]

West London Free School leaders plan ‘academically rigorous’ school in Oxford

Two assistant headteachers from Toby Young’s West London Free School are planning a free school in Oxford. Laura Mathews and Wade Nottingham have confirmed their involvement in Powerful Education, a project intending to open an 11 to 18 free school in Oxford in September 2017 with an intake of 120 pupils. But doubts have been […]

Pupil who designed new £1 coin was encouraged by his teacher

A Walsall teenager told by his teacher about a competition to design the “tails” side of the new £1 coin saw off 6,000 other entries to be named as the winner. David Pearce, a 15-year-old pupil at Queen Mary’s Grammar School in Walsall, got a phone call from chancellor George Osborne earlier this week telling […]

Budget reveals measures for reducing ‘back-office’ spend in schools

While chancellor George Osborne failed to mention education in his budget speech, the full report includes measures for reducing “back-office” spending in schools. The document says: “In education, evidence shows that the best performing schools focus their spending on teachers over the ‘back-office’. However, spending on back-office costs varies from £202 to £1,432 per pupil, […]