Author: Nick Linford

Ofqual has written to exam boards this week demanding proof their qualifications are up to scratch. The regulator has ordered boards to provide evidence their qualifications can be “trusted”, including how long they take to teach. Exam boards will have to justify the overall time it takes to complete a qualification and, separately, the expected […]

The government has been accused of rushing out its plan to create ‘parent councils’ as a response to the removal of parent governor rights. During a House of Lords question session, junior education minister Lord John Nash defended the removal of parent governors as a statutory part of school governing bodies. He said that while […]

A prominent independent school could test and monitor all of its pupils to identify those vulnerable to ‘meltdown’ after a successful trial of a new system. Wellington College in Berkshire is considering extending its use of a system that tests pupils’ thinking and behaviour and uses a ‘database of interventions’ to help pastoral staff target […]

New rules for allocating top grades in GCSEs have been floated by the exams watchdog Ofqual. From summer 2017, pupils will sit new GCSEs in English and maths, which will be graded using a numerical scale (1 to 9) instead of lettered grades (A to G). The new top mark will be grade 9, which […]

Primary schools will not have to make their pupils sit controversial new key stage 1 spelling and grammar tests this year after a leak of the test paper online sparked a government inquiry. Schools minister Nick Gibb has told schools they don’t need to run the tests next month and ordered a “root and branch” […]

Endangered GCSEs and A levels in languages including Panjabi, Portuguese and Japanese have been saved after a deal was struck between the government and three of England’s largest exam boards, but Persian and Dutch exams are still facing the axe. Exam frameworks in Arabic, modern Greek, Gujarati, Bengali, Japanese, modern and Biblical Hebrew, Panjabi, Polish, […]

Personal, social, health and economics education (PSHE) should be compulsory in schools to protect teachers from accusations of hidden agendas and “brainwashing” from hostile parents, a union has said. Stepping up its campaign on the matter, the National Association of Head Teachers has called for PSHE and sex and relationships education to be given statutory […]

Schools should be “freed from the obligation” of running this year’s key stage 1 spelling, grammar and punctuation test after the paper was accidentally leaked online, headteachers have demanded, after revealing tens of thousands of pupils could now know the answers. Following the revelation by Schools Week last night that the live test paper has […]