Nick Linford | Schools Week

DfE accounts lack ‘truth and fairness’ says finance watchdog

The Department for Education’s financial statements lack “truth and fairness” according to the government’s audit watchdog. The department (DfE) finally published its accounts for 2014/15 today, four months later than usual, after it used a statutory instrument to delay publication. Schools Week reported in January that the department had started getting its accounts in order […]

Ex-Cabinet Office official Jonathan Slater is new Department for Education permanent secretary

Jonathan Slater, a senior Cabinet Office official who has also worked in the Ministries of Justice and Defence, has been appointed to lead civil servants at the Department for Education as its permanent secretary. Slater, currently director general and head of the economic and domestic secretariat at the Cabinet Office, will take over from Chris […]

Advice for schools on helping fasting Muslim pupils through Ramadan

School pupils fasting for Ramadan should have access to quiet resting space, cooler classrooms and room for prayer near exam halls, according to union advice that has been backed by Muslim leaders as heads prepare to oversee the first exam period to clash with the celebration since the 1980s. This year will be the first time Ramadan […]

School leaders demand PFI contracts review

Private finance initiative contracts should be reviewed by the government as it plans a new national funding formula, so as not to “jeopardise the financial health” of schools, the Association of School and College Leaders has said. The union has used its response to the funding formula consultation to urge the government to seize the opportunity […]

National funding formula warning from school leaders

School headteachers and business managers have joined forces to express their fears and aspirations about plans for a new national funding formula. The government is currently consulting on a new funding system for schools after years of campaigning by politicians and school leaders, who claim the huge variation in per-pupil funding between different areas of […]

The 4 things academies will have to prove to open a sixth form

The government has updated its guidance for open academies trying to make “significant changes”. The release follows a campaign by post-16 institutions for tougher restrictions on the practice, borne out of fears that some smaller sixth forms are unviable and concerns that larger new school sixth forms could threaten other providers in their area. Here’s what the […]

IFS: Spending gap between rich and poor schools has doubled in 20 years

The gap in spending on pupils between the poorest and richest schools in England has doubled over the past two decades as successive governments targeted extra funding at schools with the worst-off children, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has revealed. But a new national funding formula aimed at redressing the balance would leave such gaps […]

‘It’s all about the money’: The REAL reason behind forced academisation

Why are the Conservatives intent on making every school into an academy? It’s not about standards, it’s all about the money, writes Mike Cameron. It is becoming clear to anyone with even a passing understanding of the issues that academisation is not a universal panacea that cures all of a schools ills. The evidence we […]

Nash: Schools commissioners’ transparency documents will be published ‘this month’

Long-awaited transparency information about the country’s nine schools commissioners will be published by the government this month, finally fulfilling a demand made by MPs in January. Lord Nash, the academies minister, told the House of Lords this morning that several documents would be on the government’s website by the end of the month, including a […]