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18 April 2026

Author: Nicky Phillips

Convicted criminals want to work in schools, records show

Murderers, paedophiles and heroin dealers are among thousands of convicted criminals who have applied to work in classrooms across the country, Schools Week can reveal. Our investigation found more than 16,000 people with criminal convictions applied to work as a teacher or teaching assistant in the past three financial years, despite having more than 44,000 […]

Kate Dethridge, primary head and national leader of education

Kate Dethridge became a dame at the start of this year – but she was nearly the last person to find out. For starters, the vital letter from the Cabinet Office went to her old house where, luckily, the new resident thought it looked significant enough – it said “important” on the envelope – to […]

Small is not always beautiful

One governing body is challenging “statutory guidance” on governing body size. It wants to reflect its large and diverse community so, come September, there will be 12 co-opted governors on board . . . As governors of a community school proud of its status as a strategic resource for the local authority, we have just fulfilled our […]

All talk and lots of action

Supporting all pupils to develop their speech, language and communication skills is everybody’s responsibility and can be a part of every lesson Speech, language and communication needs, or SLCN, is the most common special educational need within state-funded primary schools. But, while the identification of SLCN has increased by about 70 per cent in recent […]

Would you trust a human to mark your work?

You might say no to a driverless car or a pilotless plane, but it is time to trust computers to do your marking Question: A boy climbs slowly to the top of a slide and then slides down. At which point will his kinetic energy be a maximum? One student wrote as his answer: When […]

Charity’s FGM programme expands

A programme teaching pupils about the dangers of female genital mutilation (FGM) has been rolled out in Manchester and Birmingham. The free initiative, created by FGM specialist charity, FORWARD, started in London last May and is the first of its kind in UK schools. Open to both primary and secondary schools, it teaches girls and […]

Serving soldiers help to remember Great War

Soldiers are heading to classrooms to help pupils to commemorate the First World War in a scheme run by the British Army. As part of the free OP REFLECT, two or three serving soldiers will speak to secondary school and sixth-form pupils about how their recent military operations compare to the experiences of officers 100 […]

Cyber enthusiasts win challenge

A team of tech-savvy Essex students have won a cyber-security challenge at Bletchley Park, the war-time intelligence centre used to crack Nazi codes and ciphers. A group from King Edward VI Grammar School (KEGS) headed to the historic site, where Alan Turing cracked the Enigma code, to compete under the watchful eyes of cyber experts […]

Anthony Seldon, Julie Robinson and Laura Turner

Anthony Seldon is leaving Wellington College after 10 years as the school’s 13th headmaster to become vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, which his father Arthur Seldon helped to found 40 years ago. Sir Anthony says he has done “everything [he] wanted to do” at the Berkshire independent school, including pioneering the teaching of wellbeing […]