Nicky Phillips | Schools Week

Career changers’ teacher training applications increase by 27%

Career-changers are fuelling a rise in the number of applicants to teacher training courses, with the latest statistics from UCAS showing a 2 per cent increase in the number of people applying for initial teacher training to start in September this year, taking numbers to a three-year high. Overall, 38,520 people have applied for initital […]

TA standards ‘nothing to do with us’, says Gibb – as unions publish report

Government-commissioned standards for teaching assistants are finally being released 15 months after they were due, but only on the condition it is “clear” the report has nothing to do with the Department for Education. As Schools Week exclusively revealed last October, the department refused to publish the standards that describe training and responsibility expectations for […]

INVESTIGATION: Schools seek Russell-Group grads for £12k TA jobs – others need not apply

A surge in teaching assistant adverts for Russell Group university graduates – with salaries as low as £11,400 – is fuelling fears of another route for “cheap labour” into the classroom. Schools Week has found scores of adverts for teaching assistants, to start this September, inviting applicants from the country’s top universities only. Many of […]

Someone knock their bloody heads together

One of the few Shakespearean phrases I knew growing up was “someone knock their bloody heads together”. Unfortunately, I learned one day when I was about 20 that Shakespeare never said it. It’s still a good phrase though. And it’s an important one this week. A problem of politics is that it makes personalities impinge […]

Former education secretary tipped for Tory leadership

Former education secretary Michael Gove (pictured) has become second favourite to become the next Conservative party leader – after betting company William Hill slashed odds from 20/1 to 4/1, placing him just behind Boris Johnson, the former London mayor. Gove’s three-year stint as education secretary ended abruptly in July 2014 after David Cameron announced a […]

What is the Teaching Schools Council and how does it work?

In the recent white paper, the Department for Education pushed the expansion of teaching schools as its preferred method of school improvement. In fact, teaching schools – which are Ofsted outstanding schools that collaborate with others to provide high-quality training and development – were mentioned 33 times in the 128-page document. Yet, the Teaching Schools […]

Centre for High Performance: The faces behind school gaming research

Last month the Centre for High Performance – a company created by two academics – received more than 20,000 messages. Unfortunately, most of them were hate mail. Things looked bad. It was all because a summary document, which was based on a working paper by the two academics and two other colleagues, went viral – […]

Institute and Deloitte team up on course for academy chiefs

A new executive leadership training programme will launch later this year, the latest to pop-up in response to the government’s £500 million drive for new academy chief executives. The Institute of Education (IOE) has partnered with consultants Deloitte to create the new nine-month programme aimed at helping senior staff expand their academy trusts. Registration is […]

Bids for ‘multiplication check’ times-tables tests due

Contractors wishing to deliver the government’s planned “multiplication check” for primary children must get their bids in by the end of next week. The first online times-tables tests for 10 and 11-year-olds, a manifesto commitment made by the Conservatives before the general election last year, are due to begin in May next year. In an […]