Nicky Phillips | Schools Week

Academy opens ahead of schedule

Keys have been handed over for a new £10 million UTC building in Heathrow, west London, six weeks ahead of schedule. The 4,500sqm building includes state of the art engineering workshops aimed to promote the school’s aviation engineering specialism. Many sustainable features have also been included. Carbon emissions will be reduced by 25 per cent […]

An insider’s view of Hollywood

British actor Carey Mulligan recently gave a group of 200 west London pupils an insider’s view of life behind the lens. Pupils from Greenside Primary School and Hammersmith Academy questioned The Great Gatsby actress in an exclusive Q&A event, organised by education charity Into Film. Ms Mulligan, who recently played a schoolteacher in a West […]

Teacher duo aims to top off ‘amazing’ year

Two teachers from York are taking on Band Aid and letting themselves dream of a Christmas No 1. Robin Parmiter and Ian Wilson, both teachers at Huntington School, will re-form pop duo Disco Mister in an attempt to seal an amazing year. The two came to prominence when they released their song Bring It Home […]

Cabot academies fill the stage

Schools across South Gloucestershire put on a Christmas spectacular when they joined forces for their annual concert. Hosted by King’s Oak Academy, the concert took place in the Colston Hall in Bristol and included eight of Cabot Learning Federation’s academy’s partner primary schools, Beacon Rise, Courtney, The Tynings School, Kings Forest, Parkwall, Summerhill Academy, the Park […]

Head made £40,000 ‘irregular’ payments, says EFA

A headteacher took more than £700 worth of alcohol from his school and made almost £40,000 of “irregular” payments before he resigned, a government report has found. The Education Funding Agency (EFA) undertook an investigation at Sawtry Community College, an 11-18 school near Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, after an internal whistleblower made serious allegations about the principal […]

Cameron needs to rethink maths and science plan

Plans to train an extra 17,500 maths and physics teachers at a cost of £67 million have been met with scepticism by teacher training experts. On Monday, the prime minister set out a plan to recruit an additional 500 maths and physics teachers each year over the course of the next parliament, on top of […]

Alliance wants to redistribute pupil premiums

Pupil premiums should be redistributed to pupils who are both disadvantaged and have low attainment, suggests a group of education organisations. The Fair Education Alliance (FEA) wants the premium halved and spread more generously to students struggling with low attainment. It claims that this would give double-weighting to low income pupils in most need of […]

Hunt: Schools should be free to choose how they do it

In the same week that the coalition pushed military ethos projects, shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt said that he would expect Ofsted to “value” character education in schools. Speaking on Monday at The Character Conference, organised by Demos and The Jubilee Centre, Mr Hunt stopped short of saying that he would create a measurement for […]

Ministers back college of teaching

A proposed college of teaching has been backed by the government in an announcement by ministers Nicky Morgan and David Laws this week. Last month Schools Week reported that it would take up to three years for the college to get up to capacity after its initial launch. A new website, claimyourcollege.org, has now been […]