Nicky Phillips | Schools Week

Myopia and daylight in schools: a neglected aspect of public health?

Dr Richard Hobday, Independent Researcher What have you been working on? I’ve been researching the impact of building design, in particular, hospitals and schools, on peoples’ health. Educational philosophy and medical thinking have historically had a major influence on the layout of school buildings and from the end of the 19th and into the 20th […]

How to make teacher training more attractive

Many subjects devalued by Progress 8 are undersubscribed in this year’s training intake. To boost recruitment, Oliver Beach suggests, schools should use new entrants’ skills beyond the classroom We’d all like to see graduates running down university corridors to bag a place in schools. Imagine: economics grads stomping down corridors, carrying Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations […]

Government’s £8m academy and free school bail-out

The government has handed out more than £8 million in emergency funding to cash-strapped schools in the past three years. Freedom of information figures show that since 2013-14, the Department for Education (DfE) has paid out a total of £8.2 million in deficit funding to help schools to balance their books. More than half (£4.6 […]

Inventive ways with a Raspberry Pi …

Some of the UK’s brightest young innovators were celebrated recently at an annual Raspberry Pi coding competition final at the Institution of Engineering and Technology in London. Pupils across the country had to come up with an inventive way of using the computer devices to drive innovation in sport and leisure. Nine teams of finalists […]

NGA launches new campaign

The National Governors’ Association (NGA) wants schools to host an exclusive day for governors to share their “vision” with the local community, councillors and MPs. The Growing Governance campaign, which has been launched to mark the association’s ten-year anniversary, aims to engage the “whole school community” in a debate about education. The goal is to […]

School dodges closure by converting to academy

A middle school has dodged closure after gaining an academy conversion order from its regional schools commissioner (RSC) – while another school is facing problems after intervention from its RSC. Ponteland middle school in Northumberland was earmarked for closure under council proposals to move from a three to a two-tier system. The teaching school, also […]

Break a habit and tap the potential of key stage 3

In a week when primary tests are dominating the headlines, Ed Cadwallader asks what happens to the “wasted years” of key stage 3 National curriculum levels have been scrapped following the recognition that the thinking behind them was flawed. The argument is that we should not consider progress to be a series of ordered steps […]

Christine Counsell, Ellie Mulcahy, Will Millard and Iesha Small

Christine Counsell has been appointed as the first director of education at the Inspiration Trust where she will “guide and support” principals at the trust’s 13 schools across East Anglia. She will also lead teacher training and professional development programmes. Counsell says she specialises in supporting teachers in “ways of blending secure narrative knowledge with […]

Coach brings a touch of reality

A former Team GB coach is hoping gymnastics lessons she has developed will help primary school children to become passionate about physical activity. Sarah Moon, the rhythmic gymnastics team coach for the London 2012 Olympics, says her Real Gym lessons combine her experience with “elite level gymnastics and work in schools” and aim to develop […]