Nicky Phillips | Schools Week

Conservative councillors promise grammar expansions if elected

Several local authorities bordering an area with selective schools have said they would welcome grammar “annexes” in their areas, leading to questions over Nicky Morgan’s promise not to open the “floodgates” on grammars. In the run-up to this week’s local elections, Conservative councillors in Milton Keynes, a non-selective local authority, promised grammar annexes if they […]

Toby Young, founder and CEO, West London free school

It is 5.30am on the day I am meeting Toby Young, the gonzo journalist turned right-wing columnist turned free school founder, and my cat is making life difficult. He’s mewing loudly. I decide he must be dying of dehydration and get out of bed to find out what’s wrong. Nothing is wrong. He has plentiful […]

Gibb digs in on primary tests after day of protests

The government has refused to change primary tests in response to this week’s unprecedented parent protests, backed by tens of thousands of online signatories and two children’s laureates. With disputes over the number of children kept off school on Tuesday, Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted’s chief inspector, weighed in to support the new national curriculum assessments […]

Teaching schools face cash shortage if funding halted

Teaching schools would be “severely vulnerable” if government funding were to stop, despite an expectation that many of the schools would be self-sufficient by now, writes John Dickens. The first cohort of schools was set up in 2011 and funded for four years with the expectation they would all be able to operate sustainably after […]

The motorway model of mental health risks

What have you been working on? We’re interested in the characteristics of schools linked to pupil mental health risks and are trying to research what those factors might be. We measure specifically a cognitive function called “steering cognition”. If you think of a pupil as a car, steering cognition (which is unrelated to IQ) regulates […]

What happened to the School Food Plan

The group tasked with supporting the implementation of a £16 million school food improvement plan has shut up shop without any project evaluation. Funding for the School Food Plan, first granted under former education secretary Michael Gove in 2012, ended on March 31. Education blogger Andy Jolley said it was worrying there had been no […]

Featured: Inaugural awards for Cornwall’s teachers

Cornwall’s teachers have been recognised at a glittering ceremony in the first teaching awards for the area. Held at Truro Cathedral and hosted by Helen Mathieson, chief executive of Salisbury Plain Academies, winners and nominees were celebrated for their positive impact on pupils. Vic Goddard, from Channel 4’s Educating Essex, delivered a keynote speech. There […]

Space walker visits academy

Pupils at Merchants’ academy Bristol received an out of this world experience when British astronaut Mike Foale came to visit. Wearing a blue flight jacket, Foale, the first Briton to walk in space, told the audience of year 7 and 8 students how he was determined from the age of six to be an astronaut. […]

A lack of fluent thinking

There are not enough teachers to teach the mandatory Ebacc modern foreign language. In the spirit of détente, Leora Cruddas puts forward three steps that could bridge the gap Bonjour. Guten Tag. Buenos dias. Welcome to the future of foreign language teaching. It is a future that will be shaped by the government’s aim that […]