Nicky Phillips | Schools Week

Free breakfasts proposed for primary schools

A parliamentary report that highlighted the problem of children going to school hungry has proposed free breakfasts to tackle the problem. The all-party parliamentary group (APPG) on hunger, headed by Labour MP Frank Field, surveyed 19 schools in Birkenhead and 13 in South Shields. According to its report, some children at one school in South […]

Why did some results dip last year? Ofqual reveals all…

Last year, on GCSE results day, panicked phone calls came through to the Schools Week office. There were dips – big dips – in the results of schools with outstanding records and well-respected leaders. What was going on? Many callers said the exams regulator, Ofqual, must have moved the boundaries of English and maths GCSEs, […]

Parent-led free schools in steady decline

The future of free schools as independent, standalone institutions is in doubt as new rules requiring academies to join or establish trusts bed in. Figures also show a steady decline in the proportion of approved applications from parent-led groups over the past five years. The free schools programme, established by Michael Gove in 2010 as […]

DfE writes off £10m losses on free schools and academies

The Department for Education (DfE) has written off nearly £10 million as losses soar under the expansion of its free school and academies programme. The losses were revealed in the department’s annual accounts that were finally published on Wednesday, four months later than usual. The figure is nearly five times as much as the £2 […]

PFI repayments ‘hold back’ academy conversion

Nicky Morgan has been asked to intervene in a row over a proposed hike in private finance initiative (PFI) repayments said to be blocking three schools from converting into academies. The schools, in the London borough of Newham, want to form a multi-academy trust, but say conversion has been held up after their local authority […]

School improvement warning notices: is government delaying releases?

The government has been accused of trying to avoid bad publicity by delaying the release of documents relating to poor pupil performance and governance at 15 academies. On Thursday, March 24 at 5.37pm, one day before the bank holiday weekend, the government released 13 pre-termination warning notices that had been issued between mid-January and February […]

What would make an all-academy system work?

The schools landscape could look very different from how it does today, quite quickly, if the government’s vision for all schools to become academies comes to fruition. Professor Toby Salt examines what would make a universally academised system work, in terms of school organisation, management and conversion. 1. It’s time to trust If (and it […]

Top schools now profit from the struggles of the weaker

School improvement funding has moved from allocation based on need to survival of the fittest, says Kiran Gill As a policy rationalist I have to admit to being a New Labour (first term) education fangirl, starting with the infrastructure and funding for school improvement. Once upon a time, local authorities were expected to offer school […]

Andrew Hall, Ben Parnell and Janet Lord

Andrew Hall, the chief executive of AQA, is retiring at the end of the year. Hall, who joined the awarding body in 2010, says the decision was prompted by realising that elderly relatives needed his support. “I want to be able to spend more time with them than my full-time job allows.” He came into […]