Author: Nicky Phillips

Teaching school alliances already struggling to become financially sustainable could be thrown further off track by plans to give away their teaching resources free. The white paper states it will examine the feasibility of teaching schools publishing their research and training materials on an “open-source” basis. But David Weston, chief executive of the Teacher Development […]

The Department for Education has assured schools it has more cash set aside to fund all-out academisation – but is still silent on how much. It also appears that some of the £1.5 billion pledged by Chancellor George Osborne (pictured) in last week’s Budget was already allocated in the autumn spending review. Last week Schools Week […]

Pupil illness has continued to be the driving cause for increased school absence, according to official government statistics. Figures from the Department for Education (DfE) show overall absence rates increased slightly from 4.5 per cent to 4.6 per cent across state-funded primary, secondary and special schools for the 2014 to 2015 academic year. The main […]

What does the British Olympic boxing team and a successful academy have in common? Researchers have found that high performance in both can be traced back to similar patterns of behaviour, and that results will follow if a particular series of steps are taken. The Centre for High Performance, a team of academics from the […]

The practice of academies that exclude pupils to skew their results and claim “rapid improvements” is set to be stamped out under reforms that will keep schools accountable for the grades of excluded youngsters. A report by the Centre for High Performance last week revealed some academy trusts exclude pupils to change the profile of […]

The Department for Education is set to fund a new peer-reviewed British education journal – and to open up access to other academic work. An independent journal is one of the white paper proposals to “spread cutting-edge research in an accessible format for teachers”. The College of Teaching, which received a £5m pledge from the […]

A York headteacher is promising parents his school will not become a “corporate” operation if forced to become an academy under new government plans. John Tomsett (pictured), of Huntington School, made the pledge in response to a letter from a parent received after George Osborne’s Budget announcement last week that every state primary and secondary […]

Areas of England with low standards for learners and poor capacity to improve are to be targeted for extra support, with a focus on improving the supply of teachers, leaders and governors. But the lack of detail in the white paper has prompted questions about how such interventions will be carried out. Education secretary Nicky […]

Fewer than one in ten governors say parenting skills are important for membership of a governing body, a new survey shows. The white paper announcement that reserved spots for elected parent governors on school governing bodies will be scrapped in favour of “skilled” professionals caused uproar last week. But new survey figures seen exclusively by […]