Author: Nicky Phillips

The heads of some of the country’s largest academy chains have pocketed pay rises totalling more than £80,000 this year – despite a 1 per cent cap on pay increases for their teachers. A Schools Week investigation reveals that four chief executives received salary increases of at least £20,000 in the past 12 months. Professor […]

The Department for Education cannot successfully predict local teacher recruitment and is “a long way” from being able to do so, its chief has admitted. But data compiled by the department, and seen by Schools Week, shows the government is aware that some schools have at least 10 per cent of teaching posts unfilled. Quizzed […]

School leaders “take on too much” and must not be “slaves to bureaucracy”, warns ASCL’s interim general secretary Malcolm Trobe. Mr Trobe (pictured above), who took on the role after the sudden departure of former general secretary Brian Lightman, told delegates that heads and other school leaders had to find ways of “reducing the burden” […]

About 1,000 new multi-academy trusts will be created by 2020 with smaller chains having to grow to accommodate more schools, Sir David Carter (pictured above) warned as he explained his plans to carry out a “health check” of trusts before they could expand. The national schools commissioner, who told ASCL delegates that the growth of […]

The government-sponsored New Schools Network (NSN), paid to promote and support the opening of free schools, will open its first regional office next week. Adviser John Briggs will be permanently based in Manchester to support applicant groups and lead on the network’s campaigning activity across the north east and north west. In an exclusive interview […]

Digital illiteracy amongst teachers and a lack of innovation in educational technology is increasing workload, suggests a new report released today. Respondents to the coalition government’s workload challenge last year said repeatedly that inputting data contributed to increasing working hours. The publication from Advanced Learning, a company providing cloud-based management information systems (MIS), was written […]

The government has refused to guarantee schools they will not face intervention based on this year’s primary assessment results – despite one union claiming a commitment had been made. Schools minister Nick Gibb said this month that he would explain to schools all the changes to primary assessment after discussions with the National Association of […]