Nicky Phillips | Schools Week

Schools builder wins contract to refurbish new DfE offices

A construction company that lost its preferred contractor status for five London schools after failing to agree costs is to build the Department for Education’s new headquarters. BAM Construct UK (BAM) will be the main contractor to refurbish the DfE’s new Whitehall home in the Grade II listed Old Admiralty Building in Horse Guards Parade […]

At last: Nicky Morgan’s definition (almost) of what is a coasting school

Schools will be defined as coasting based on performance over three years, and on their pupils’ progress, not simply their Ofsted category, says education secretary Nicky Morgan. During a second reading of the Education and Adoption Bill in Parliament on Monday, Ms Morgan set out the “principles” that will set apart a coasting school, the […]

Teachers offer internships to help their own kids get ahead

Teachers are offering work placements in their schools on a new website that lets parents swap internships for their children. At least eight teachers were offering placements on MyInternSwap.com when Schools Week went to print. A secondary school teacher in Devon was offering a work placement doing “economics teaching” in exchange for a transport or […]

One in three disadvantaged schools struggling to recruit

More than a third of schools across the poorest regions are having to cover posts in science and maths with “temporary staff who lack the right skills”, says the chief inspector. Sir Michael Wilshaw told the Festival of Education at Wellington College last week: “That’s a lot of children going home and saying to their […]

Carol Dweck, professor of psychology, Stanford University

Carol Dweck floats like a butterfly but her intellect stings like a bee. Gliding into the reception of the Caledonian Club – a private members’ club in the shadows of Buckingham Palace – Dweck is immaculately dressed in head-to-toe navy. She is tiny, no more than 5ft, and well known to the receptionists. Their eyes […]

Park View Academy remains in special measures a year after Trojan Horse investigation

The head of the trust responsible for one of the schools in the “Trojan Horse” inspections in Birmingham says it has been “close to impossible” to attract new staff as the school again comes under fire from Ofsted. In the fourth monitoring visit since Park View Academy was rated inadequate, inspectors say it is not […]

Four guiding principles of a good assessment system

The confusion, debate and disagreements that have followed the move away from levels are necessary if teachers are to work out the best assessment system for their school A “necessary stage of confusion” is how one commentator recently portrayed the move away from the national system of levels to monitor progress. It seems an apt […]

Forget (most of) your post-election blues

Funding cuts, a recruitment crisis . . . what is there to be happy about? Well, the quality of the profession and the initial signals the government is sending about how it will work with it So, the job of steering the school system through its most difficult challenges for a generation falls to Nicky […]

Contest aims to get ‘em young

Primary pupils can now enter the Dragons’ Den for the first time. Tycoon in Schools, an annual enterprise competition run by “Dragon” Peter Jones’s charity foundation, challenges pupils to set up their own companies. Each team submits a detailed business plan and is given a loan of up to £1,000. Team members then have to […]