Author: Pippa Allen-Kinross

A troubled academy trust founded by a Conservative peer will close in September – with its two remaining schools transferred to a new trust. Floreat Education Academies Trust, founded by former David Cameron aide Lord James O’Shaughnessy, will give up its two primary schools to GLF Schools at the end of the summer. Floreat was […]

A leading headteacher is pursuing legal action after he claims he was “forced to resign” as chief executive of a trust amid a financial investigation. Tom Quinn left Holy Family Catholic Multi-Academy Trust in April amid what Schools Week understands to be an internal investigation surrounding a black hole in the trust’s budget of potentially […]

The number of marks pupils needed in their key stage 1 tests to achieve the government’s “expected” score has been announced today. To meet government expectations, pupils must achieve at least 100 in their scaled scores, which replaced ‘levels’ in 2016. But the number of marks this equates to differs between the maths, reading and […]

Academies could have their funding axed if they fail to comply with the controversial Baker clause. The clause, introduced in January last year, requires schools to publish a statement online describing their careers programmes and how providers access pupils to talk about technical education and apprenticeships. On Monday, Damian Hinds, the education secretary, reiterated his […]

The government has been warned against establishing “monopolies” of mega-MATS as new figures show almost 200 trusts have been given approval to merge. Analysis of headteacher board meeting minutes show at least 190 trusts were given approval to merge in the 18 months from August 31, 2017. Although many involved single-academy trusts joining larger trusts, […]

The David Ross Education Trust has been told it has four Ofsted visits to improve a failing academy or face having funding axed. The trust has been warned to improve the Lodge Park Academy in Corby, which was placed in special measures in January after Ofsted criticised “mundane” teaching, pupils who show a “lack of […]

Headteachers say that government proposals to end funding for post-16 International Baccalaureate programmes would be a “tragedy” for social mobility – with some sixth forms left “unviable”. The Department for Education is consulting on the first stage of its post-16 review, including plans to withdraw public funding from qualifications that “overlap” with A-levels and the […]

Unions have called for greater scrutiny over top-slicing after an academy trust charged £376,000 to a school that was £1 million in the red – before it was later transferred to another chain. According to accounts for University of Wolverhampton Multi-Academy Trust, published by Companies House last week, the trust levied a central charge on […]