Author: Pippa Allen-Kinross

Trustees at the scandal-hit Perry Beeches Academy Trust continued to break academy funding rules in the chain’s final year as a school sponsor, delayed accounts show. Concerns highlighted in the latest accounts, including unauthorised credit card transactions, a lack of internal auditing and a failure to follow tendering procedures show that troubles continued to plague […]

A Merseyside school has hit back after it was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted and criticised for past off-rolling and forcing pupils to study vocational courses at GCSE. Phil Abram, head of school at Haydock High School in St Helens, said the Ofsted report published yesterday is “unfair and unjust”, and accused the inspectorate of being […]

Schools with more pupils from deprived backgrounds are still less likely to be judged ‘good’ under the new inspection framework than those with more affluent pupils, Ofsted has admitted. The acknowledgement comes almost exactly a year after chief inspector Amanda Spielman insisted the new framework – which was introduced in September – would “reward schools […]

The number of warning notices issued to underperforming private schools has risen – with nearly 20 handed out on average each month. Schools Week analysis of the 158 private school warning notices issued since November 2018 also reveals that 40 per cent went to religious schools. Critics have said the findings show up the inadequate […]

The legal support available to excluded pupils outside London is almost non-existent, lawyers have warned, amid concerns that schools are hiring barristers to oversee appeals. Alex Temple, a lawyer with charity Just for Kids Law, claimed schools and councils were also “failing really basic points” such as offering incorrect guidance or not providing board minutes. […]

An Ofqual investigation into the grade boundaries for A-level maths has found there is no reason to re-visit grades given in 2018, despite considerably lower grade boundaries last year. The exams watchdog said it would investigate “unusual” changes in the grade boundaries in August. Grade boundaries for both Edexcel and OCR exam boards were leaked […]

A trust chief executive and headteacher who was fired over allegations of exam cheating has been cleared of wrongdoing. Claims of exam malpractice at the Green Spring Academy in east London were widely reported in February 2017. Trust leader Mark Keary was one of “a number” of senior staff to be suspended and later dismissed […]

Fewer pupils in academy trusts reach the expected standard in reading, writing and maths at key stage two than the national average, new data shows. Performance measures published by the Department for Education this morning reveal that 64 per cent of pupils in MATs reached the expected standard in the combined reading, writing and maths […]

An academy trust “fired” a school’s board of governors and accused them of causing “reputational damage” just one week after they complained about financial management. Former governors at Dearne Advanced Learning Centre, in Barnsley, claim they were left unable to afford exercise books with teachers buying their own gluesticks and calculators while hundreds of thousands […]