Pippa Allen-Kinross | Schools Week

DfE won’t offer free sanitary products to counter period poverty

The Department for Education will not follow the Scottish Government’s lead and provide free sanitary products for pupils in all English schools. Scotland will begin distributing sanitary products to pupils in every school, college and university from August, as well as to almost 20,000 adult women from low-income families. But Schools Week understands that ministers […]

Heath Family Trust issued with financial notice to improve

An academy trust with eight schools in the north-west has been told to improve its finances or lose its funding. The Heath Family Trust (North West), which runs four primary and four secondary schools around Halton, Crewe and Knowsley, failed to set a balanced budget or establish strong internal financial controls, according to a financial […]

Small PRU trust Schools Company stripped of all four schools

A multi-academy trust that presided over the deterioration of three pupil referral units and a secondary school has been stripped of all four. The Schools Company Trust (SCT) will no longer run any schools from September following a litany of disasters including inadequate safeguarding and poor financial management. The trust has sponsored three PRUs – […]

Bright Tribe shelves plan to merge with sister trust

Plans for the beleaguered Bright Tribe Trust (BTT) to merge with its sister chain are now on hold – as the future of both trusts is under review. The 10-school BTT revealed plans to merge with Adventure Learning Academies Trust (ALAT) in May, in a move that would have seen the former chain “cease to […]

Schools are employing foreign teachers ‘out of desperation’

Schools are being forced to employ foreign teachers the face of a growing recruitment and retention crisis, but not for the benefits they bring to the classroom. Leaders are warning that the advantages of recruiting internationally, including greater diversity in the workforce and introducing pupils to different cultures, are “secondary” compared to the urgent need […]

£270k-a-year head quits academy trust role

A headteacher in Warwickshire who has been criticised over her £270,000 salary has left her role “with immediate effect”. Lois Reed has quit as head of Ashlawn School in Rugby and as acting chief executive of the Transforming Lives Educational Trust, which also runs Ashlawn Teaching School and Henry Hinde Infant School. Details of her salary, and […]

Gibb ‘open to’ a British sign language GCSE

The Department for Education is now “open to considering” a British sign language GCSE after previously warning that it would require a “huge number of steps”. The National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) has hailed a “fantastic step in the right direction” after schools minister Nick Gibb revealed the government will be considering the new qualification. In a written […]

Thousands of looked-after children moved 20 miles or more mid-year

Thousands of looked-after children are being moved mid-year to schools more than 20 miles away from their previous school, with hundreds missing an entire term as a result. According to the Stability Index for 2016/17, 10 per cent (4,300) of school-age children in care moved schools during the year and 400 of those subsequently missed […]

LocatEd expands remit to include ‘site optimisation’

A company set up by the government to find and buy sites for the free schools programme will now advise academies on how to “optimise” their sites. The government is “broadening the remit of LocatED to provide more advice to multi-academy trusts on how to optimise your sites”, according to Lord Agnew, the minister for […]