Pippa Allen-Kinross | Schools Week

Ofqual clamps down on teacher-examiner cheating

Exam boards will be expected to check teaching plans and materials, monitor social media and track “unusual” exam results under new rules proposed to tackle cheating by teacher-examiners. Teachers who help write exams in their spare time will also have to make an “annual declaration” that they are complying with strict rules around confidentiality, and […]

Spring statement: Unions demand more SEND funding

Two leading education unions have told the chancellor to allocate more money for SEND pupils in his spring statement today. Philip Hammond will deliver his update on the country’s finances today, but is not expected to announce any major education spending. But the school leaders’ union NAHT warned that 86 per cent of school leaders […]

Small academy trust begins review into head’s £270k salary

An academy trust in Warwickshire is reviewing its pay policies after it emerged it paid one headteacher more than £270,000 a year, despite having only two schools. Accounts published by the Transforming Lives Education Trust show that Lois Reed’s pay increased by at least £50,000 in the 2016-17 academic year, leaving her with a salary […]

NAHT launches commission to investigate school accountability

The way schools are held to account will be investigated by a new independent commission that seeks to find a “credible alternative” to the system of inspections and league tables – and Ofsted and the DfE have promised to get involved. The commission, which will propose an “alternative vision for the future” of school accountability […]

Regulate teacher recruitment agencies, ASCL urges government

The school leaders’ union ASCL is calling for government regulation of teacher recruitment agencies after nearly three quarters of secondary school heads said they increased spending on supply teachers in the past three years. The union surveyed 322 headteachers and found 97 per cent had used agency supply teachers in the past 12 months, with […]

Cambridge Assessment Group appoints Saul Nassé as replacement CEO

A new chief executive has been found for the Cambridge Assessment Group after the previous choice backed out less than two weeks before he was supposed to take over as head of the organisation. The University of Cambridge has announced Saul Nassé, the current head of the group’s English assessment business and a former controller […]

ASCL calls for education ethics committee to guide government decision making

The government needs a committee on the ethical implications of changes to education policy, the ASCL’s ethical leadership commission has concluded. This ethics committee would consider the “emerging system-wide issues” in education – including the “unintended consequences and perverse incentives” created by recent changes in policy. While it wouldn’t operate as a regulator, a body […]

CBI attacks government education reforms and ‘fixation’ on exams

The president of Britain’s largest business lobbying organisation will today attack the government’s “parade” of education reforms and its “fixation” on exams, and demand that a new education commission take control of the sector. Paul Drechsler, the president of the Confederation of British Industry, will tell the annual conference of school leaders’ union ASCL that curriculum […]