Author: Pippa Allen-Kinross

The troubled Bright Tribe academy trust is pulling out of all but one of its five northern schools because it doesn’t have an “established northern hub”, even though it raked in £1 million in northern hub funding less than three years ago. The MAT will continue to run Werneth Primary School in Oldham, Greater Manchester, […]

A bill to introduce greater monitoring for home-schooled children is in a “good position” to pass into law, according to its sponsor Lord Soley, despite warnings from home-schoolers it will be an “unmitigated disaster” and could “cost lives”. The Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill demands local authorities monitor the “educational development” of children […]

The Cambridge Assessment Group has appointed a senior figure from Pearson as its new group chief executive, the University of Cambridge has announced. Bill Anderson, who became senior vice president for product at Pearson  after 21 years at the company, succeeds Simon Lebus who will step down from the Cambridge Assessment Group after 15 years […]

Almost 50,000 children were recorded as “missing” from education last year, according to new research by the National Children’s Bureau. Data obtained by the NCB under the Freedom of Information Act shows 49,187 children were recorded as missing from education at some point during 2016/17, meaning they were not registered at a school or receiving […]

A struggling studio school with low pupil numbers and “significant financial challenges” will close this summer, it has been confirmed. Manchester Creative Studio in Ancoats, which specialises in the digital and creative industries and currently teaches around 40 pupils, will close at the end of the academic year, becoming the 18th studio school to close down […]

MPs have today grilled the government’s top education officials over the state of academy finances. The parliamentary public accounts committee held a session with Jonathan Slater, the Department for Education’s permanent secretary, Mike Pettifer, its acting director of academies and maintained schools, and Eileen Milner, the chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency. […]

The government is actively discussing whether the “overlap” between Ofsted and the regional schools commissioners (RSC) represents “value for money”, a leading figure has revealed. The director general of education standards at the Department for Education, Paul Kett, confirmed that the “value-for-money issue” is “part of active business planning discussions at the DfE” at an […]

The headteachers’ union NAHT is demanding a five-per-cent pay rise for all school leaders and teachers. The National Association of Head Teachers has asked the School Teachers’ Review Body (STRB) to recommend a “significant increase” in pay, and an increase in school funding to pay for it, insisting that a big rise is required to […]

The government’s universal infant free school meals policy has been costly for schools and will need more funding in future, according to new research. The study was funded by the Lead Association for Catering in Education, which represents organisations involved in the school food industry, and was carried out by the Education Policy Institute, an […]