Rosa Furneaux | Schools Week

Councils splurge £18m on private special schools with repeated failures

Millions funnelled in just one year to settings that have failed independent school standards

‘What we see are wasted lives’: Meet the Ofsted illegal schools team

In a rare interview, the Ofsted team tasked with tackling illegal schools speaks about the horrors they have witnessed, the risks they face and how they’ve found taxpayers’ money funding some of the worst cases. A visit from Ofsted is enough to get any school leader’s heart pounding. But inspectors arriving at schools usually don’t […]

sQuid: Give us back our money, parents tell closed payment provider

Company shut up shop in the UK last Friday. Around 600 schools used it

‘Devastating and dangerous’: Schools hit by £82m budget raid for SEND

Councils slice record amount from school funds to prop up high needs shortfalls

Cheaper to pay fines than provide SEND support

Councils pay families thousands of pounds for failure to provide support stipulated in EHCPs

Special school leaders fear QTS plan could worsen recruitment crisis

Special schools have more unqualified teachers – so how will the schools bill affect them? We spoke to leaders …

Private special schools charging councils £100k fees failed standards checks

Private equity-owned independent special schools which charge councils fees of up to £131,000 a year are among hundreds that have failed Ofsted standards checks, Schools Week can reveal. More than 250 non-associated private schools have failed to meet independent school standards in inspections carried out since September 2021, Schools Week analysis shows. We found: 84 schools that did not […]

Child Prevent referrals to be ‘routinely’ escalated

Major review comes after teenager who murdered three girls in Southport was referred to the programme three times

‘Jobs on the line’ as Devon schools hit by software ‘glitch’

‘I redid my whole budget about four times before I finally got it to give me correct figures’