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8 May 2026

Author: Samantha Booth

National Tutoring Programme: Almost 1 in 5 enrolled pupils haven’t started tuition

Almost one in five pupils enrolled in the first year of the government’s flagship National Tutoring Programme are still yet to receive any tuition, with leaders blaming Covid disruption for the backlog. Figures seen by Schools Week show that although the tuition partners arm of the NTP, currently run by the Education Endowment Foundation, has […]

ASCL wants next year’s grades pegged to pre-Covid standards

School leaders’ union ASCL wants next year’s grades to be pegged back to pre-Covid standards, warning it is “difficult to justify… baking in” higher results. General secretary Geoff Barton told members there is no “easy answer” but the union “felt that returning to the grade distribution of 2019 represented the fairest approach for past, present […]

Take ‘urgent action’ on school ventilation, unions tell government

The government must take “urgent action” to invest in ventilation measures in schools ahead of the autumn term, unions have said. Last week, it was revealed that the Department for Health and Social Care is funding a £1.75 million pilot project on the use of air purifiers in schools. However, the research only involves 30 […]

DfE sprinklers plan leaves most schools ‘exposed to fires’, warn campaigners

The government’s proposal to only advise the use of sprinklers in some new schools will leave the majority “exposed to fires”,  education unions and fire safety experts have warned. In a letter to education secretary Gavin Williamson, 23 organisations said it was “incomprehensible” that the Department for Education had snubbed calls to have sprinklers in […]

GCSE results 2021: Poor pupils fall further behind as inequalities exposed

Longstanding gaps between poorer pupils and their wealthier peers likely to achieve the top grades in GCSEs has widened, Ofqual has found. The gap between pupils in private schools and their academy counterparts has grown by more than 6 percentage points, while Gypsy and Roma student have also fallen behind. But the exams regulator warned […]

Ofqual reminds pupils they don’t need legal advice to appeal exam grades

Exams regulator Ofqual has reminded pupils and parents they don’t need legal advice to appeal against exam grades, following criticism of law firms offering their services. Students unhappy with their results this week will first have the opportunity to ask their schools to check for administration errors, before asking them to escalate it to exam […]

A-level results 2021: Less than 1% of teacher grades changed

Less than 1 per cent of A-level teacher grades were changed after quality assurance checks by exam boards. Student work from 1,101 centres in England – around one in five schools and colleges – had their evidence scrutinised during external quality assurance this summer by exam boards. For 85 per cent of schools and colleges […]

A-level results 2021: Attainment gap widens for black and poorer pupils

Longstanding attainment gaps for both black and poorer students have widened, but Ofqual is unable to untangle whether this is down to Covid lost learning or the use of teacher grades this year. Ofqual has today published student-level equalities analysis of A-level results, which includes data on how likely different groups of pupils are to receive […]