Schools Week Reporter | Schools Week

Ofsted’s curriculum focus ‘risks being a tick-box exercise’

Ofsted’s focus on curriculum risks being a tick-box exercise that does nothing to assess whether children are actually learning, warned a prominent education academic. “Working out whether somebody has learned something or not is incredibly complex,” said Becky Allen, professor of education at University College London’s Institute of Education, at a panel event on assessment […]

Should home education have statutory monitoring?

With the second reading of the Home Education (Duty of Local Authorities) Bill due in parliament, we brought together Mike Wood, founder of Home Education UK, and Sarah Dove, a former teacher, who now consults for local authorities supporting children at risk of exclusion Would you support monitoring visits for home-educated kids? Sarah Dove: Yes, […]

Luke Tryl, director of corporate strategy, Ofsted

Luke Tryl, Ofsted’s director of corporate strategy, is one of those people who always appears impeccably presented – which is why it’s reassuring, as I smooth down my hair from the cycle ride, to notice that he’s wearing one poppy-red sock and one powder-blue. He casually crosses and uncrosses his ankles, settled in a low […]

The school leading on job shares from the top

“Why did you leave, and why are you coming back?” Simon Knight fizzles with delight as he tells the story of how he and Heidi Dennison were grilled by the student council during their interview for the joint headship of Frank Wise School. “We had about 35, 40 minutes with the pupils interviewing us. The […]

Can schools make any more savings?

With chancellor Hammond’s autumn budget offering schools a one-off payment of £50,000 for “little extras” but no increase in revenue funding, a headteacher and a chief operating officer debate whether there are still areas where schools can make efficiency savings. Sean Maher is headteacher of a secondary academy in Richmond, West London. Micon Metcalfe is […]

School – TV series

While we wait with baited breath to know whether series two of Educating Greater Manchester will ever make it onto our screens (Channel 4 is currently waiting on the outcome of Salford council’s investigation into the school’s former headteacher), BBC2 is rolling right in to fill the gap. The latest school reality TV series, a […]

Anne Heavey, national director, Whole School SEND

Anne Heavey hated school so much that she dropped out when she was 13, and it took the local authority two years to find out. She did her GCSEs in a year at the local pupil referral unit, and a year later successfully applied to Oxford. “I think they like a wild card,” she says, […]

Ofsted backs education committee’s call for new ‘inclusion measure’

Ofsted has thrown its weight behind the parliamentary education committee’s call for a new “inclusion measure” that would incentivise schools to keep troubled pupils on their books. In its ‘Forgotten Children’ report in July, the cross-party committee said schools should be made accountable for the children they exclude. The number of children excluded from schools in England […]

Emphasis of Ofsted inspection to shift from classroom

The emphasis of Ofsted inspections will “shift up the management structure”, but lesson observations will continue because teachers want them, Amanda Spielman has said. The chief inspector of schools told Schools Week that although she wasn’t pledging “in absolute terms” that inspectors will spend less time in lessons, schools should see the “weighting” of involvement […]