Schools Week Reporter | Schools Week

Sabrina Hobbs, principal, Severndale specialist academy

A nine-year-old boy in a wheelchair is delightedly pressing the large button on a battery-powered speaker that calls Betsy the dog by name. Every time he does, a chocolate sprocker spaniel comes bounding across to a small circle of children. This all happens under the watchful eye of Sabrina Hobbs, the executive principal of Shropshire’s only […]

Carole Willis, Chief Executive, National Foundation for Educational Research

Education researchers are a strange breed. While the think-tanks openly court the press, and even the university academics are starting to reach out these days, there’s one megalith of British education research that seems determined to remain aloof. I’m on a mission to find out why. It’s taken five months to score an interview with […]

Katharine Birbalsingh, Headmistress, Michaela Community School

A customised Marmite jar stands on Katharine Birbalsingh’s desk, with the name “Michaela” emblazoned across it. It’s a stroke of marketing genius. The education world seems to be divided into those who adore the no-excuses, knowledge-focused, silent-corridor secondary school she established, and those who recoil at its very mention. Controversial policies include ditching SEND labels, giving […]

Debra Rutley, Executive headteacher, Aspire Alternative Provision

“I didn’t have a positive experience at school,” admits Debra Rutley, “and I think that has had a massive influence on the teacher and the leader that I am – and is linked probably to the fact that I work in alternative provision. “I know what it’s like to try and hide things and think […]

Caroline Wright, Director general, British Educational Suppliers’ Association

The British Educational Suppliers’ Association that she heads up is just round the corner, on the dingier side of the block. It’s her dream, she jokes, to start a day with breakfast in the café, pass through the curtains into the restaurant for lunch, and drift into the bar for the evening. For someone who […]

Has Ofsted given up on school case studies?

Ofsted’s case studies have not always had their intended consequences. As Sean Harford said at the recent ‘Radical ideas to transform Ofsted’ conference at the UCL Institute for Education: “When Ofsted tries to nudge something, it often becomes a shove.” A famous example is triple marking. When the inspectorate published the case study of a […]

Mark Martin, Computer science lead, South Bank Engineering UTC

Mark Martin is standing at Silicon Roundabout in London, the location of choice for so many of the capital’s education start-ups. It’s also a good metaphor for the man himself, who is also known as “Urban teacher”, and whose career crosses the worlds of EdTech, the tech industry and the school where he still teaches. […]

Mary Bousted and Kevin Courtney, Joint general secretaries of the National Education Union

As I mount the steps to the National Education Union’s London headquarters, I can’t help feeling disappointment that the joint general secretaries turned down the idea of a photoshoot on a bright blue tandem. Nothing that would highlight their stark height difference, the press officer insists. Union business is a serious game, it appears. Almost […]

Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang, founder, Lighthouse

Looked-after children have poor educational outcomes. Only one in seven achieve five GCSEs at A*-C – compared with one in two who are not looked after – and just six per cent go on to higher education. The stats for those growing up in children’s homes are even more stark: one in 25 for the […]