Author: Sophie Scott

GCSE performance tables are out today. We have put together our league tables highlighting the schools doing the best for disadvantaged pupils. And here looked at how free schools are doing. Below are some other things we learned from today’s publication.   1. The gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers has increased   We […]

Schools will not have business mentors forced upon them by the government’s new careers company, Nicky Morgan has confirmed. The education secretary spoke to Schools Week following her speech to the Department for Education’s character symposium at Floreat Wandsworth this morning, and acknowledged schools would have to be involved in shaping the scheme in order […]

The performance of free schools in this year’s GCSEs is mixed – with half of the schools failing to meet the national floor standard or just scraping through. Today, the Department for Education released the school performance tables. A secondary school is considered to be failing if fewer than 40 per cent of its pupils […]

Councils should be able to force academies to expand their intake to meet local school place need, the Local Government Association (LGA) has said today. Local authorities (LAs) have a legal duty to ensure every child can access a school place, but academies are their own admissions authority. According to the latest pupil projection figures, […]

Children are at their “peak” worrying age at just 10 years old, new research suggests. According to an article in the British Journal of Health Psychology, mothers reported that their children are at their most worried age 10 – when they will be coming to the end of primary school. Children sit their key stage […]

A primary school senior leader has put together a table highlighting the complicated system planned for assessing children whose ability is below national curriculum standard. Michael Tidd, deputy headteacher of Edgewood Primary school in Nottinghamshire, used the Rochford Review, a document published at the beginning of December, to explain the assessment terms for those children. […]

The chairs of four parliamentary committees have urged the government to make personal, social and health education (PSHE) and sex and relationships education (SRE) statutory in all schools – after the government missed its deadline to respond. Education select committee chair Neil Carmichael was joined by health chair Dr Sarah Wollaston, home affairs chair Keith […]

There has been a dramatic drop in the number of special schools inspected by Ofsted this academic year. Last term just 27 special and alternative provision schools were inspected compared to 150 inspections during the previous autumn term, according to data, compiled by Watchsted for Schools Week. The number of inspections in all schools dropped […]

The acting principal of a primary school at the centre of the Trojan Horse allegations has been banned from the classroom. A prohibition order was issued by the National College of Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) yesterday. A panel found Jahangir Akbar had allowed an “undue amount of religious influence”. The school, now renamed Ark Chamberlain […]