Opinion

The prime minister’s decision for a ‘big bang’ full reopening on 8 March makes no sense, writes Mary Bousted Throughout this awful pandemic, the National Education Union has followed the science and been proved right time after time.  We tracked the spread of Covid in schools and colleges and the disruption it was causing to […]

Counter-intuitively perhaps, being research-informed does not negate engaging in debate. Cat Scutt explains why The Chartered College of Teaching has recently launched its Certificate in Evidence-Informed Practice, which culminates in teachers engaging in some of the most complex debates in education. In a way this might seem strange – surely acting based on evidence negates […]

Despite a slow-down in academy sector growth overall, some have clearly out-performed others. Who? How? And what can we learn from this? Pam Tuckett finds out Decision-making during the pandemic has been challenging. However, trust boards appear to have adapted quickly to the demands of pandemic leadership, and MATs have shown remarkable strength and flexibility […]

There are good arguments for expecting school staff to get their vaccination against Covid but any policy must consider those who can’t or won’t, writes Paman Singh News of a vaccine is the light at the end of a very long tunnel for many teachers and school staff. Discussions around where in the pecking order […]

The most valuable lesson of teacher training during Covid has been the importance of practising what you teach, writes Amber Smith Term 2 of teacher training and my placement is completely online at this point. I am only able to observe classes, and progress towards teaching is made infinitely harder by the fact that my […]

The regulator has a difficult balance to strike between accountability and distraction but our Ofsted inspection team got the tone just right, writes Carly Waterman It’s only 18 months ago that – to general acclaim – Ofsted launched its new inspection framework. Since then, the regulator has been relegated to the educational sidelines. Their absence […]

Getting students to apply knowledge and skills in new contexts isn’t easy but some approaches are more likely to yield results, writes Harry Fletcher-Wood Let’s say we’ve successfully taught students something new: they understand it, can apply it and retain it. We now face a harder challenge: helping students transfer their learning to new contexts. […]

The programme’s impact on language teaching has been phenomenal and the new Turing scheme will have big shoes to fill, writes Paul Harrison Among the responses to the UK opting out of continuing its membership of the Erasmus+ programme, one of the losses to this country has had little coverage. Much of the focus has […]