Opinion

Jeremy Hodgen and his team tested the evidence and identified the strategies most likely to close one of education’s most persistent attainment gaps Every year almost 40 per cent of young people leave school without a ‘good’ level 4 grade in GCSE maths. This problem of low attainment in maths is one of the most […]

Braced to comfort crying children without physical contact, reopening has instead resulted in huge smiles and boisterous enthusiasm. Tracey Hudson explains her school’s safety-first strategy Everyone at Rockingham Primary School knew that managing a wider reopening while maintaining strict social distancing was going to be complicated, but looking back on it, I couldn’t be happier […]

Big questions remain unanswered as schools reopen and big decisions still have to be made. The DfE must work better with the profession as we enter the next phase, writes Cat Scutt On May 20, the Chartered College of Teaching wrote to the prime minister requesting responses to five issues that we considered key to […]

Amid government fiascos and ongoing uncertainty, year 11 student, Olivia Eren opens her ‘half term’ lockdown diary

Today, the NFER publishes its latest overview of the teacher labour market in England. Eighteen months on from the launch of the government’s teacher recruitment and retention strategy, Jack Worth explores its findings This report was written before the coronavirus outbreak, and in many ways it describes a world with very different challenges to the […]

Announcements to please narrow audiences while washing your hands of the tough choices creates division, says Mary Bousted School leadership is difficult even in normal times. And these are not normal times. Covid-19 has cut through normal like a knife through butter and left the old certainties of school life flapping in its wake. School […]

Alternative Provision has proved its unique value to the school system and new partnerships mustn’t be shelved as schools widen their offer, writes Angela Ransby The pandemic has made many more families vulnerable and exposed others to even greater financial, social and emotional difficulties than they faced before. It has also brought their everyday struggles […]

Calls for summer catch-up lessons for young people who have fallen behind are understandable and well-meaning but they are the wrong solution to jump to, writes Nick Brook As many of us feared from the outset of this crisis, research by the Children’s Commissioner and the Sutton Trust concludes that disadvantaged pupils have been disproportionately […]

Mergers will define the next phase of MAT growth but too many obstacles still stand in the way, writes one CEO The current crisis has brought into sharp relief the value a larger school trust can bring to its network of schools – technical expertise to support remote learning, a stronger central team, greater scope […]