Opinion

It would be fair to say that Friday’s proposal by Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) that all teachers should undertake a Master’s Degree was met with a mixed response. This is perhaps unsurprising in a system where teachers are being asked to do more and more, frequently with fewer resources; where there […]

The ‘raising aspirations’ discourse is dead, and I’m happy to have played a small part in its demise. Over the last decade, a barrage of empirical evidence has shown that few young people in the UK hold ‘low’ or ‘no’ aspirations, or that these are meaningfully linked to their educational attainment and wider outcomes. Seeing […]

Inspiration Trust’s data on exclusions have shocked some, while its actions to tackle the problem have riled others. Lead trustee for inclusion, Colin Diamond explains that the true story lies beyond these emotive responses Dame Rachel de Souza, CEO of Inspiration Trust (IT), made waves last week when she revealed the trust’s fixed-term exclusion rate […]

Headteacher, Kate Frood has seen the education system transformed as her career has progressed. In an age of chief executives and superheads, she argues something valuable will be lost along with the one-school-one-head model As an experienced head with almost 40 years’ experience in education, I find myself in many meetings these days where I […]

As our system continues to struggle to improve the achievement of learners from poorer backgrounds, Mel Ainscow argues the ‘what works’ mantra is symptomatic of a failure to grasp the complexities of change management This month, another school in England has been rapped for off-rolling in the full knowledge, and with the support, of its […]

The new computing curriculum in England regards computer science in exactly the same way as the more familiar natural sciences. This is an ambitious recoding of the curriculum, says NCCE chair Simon Peyton Jones, but do we have the capacity to deliver it? Ask yourself this: why do we invite every child to learn elementary […]

The Education Policy Institute was right to publish pupil exits data for MATs and councils, argues its research chief Natalie Perera. The publication of our report last week on ‘Unexplained pupil exits from schools’ has attracted some criticism because of our decision to publish the prevalence of such exits amongst individual MATs and LAs. Publishing data […]

Setting aside the moral question as to whether this is what schools should be doing, how easy is it to actually make a difference? A school’s core activities are difficult enough. Where activities are, arguably, tangential to that core, the challenges may be even greater. Schools are often seen as the first line of defence […]

Survey results show a bleak and unsustainable situation for the school business leadership community. Hilary Goldsmith calls for action in the face of impending crisis At the start of September, 324 respondents completed my survey of school business leadership (SBL) salaries across the UK. I asked a number of questions about how SBLs are regarded […]