Opinion

The SEND Code of Practice is routinely broken because a number of factors are not being addressed. Simply moving children around the system is not in itself a solution. Recently, the government announced an additional £700 million in high-needs funding, another special educational needs and disabilities review and its intention to expand alternative provision (AP) […]

On Monday around 100 education researchers and users of research gathered at the Royal Statistical Society to celebrate the centenary of the first-ever randomised controlled trial (RCT) in education. It may come as a surprise that the origins of the RCT span at least as far back in education as in medical research. There were […]

Last week we got “the call” in one our trust’s primary schools. The second week of September, a new, untested framework, a re-brokered turnaround school. We were ecstatic, as you might imagine. The school, and the trust overall, were cautiously optimistic. It was time to find out if Ofsted had truly responded to HMCI’s call […]

Promises of more funding will be welcome, but the sector can’t continue using disadvantaged schools as cover for their own irresponsible spending, writes Paul Tarn. Lord Agnew has for some time argued for the sector to make better use of resources, and he’s come under a lot of criticism from the sector for it. I […]

Many teachers in private schools have threatened to leave if their schools withdraw from the Teachers’ Pension Scheme – a move that could benefit state schools struggling to recruit, says Phillip Reynolds The new academic year is a fresh start for everyone, but when it comes to school budgets, there isn’t much change. The pressures […]

Let’s celebrate “expert leaders”, say Jen Barker and Tom Rees, and stop always talking about charismatic, dynamic, inspirational leaders Both of us have learnt the hard way that school leadership can be complex and challenging. Of course we remember the moments when the proverbial was hitting the fan and problems had to be dealt with, […]

New classes. New colleagues. Maybe a new school. Teachers will have spent the past couple of weeks setting the culture in their classrooms and helping their pupils to build good habits. But setting a sustainable culture for pupils means also building the right habits and expectations for the adults who work with them, and that […]

The new school year is a great chance to encourage students to form good habits. Habits are automatic responses to cues: desirable ones might include students listening to a peer quietly (the response) when we ask them to do so (a cue), or students doing their homework (the response) at 7pm on Wednesday (a cue). […]