Opinion

Growing concern about the use of restraint in schools has led the Equality and Human Rights Commission to launch a formal inquiry. Laura Lucking explains why Despite being encouraged to do so, there is no legal duty on schools to record incidents of the use of restraint. As a result, there is a lack of […]

Beyond the rhetoric of greater mental health provision in schools for both pupils and staff, not enough has been done – and is being done – to support trainee teachers, writes Emma Hollis It appears that everyone now understands that for teachers to best support children in their care, looking out for their own wellbeing […]

It’s a given that teachers are superheroes but we’re only beginning to unmask their secret identities, writes Laura McInerney Superman was a journalist. Batman a billionaire playboy. But did you know that Spiderman was a teacher? In 2001, J Michael Straczynski took on the authorship of the Marvel comic book series and made Peter Parker […]

Data safeguarding is as important as any other safeguarding and more work needs to be done to ensure schools act on that fact, writes Lynne Taylor If these were Ofsted gradings, a political reckoning would be under way. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has audited compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) across over […]

Many Chinese pupils are set to go home to mainland China or Hong Kong for February half-term. Vicky Wilson sets out what all independent schools should be doing to prepare Pupils from China and Hong Kong make up the biggest single group of overseas students in the UK’s independent schools but the Foreign Office has […]

This year’s Headteachers’ Roundtable summit will question Ofsted’s legitimacy and efficacy. Stephen Tierney explains why we need to #PauseOfsted, and how to make it happen Some seventy per cent of inspectors are current practitioners. So what if we all said no? What if we chose to answer the call to beneficence differently? What would the […]

So much has been written and said about knife crime in recent months, yet so little of it has been from young people themselves, says Lisa Capper At Nacro we are increasingly concerned that young people – particularly those most at risk – have so little voice in the debate. That’s why we spoke to […]

Looking ahead to compulsory relationships and sex education from September, fertility pioneer Professor Simon Fishel says improved fertility education would allow young people to plan for their futures Relationships and sex education (RSE) is finally having its moment. Overall teenage pregnancy rates are at their lowest since records began, comedy-drama Sex Education is trending on Netflix, […]

England’s schools make more use of within-school “ability” grouping than those in other similar countries, yet there is no evidence that this practice results in better outcomes overall for students. In fact, the Education Endowment Foundation toolkit reviews the best evidence available from experimental studies and concludes that there is a small negative impact of […]