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25 April 2026

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Opinion

The Early Career Framework: disconnected, piecemeal and lacking ambition!

The government’s teacher recruitment and retention strategy has been warmly welcomed in most quarters, but David Spendlove finds it seriously lacking The Early Career Framework launched by Damian Hinds on Monday has been described as “bold” and as “game changer” so why do I see it as a low cost, low ambition gesture? Firstly, let […]

Hinds is right to shift focus from recruitment to retention

The recruitment and retention strategy covers the right areas, but will need to develop effective policy detail quickly to deliver what is needed, says Jack Worth I was chatting to a teacher recently, speculating on what might be included in the Department for Education’s long-awaited teacher recruitment and retention strategy. “Why is recruitment always seen […]

The new Ofsted framework is great for AP

Debra Rutley rejoiced when she read the new Ofsted framework. “At last we in AP could tell our story” The day the new Ofsted framework came out I was at an event for alternative provision chief executives, where two Ofsted HMIs, Nick Whittaker and Dan Owen, were speaking. None of the attendees had had a […]

How research can help address students’ recurring mistakes

I can’t begin to estimate the number of times I have written the same feedback on a student’s work – time and time again. Other teachers tell me that I am not alone. But help is at hand from the research evidence. For example, the Education Endowment Foundation’s A Marked Improvement report distinguishes between mistakes […]

Creativity can’t be left to chance – it must be taught

A knowledge-rich curriculum is vital, says Paul Carney, but students must learn what creative processes are and how they might be used in their own thinking In his book Making Kids Cleverer, David Didau eloquently argues that the best way of improving children’s welfare is to teach them a knowledge-rich curriculum because this will make […]

Don’t knock the prog-trad debate – at least we’re having one!

Most people helping to shape, fund or implement education policy in much of the world do so without expert advice. It wouldn’t be allowed in any other field, says Jonathan Simons As I entered the World Economic Forum last year it was there on the wall: 65 per cent of the jobs of the future, […]

Be brave and say ‘no’ to excessive executive pay

Trustees need to make ethical decisions about CEO pay – and not get caught in a race to the top, says Sam Henson The matter of executive pay has been in the spotlight for some time, and the attention hasn’t gone away. In the same week that the National Governance Association has published guidance for […]

Maths teaching for mastery: Is it worth it?

The Shanghai Teacher Exchange has been deemed ineffective for improving maths SATs scores, but does this mean teaching mastery should be discarded altogether? Researcher Mark Boylan explains Mastery has been the government’s flagship policy to improve mathematics education for the last five years. Over £70 million has been committed to support the maths hubs and […]

How to interpret effect sizes in education

Humans are not naturally good at understanding abstract statistics. As teachers, sure, we can easily understand the idea that 65 per cent of our students answered the hinge question correctly or that the average mark on an essay was a 72.4/100. But when we read reports on education interventions, it can be harder to get […]