Opinion

Brexit may have dominated the past year, but that shouldn’t stop educators seizing the opportunity to develop their own narrative for a progressive education system, says Stephen Morales I was impressed by Damian Hinds the first time that I met him at a reception he hosted at Sanctuary Buildings just days after his appointment as […]

It’s been a busy year for the unsung heroes of the education system, says Naureen Khalid Accountability and transparency stand out as the two major governance themes this year. In January, Robert Halfon, chair of the education select committee, wrote to Lord Agnew, the academies minister, expressing concerns over a “lack of transparency and accountability” […]

While the devil will be in the detail, the curriculum research published today looks promising for schools, says Stephen Rollett If Ofsted carries on like this it could lose its place as the bogeyman of the education system. We know already that there’s widespread support among school leaders for the inspectorate’s plan to focus more […]

Some multi-academy trusts encourage autonomy, says Claire-Louise West. She ought to know: she works in one . . . It’s almost been accepted as truth that schools within multi-academy trusts have less autonomy than maintained schools. But it’s not the case for all MATs. I work for GLF, a MAT whose founding principle is to […]

How do you know which interventions will actually work in your school? You need to look beyond the effect size, says Jonathan Haslam I’ve learned a lot from these three numbers: +0.76, +0.11 and +0.26. They are all effect sizes from trials run by the Education Endowment Foundation. An effect size is a way of […]

The death of autonomy in schools risks becoming education’s mis-selling scandal, says Tony Breslin Headship is changing fast. The growth of federations and multi-academy trusts, and the concurrent emergence of executive and multi-school leadership, threatens to break the promise of autonomy that has been central not just to the substance of headship (and governorship), but […]

The weakest schools will continue to fail unless we have MATs and leaders with the moral purpose ready to take them on, writes former national schools commissioner Sir David Carter. The debate about whether or not there are enough academy sponsors to lead the weakest schools in the system to a position where their outcomes for […]