Opinion | Schools Week

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No, Andy Burnham. Education doesn’t need a ‘complete rethink’

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Parity of esteem cannot mean asking poorer children to narrow their horizons earlier

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We say SATs don’t define children, but they shape their experiences for years to come

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5d | Opinion

The test was designed to measure the school. Somewhere along the way, we started using it to measure the child

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Ofsted must remember that even similar schools are different

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5d | Opinion

If contextual benchmarking is to work, it must help inspectors understand context without lowering ambitions

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5d | Opinion
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Don’t ignore local context in a rush to nationalise the MBacc

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5d | Opinion

Success absolutely cannot mean a reform that works well in core cities and patchily everywhere else

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Strong boards need both organisational memory and fresh perspective

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5d | The Boardroom Leader

Recruitment is of course important, but the data shows effective governance is also built through retention

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5d | The Boardroom Leader

SATs are the fairest way to judge pupil progress

Teachers and pupils should not have any reason to be stressed about SATs, and it is up to headteachers to ensure that is the case, says Cassie Young Exam season is upon us, and that brings with it the inevitable calls for the end of tests. Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to eliminate SATs in year […]

Keeping schools mentally healthy: sometimes young people just need to talk

Sometimes young people just want to talk, says Lisa Fathers, who explains how the devolved administration in Greater Manchester has trained up teachers and peer mentors to provide mental health support in schools The recent figures from the Children’s Commissioner highlighting that a third of areas in England are reducing real-terms spending on vital mental […]

If schools want more money from government, they must use funds efficiently

The government’s scheme for providing financial advice to schools is helping them redirect more resources to the frontline, argues the academies minister, Lord Agnew School resource management advisers are part of a package of support to help schools get the best value out of their budgets. Their work is not something that should be viewed […]

PRUs shouldn’t just be part of the flowchart

England is recreating the old grammar and secondary modern system, only this time, based on behaviour not attainment, says Jules Daulby ‘Jules, if you create a system, people will use it.’ A wise deputy head said this once when I enthusiastically suggested a flow chart to explain to teachers when they could send students to […]

Here’s the Lib Dems’ vision for the school system of the future

Teachers are overworked, undervalued and underpaid and we need to resource them better, says Layla Moran, setting out the Lib Dems’ vision for the school system Some new teachers are barely earning the National Living Wage because they are overworked and underpaid. That was the warning from the NEU’s joint General Secretaries this week. I […]

The edtech strategy is a great leap – but backwards

A new government edtech strategy has been released, but does it stand up to scrutiny? Tony Parkin isn’t convinced… Perhaps I should begin by saying that, having spent my career working in supporting and promoting education and information technology for schools, I am naturally delighted when any government sits up and shows an interest in […]

The school appeals system is cementing inequalities: it’s time for the government to rethink admissions

The promised review of the school admissions system needs to materialise if the government wants to fulfil its social mobility ambitions, says Emily Hunt Each year, thousands of families receive the news they hoped they would avoid: they have failed to secure their first choice of secondary school. While the majority of families in England […]

Schools and their pupils are clear – no one is an outsider

For the UK’s LGBT+ educators, these past few weeks have felt like going back in time. But equality is not up for debate, says Matt Hood When I started primary school in 1990 ‘section 28’ as it was known, prevented teachers from ‘promoting homosexuality’ or the ‘acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’. By […]

How do you make teenagers care about learning?

One approach to interest students is to focus lessons on topics they are interested in – but this demands a lot of our time, while undermining the purpose of education: helping students to learn new and hard things that they may only appreciate after they have mastered them. In this column I want to share […]

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