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4 August 2026

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Opinion

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 […]

The problem isn’t the framework, it’s high-stakes accountability

Ros McMullen gives ‘a big thumbs-up’ to the emphasis on curriculum – although, she says, she struggles with how inspectors will judge its impact I have a confession – I really like Amanda Spielman, our HMCI, and I really like her intentions. I am also one of those who believe schools should be all about […]

5 unintended consequences of the new Ofsted framework

The vast knowledge of HMIs should support and improve schools rather than tell them what they already know, says Vic Goddard Most of you will have seen the film It’s a Wonderful Life, but a quick summary: we don’t know the full impact of our own behaviour on others’ lives – think ripples in a […]

Another expert panel? Let’s ask the real experts about ed tech apps

The expert panel set up to look at tablets and apps for children under five is all very worthy and traditional, says Tony Parkin. But it’s a modern problem that needs a modern solution, such as crowd-sourcing classroom expertise So the Department for Education has decided to set up an expert panel to identify high-quality […]

How Ofsted is trying to tackle the culture of teaching to the test

Inspection should capture the things that no data measure can, says Amanda Spielman. ‘We need to look at how a school has achieved results, not just take them at face value’ I hope that most of you will have seen that we have now published a consultation on our new education inspection framework that we intend […]

Ofsted should stop judging schools and focus on improvement

We need the school inspection process to move from a weak evaluative judgmental one, to focus on improvement first and foremost, says Stephen Tierney Key to having a national inspection system is that the judgements made are reliable. That is, it shouldn’t matter which team of inspectors goes into your school or your child’s school […]