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25 April 2026

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Opinion

5 things schools should know about early-years education

Children get profound, long-lasting benefits from their earliest exposure to teaching, from academic and non-cognitive development to better health and careers later in life. Research also shows that their teachers’ professional development is key, says Alison Peacock Early years education is perhaps one of the most contentious areas of pedagogical practice. Of late it has […]

The Daily Mile is no magic bullet

The low-cost, straightforward and high-profile Daily Mile initiative is drawing wide support, says Andy Daly-Smith, but there is limited evidence thus far for its effectiveness. Schools should focus on fundamental movement skills, fitness, positive behaviour and passion. The newly published second chapter of the Government’s childhood obesity plan argues that all schools should adopt an […]

Can Damian Hinds do the maths on teacher pay?

Over the past few weeks, the education secretary Damian Hinds has been trying to solve a complicated maths problem. He’s likely to come under public pressure from the independent School Teachers’ Review Body, which is expected to recommend a substantial pay rise of about 3 per cent. If he refuses, Hinds will face an autumn […]

Contextualised university admissions: how to make them fairer

Now we have consensus that more diverse admissions benefit both students and universities, Sam Butters writes, it’s time to increase transparency via shared terminology and better use of data We know that parents’ income, the quality of school attended and a myriad of other background factors continue to affect educational outcomes for young people, including […]

Ofsted DOES care about the early years

There is much more to Ofsted’s engagement with the early years sector than the chief inspector’s visits to individual providers, argues Gill Jones At Ofsted, we know it’s imperative that young children get off to a good start when they begin primary school. Once they’re behind, it’s very difficult for them to catch up later. […]

Let’s fix school structures, then we can turn to curriculum

It’s eight years this month since Michael Gove slammed the Academies Act through the Commons and gave us the complicated landscape of academies, free schools and other issues that we all now face. On Tuesday I was asked by the Education Policy Institute to look back across the years and highlight if it was all […]

It’s not true that academies care more about money than pupils

Contrary to the claims of some researchers, academisation is not creating a market, and it is not putting finances ahead of pupil success, says Martyn Oliver Some things never change. Exams finished, the sun shining, and pupils, parents and teachers nervously wondering if the little voice in their head whispering “it’s coming home” is correct. […]

The schools that are building democracy into their education

This week has been declared the UK’s first-ever ‘National democracy week’ in an effort to get people more interested in politics. Here Fiona Carnie celebrates the schools that already get pupils, parents and teachers involved in the way things are run. One fundamental principle of democracy is that it allows people to participate in decisions […]

How to manage a mobile phone ban in schools

Collecting pupils’ phones isn’t an invasion of privacy – it’s a sensible way to run a school, explains Peter Lee. Banning mobile phones isn’t as rare or shocking as some seem to think it is. In fact, every school I’ve worked in has banned mobile phones to some extent. Yet after the culture secretary Matt […]