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25 April 2026

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Opinion

Educational disadvantage: how does England compare?

We know there’s work to do with the disadvantage gap in this country – but where do we stand on the international scale, asks Natalie Perera? The gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers is the leading measure used by policymakers to gauge the state of educational inequality in England. Organisations such as […]

How to lead a successful multi-academy trust

There are lots of ways MATs can improve their schools, writes James Toop, but there’s one common factor needed to underpin it all School improvement can only occur with great leadership. This is especially true when we are talking about groups of schools like multi-academy trusts, but the more I learn about the MATs that […]

How schools and communities can work together more closely

Schools urgently need more funding, but they also need more scope to mould pupils into better-rounded members of society, writes Fiona Carnie It is at last becoming clear to the general public that schools are in crisis. Budget cuts are taking their toll and there is talk that education may be a decisive factor in […]

Grade predictions are unreliable – so why do we still use them?

Too many school leaders rely on having their teachers make predictions about pupils’ grades – but no-one’s any good at it, explains Ben White We recently launched a ‘grade predictions challenge’, offering a bottle of sparkling wine to teachers who could accurately predict 80 per cent of the A-level results of a class. We provided […]

3 ways in which government needs to help school governors

School governance is a vital but oft-forgotten aspect of the school system. Here Mike Parker lays out what he reckons needs to change “Governors are the unsung heroes of schools”, were the opening words of Belita Scott, an inspector, at the SCHOOLS NorthEast event in south Tyneside last September. We are increasingly concerned about the […]

Fixing the madness of the teacher transfer window

Welcome to recruitment silly season! It is the time of year when everyone wanting to move schools has to do so quickly, because resigning after the end of May means there’s no further option for change in 2018, and where headteachers crumble after months-long negotiations to keep a valuable staff member in their job falls […]

Schools are at the sharp end of rising child poverty

Schools are going to enormous lengths to ensure hard-up children don’t miss out, but funding cuts threaten the subsidies they can provide, warns Josephine Tucker. The Child Poverty Action Group and the National Education Union surveyed more than 900 teachers and school staff about the impact of poverty on children. The findings paint an alarming […]

Schools’ designated mental health leads will need support

A recent green paper suggests a new role in schools to manage mental health– the designated senior lead. Dai Durbridge considers how it might all work Mental health and pupil wellbeing have been in sharper focus over the past few years. Many adults with mental ill-health are likely to have suffered their first mental health […]