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25 April 2026

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Opinion

How can schools know when to make a CAMHS referral?

There are certain kinds of distress that can be managed by a school before a child is referred to a mental health service, explains Peter Fuggle Distress is not the same as having a mental health issue, but most mental health issues are highly associated with distress. This means it can be hard to tell […]

Schools need more mental health support

School leaders appreciate the government’s new mental health strategy, but without sufficient cash, says Sarah Hannafin, it won’t work School leaders are reporting a serious – and growing – concern for children’s mental health. The demand for professional mental health services has increased in recent years, but funding has plummeted. This means that schools are […]

When it comes to teacher pay, we’re just like monkeys

In 2012, the scientist Frans de Waal revealed how monkeys go berserk if paid unequally for a task. A YouTube video, watched 13 million times, shows a researcher giving two Capuchin monkeys a food treat in return for handing her a pebble. When the first monkey is given a cucumber, he happily eats it. But […]

Is there a school governor recruitment crisis?

There might be a huge surplus of volunteers in London, but rural communities never have enough potential governors, explains Judith Hicks Over a quarter of a million volunteers across England give up their free time to provide strategic leadership at state-funded schools – but this figure is falling, heaping pressure onto serving school governors and […]

Multi-academy trusts: can any benefits be proven?

Karen Wespieser investigates the extent to which the most successful MATs are improving outcomes for children and closing gaps for the most disadvantaged Good research takes time – particularly systems research. There is no point in looking at brand new systems because all you will capture is at best a baseline, and at worst a […]

Let’s put teacher CPD at the heart of school improvement

In an increasingly fragmented system, here’s how one part of the country has taken a joint approach to school improvement, explain Simon Faull and Simon Burgess In England we have a reasonably functional system of school accountability, using school performance tables and Ofsted inspections, which provide outcome and process oversight. While this system is often […]

Schools need more money or they’ll have to start cutting staff

Schools are increasingly forced to live beyond the meagre means the government gives them, a situation that can’t last according to the EPI’s Jon Andrews Ten years ago, I was working in the Department for Children, Schools and Families on school efficiency. Amongst other things, I was tasked with developing guidance for local authorities on […]

The public services Jenga tower is on the brink of collapse

Are schools going to get more money? That’s the question headteachers keep asking – not least at the ASCL conference last week – and it’s the one that’s guaranteed to cause everyone grief. And quite honestly, the answer appears to be no. Damian Hinds is a classic low-tax Conservative. In his time as a member […]

How to master KS2 maths SATs revision

Having analysed two years of maths SATs papers, Candida Crawford shares her top tips for how to organise your revision time efficiently No one wants Year 6 to be all about English and maths, but primary schools are still under pressure to produce good SATs results. With this in mind, we’ve analysed all the data available […]