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14 November 2026

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Opinion

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 […]

Ofsted requires improvement – but how do we get there?

Ofsted’s name is mud this week. Amanda Spielman’s speech at last week’s Festival of Education went down like a lead balloon after she announced that grades for overall school effectiveness are “not effort grades”. Then she suggested that schools in white working class areas get lower grades partly because local families may not have the […]

The early-learning goals aren’t there yet!

The review of early-years assessment has morphed into a review of the curriculum by the back door, argues Beatrice Merrick Following apprehensive rumblings on social media about the review of the early-learning goals, it’s no surprise that the DfE orchestrated a chorus of positive comment to greet the minister’s announcement of the draft revisions. Headteacher […]

Graduate recruiters are clamouring for more talented women – and schools should be afraid

Gender pay rules are making corporations jittery, and rightly so. As Schools Week recently revealed, academy trusts usually have way more low-paid women than high-paid ones, which causes an imbalance in average pay. Reputationally speaking, this is bad for academy trusts. But for banks, retailers and large consulting firms, the damage is even greater because […]