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9 July 2026

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Opinion

Education ministers need to stop arguing about skills

It is beyond tedious to watch two ministers argue in public over the meaning of the word ‘skills’ when they could be fixing education, writes Laura McInerney One of my favourite questions to ask people is this: “If you were invisible for the day, what would you do?” It always throws them off. Sometimes they […]

Progress 8 is biased towards grammar schools – here’s the solution

The school progress measures were a step in the right direction, but in their current form they can only partially correct for intake ability, writes Tom Perry As we have known for decades, and the data clearly shows, raw attainment scores such as schools’ GCSE results say more about schools’ intakes than their performance. The […]

Universal Infant Free School Meals – what has the impact been so far?

Some parents and school leaders believe free lunches are having positive effects on the lives of infants and their families, but the costs to schools may become unsustainable unless the government keeps an eye on how much money it provides, writes Peter Sellen, who co-authored the EPI’s new report In September 2013, the previous coalition […]

How can the DfE use EdTech to reduce teacher workload?

Justine Greening was making progress on using EdTech to alleviate workload – here’s what she’d achieved so far, and what’s still left to do, says Atif Mahmood The DfE’s own research has identified workload as the “most important factor” behind teachers who leave the profession. I meet with heads of department and headteachers daily, all […]

How did ‘child-centred’ dogma get established in schools?

Mary Woolley interviewed 13 veterans of history teaching, in an effort to discover how teaching has changed over the last 30 years. This is what she learned. The role and approach of teachers in classrooms is frequently contested, particularly in the history education community. Advocates of direct instruction emphasise the place of the teacher at […]

How schools should handle snow days

Every time an English school is forced to take a day off for bad weather, the usual suspects ooze out of the woodwork and make a fuss about the terrible effects of kids missing lessons. So why don’t we follow what they do in the states, and add a day at the end of July? […]

Schools mustn’t stop teaching other religions

With talk in the air that the new education secretary will deregulate faith schools, Charlotte Avery makes her plea for the place of comparative religion It was suggested this week that the new education secretary Damian Hinds plans to remove the 50-per-cent cap on pupils of the same religion being admitted to faith schools. This […]

It’s time to beat the gender pay gap in schools!

Schools will soon all be obliged to publish the differences in what they pay men and women. Sameena Choudry explains why that gap must now be filled. Last October, Theresa May brought the gender pay gap back into prominence. She declared that tackling it is an absolute priority for the government and made it a […]

Bold Beginnings: how NOT to write an Ofsted report

The battle for the soul of reception continues, especially on social media, writes Colin Richards It is clear that Ofsted has mismanaged both the writing and the reception of its report, ‘Bold Beginnings‘. There has been needless, counterproductive recrimination both by inspectors and critics. It is time that rational discussion replaced rhetoric and injured self-justification. Let’s […]