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9 May 2026

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Opinion

How to test interventions in the classroom

Don’t get hung up on methodology – good classroom research starts by establishing meaningful, measurable outcomes, explains Dr Lauren Ballaera It’s August in a classroom in west London and eight new teachers are discussing ways they can use education research to improve outcomes for their pupils. All of them are PhDs – mainly mathematicians and […]

What was supposed to be said about Ofsted

* Working out what Ofsted is up to involves dividing woods from trees. Unfortunately, as our editor Laura McInerney learned this week, sometimes that causes splinters…   Oh to be one of those witty social commentators who is always correct. I envy those people. This week, in a bid to deal with a shortage in […]

You can’t compare GCSE maths grade boundaries

The new maths GCSEs were designed to be different from the old A* to G GCSEs, says Cath Jadhav, so you really can’t compare new and old. Over the next two months we will be reporting on various aspects of summer 2017, including official statistics. Our very clear aim, in planning for the first new GCSEs […]

Distance is an unfair criterion for school admission

While parents do engage in school choice, the system of using proximity to determine admission means that some households have negligible chance of admission to the best schools, explain Simon Burgess, Ellen Greaves and Anna Vignoles Parents in England have just made their secondary school choices, and we have carried out some research looking at the […]

Linear GCSEs aren’t about cramming knowledge

The introduction of more rigorous GCSEs has understandably been challenging for teachers. But if they try to teach them in the same way as the old exams, they risk not only doing a disservice to their students but also short-changing themselves, argues Danuta Tomasz For the past two or three years secondary teachers in England […]

School support staff have borne the brunt of funding cuts

Over a thousand parents, teachers, school support staff and head teachers attended the school cuts lobby of Parliament on Tuesday, to bring the message to MPs that 88% of our schools are seriously underfunded. The fantasy that emanates from the Government that there are huge efficiency savings still to be made, and that it is […]

Why we’re marching on Westminster for school funding

At the moment schools don’t have enough money. It’s as simple as that. That’s why NAHT, the school leaders’ union and others like UNISON, NEU and UNITE are heading up to Westminster on Tuesday. And we won’t be alone. Many school governors, parents, carers and teachers will join us. The desire to make sure every […]

£1.3bn more for school funding is not nearly enough

English schools need much more than a paltry £1.3 billion in extra funding taken from elsewhere, says Gillian Allcroft Sorry to be churlish, but £1.3 billion more for school funding is not nearly enough. Yes, I know, there are lots of other deserving causes, but our children are our future and if we cannot provide […]

Is Al-Hijrah ruling the death knell for single-sex schools?

The recent judgement against segregation in schools suggests that ideology-based segregation in education is harmful. Where does this leave single-sex schools? On Friday 13 October, the Court of Appeal ruled that the Al-Hijrah school’s policy of segregating boys and girls was unlawful discrimination by sex. The decision gives Ofsted considerably greater powers and could mark […]