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14 November 2026

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Opinion

Our estate management site will save schools money

The schools minister Lord Agnew has prepared and launched new guidance for our schools to help save money on their running costs. Every penny saved on energy and upkeep outgoings is money that can be ploughed back into teaching, he says As residents of one of the most prosperous countries in the world, every child […]

Forget behaviour policies: we need behaviour culture!

Alternative provision takes in pupils who’ve proved too challenging for mainstream education, but the techniques AP teachers use are transferable, writes Sarah Holding Building positive relationships is at the heart of effective behaviour management. A strong relationship connects us to our students and without that connection our ability to influence and lead them is diminished. […]

Teaching thinking skills makes children more intelligent

All the evidence points to significant benefits of teaching children to think as well as cram for exams, argues John Perry The good news that we’re all aware of is that schools are improving. A quick look at the DfE’s performance tables makes it clear that more children achieve more highly than they did 20 […]

How should schools manage out-of-hours emails?

Four months ago, Teacher Tapp data revealed that half of teachers had answered emails during the Christmas holidays. This sounds innocuous enough, but the figures caused a bit of a battle on social media. Email answerers were at pains to explain it wasn’t necessary for other people to answer their emails out-of-hours or reply to […]

Virtual schools: beware ‘mission creep’

Guidance for virtual school heads was updated recently to expand their statutory duties to include previously looked-after children. Sally Kelly welcomes the changes, but warns of mission creep and funding shortfalls I have been a virtual school head (VSH) for seven years now. This revelation used to draw strange looks, but most people, especially in […]

Cheating at key stage 2 SATs: what does it mean for secondary schools?

What if the reason a secondary school had a poor progress rate was not due to its own teaching, but because the pupils arrived with overinflated results from primary school? Researchers at the number-crunching powerhouse Education Datalab believe this theory holds true, after they looked at secondary schools that took pupils from 30 different primary […]

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 […]