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21 August 2026

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Opinion

Governors! Here’s how to tell if your turnaround head is effective

Heads with the best long-term school improvement plans are often nearly fired two years into the job simply because they don’t improve exam results quickly enough – here’s how to avoid making that mistake, explain Ben Laker and Alex Hill Our previous study of the actions and impacts of 411 headteachers trying to turn around […]

Animal dissection must be cut from the curriculum

The modern curriculum is no place for cutting up dead animals, argues PETA’s Dr Julia Baines As a teacher, if you could take a stand against needless suffering while improving your students’ learning experience, wouldn’t you jump at the opportunity? Fortunately, this isn’t a rhetorical exercise: you can do both, by replacing animal dissection with […]

What’s the law on confiscating a pupil’s mobile phone?

Confiscation has been a hot topic on social media this week. Ramona Derbyshire clarifies schools’ and teachers’ legal rights If a teacher confiscates a mobile phone (or something else of value) from a pupil and it then gets broken or lost, who is responsible, and who must therefore bear the cost of replacing the item? […]

How to improve academy trust governance

Too many multi-academy trusts are struggling under poor governance at trust level, says Michael Pain, but Forum Education has some suggestions for improvement Ask most academy trust leaders about the most fundamental challenge for the multi-academy trust system and they will tell you about the massively varying quality of governance. So while some MATs are […]

Folks, we need to talk about exam re-marks

We need to talk about exam re-marks – and quickly, says editor Laura McInerney It’s the first week of term and teachers of exam classes will be poring over papers to decide if any should be sent for re-marking. At A-level the decision is usually made early: if a student misses their university grades, papers […]

GCSEs, A-levels and other school qualifications should be scrapped

We should get rid of GCSEs and A-levels and make universities design their own entrance systems, argues Ed Cadwallader As the curtain rises on Michael Gove’s attempt to rebrand ‘999’ as a cause for celebration, lots of people will be asking whether the switch from letter to number grades at GCSE was worth the millions […]

School leaders: your ‘5 or above’ GCSE percentage is a headline measure

A lot of school leaders don’t seem to realise that the new “5 and above” rate is the measure on which the school will be judged. That’s because Justine Greening managed to bury the news. Back in March, she said in a letter to the education select committee that the new GCSE grade 4 would […]

GCSE Results 2017: Are changes in your results normal?

GCSE results are out. Each year Ofqual produces boring-sounding variability charts. It’s a dull name, but very important data. These charts show how many centres, i.e. schools or colleges, dropped or increased their results compared with the previous year. This means that if you dropped, say, 25 per cent in one subject, you can see […]

The reformed GCSEs are the qualifications this country needs

My daughter may not get the top grade but I’m cheering in the new GCSEs because they promise to be the qualifications our young deserve, says educationalist Jo Saxton This week, some 300,000 of the nation’s young will receive their GCSE results. Among them will be my daughter. Am I worried about the fact that […]