Opinion | Schools Week

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Why we’re replacing local governing bodies with regional school boards

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1w | The Boardroom Leader

We’re planning big changes to governance structures while keeping a determined focus on collaboration

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1w | The Boardroom Leader
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SEND reforms make the home-school relationship more important than ever

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1w | Opinion

When parents feel heard it’s easier for families and schools to work together for the benefit of everyone

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1w | Opinion
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Lessons from Singapore in shaping school system culture

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1w | Opinion

Timeless constants come from the institutions willing to think and act with the same long horizon

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1w | Opinion
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White paper reforms must enrich all pupils

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1w | Opinion

The government’s enrichment framework will only succeed if the needs of all pupils and their schools are ...

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It’s time for a reality check over health services in schools

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1w | Opinion: SEND

If the government is serious about improving outcomes, it must be honest about its intent

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1w | Opinion: SEND

Our school textbooks are all wrong

The content of our textbooks is fine – to a point. The books do what they are sold to do: teach children what they need to pass the exam for which they’ve been written. But these days a textbook is not, in a traditional sense, a textbook. It’s an exam primer. Current textbooks are crafted […]

Watch out government doesn’t try to remove BTECs from sixth forms

Bill Watkin makes a plea to leave applied general qualifications where they are: sitting alongside A-levels in an academic sixth-form curriculum. Sixth forms tend to offer a primarily academic curriculum to prepare students for higher education. Only a few engage in technical and professional education; most do either all A-levels or a blend of A-levels […]

To become education secretary, you should be privately educated, child-free and summer-born

If you want to be an education secretary you should be privately educated, have no children, and have a July or August birthday, writes Laura McInerney, whose presentation at SSAT gave an insight into what school leaders can learn from politicians. Politicians are forever visiting schools to “learn” from them, but how often do school […]

Here’s how to get monocultural schools mixing

As the Casey review warns of the risks of culturally isolated schools, Mashuda Shaikh shares her experience of helping to foster integration, tolerance and citizenship in her local community. My work involves engaging the community to become more cohesive and resilient in times of uncertainty and change by using heritage and history in fun ways. […]

Speed-read: The really quite important findings of the Post-16 Inequalities Report

Earlier this week a very clear, very useful report was released. And no, it wasn’t PISA. Published on Monday, the ‘social and ethnic inequalities in post-16 choices’ report sounds amazingly dull. But it isn’t. It’s rather great. The first clue it would include gems was that Education Datalab wrote it, on behalf of the Social […]

Don’t abandon new mothers to maternity leave – let us keep working!

A family-friendly culture shift in schools would help to stem the teacher retention crisis and improve wellbeing for all teachers, says Emma Sheppard. In June this year, as I impatiently awaited the arrival of my son, I was forced to face the painful realisation that in choosing to become a mother, I had potentially sacrificed […]

Nationality data, grammar schools – what’s the real story?

If you’re looking for good assembly material, it’s worth showing pupils the greatest music video of the Nineties: Oasis’s Stand By Me. It shows a series of unconnected events over its five-minute riff. We see people stealing televisions; twin sisters pushing one another; a woman being mugged; a child being kidnapped. Or, at least, that’s […]

The birth (and death) of the school health service

Everyone in England is familiar with the concept of the National Health Service. But have you heard of the School Health Service? A forgotten aspect of the 1944 Education Act is that it laid down duties on local authorities to look after the health of pupils. School medical officers were to be responsible for ensuring […]

We’re launching a consultation on assessment in schools

Testing and assessment worry parents and teachers, although both are integral and critical to good teaching, says Rod Bristow. He explains why his company now plans to talk to “all stakeholders” to bring about positive change. Teachers understand better than anyone that good assessment is part and parcel of good teaching. But 2017 will be […]

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