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25 April 2026

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Opinion

Special-school recruitment: the crisis no one is talking about

Recruitment for special schools is way tougher than in the mainstream, but there are steps that the government and schools can take, says Marc Rowland. If you have just joined a special school, alternative provision (AP) setting or pupil referral unit (PRU), you are more likely to have a temporary teacher (or no teacher at […]

Should schools be doing PR and marketing?

Elin de Zoete gives basic steps in how to boost your school’s public image. It’s worth it, she says, as it makes all the difference when it comes to parental choice. It is not the done thing in education to talk about a competitive schools landscape. Our education institutions are keen to be seen to […]

TIMSS Results? Well, at least the kids are all right. The rest of us however….

While the news headlines have been dominated by how clever (or not) England’s children were revealed to be in this week’s international maths and science league tables, our reporter Jess Staufenberg noticed something different. She noticed that while England’s pupils may not achieve most highly, they nevertheless enjoy school more than children in many high-performing […]

More schooling won’t stop alt-right thinking

In light of Trump’s win and growing concerns about an “alt-right” agenda both in the States and here (for “alt-right” some use “neo-Nazi”), people are clamouring for education as a solution. “What this all shows is that we need more citizenship lessons in school,” some say. “If only these people were better educated they wouldn’t […]

‘Let’s make grammar schools do outreach work – and that’s just a start…’

It’s a lottery as to which primary schools encourage their pupils to consider a grammar school. That needs to change, says David Jesson. The government’s education green paper has provided the basis for an enlivened debate about the purpose of grammar schools and whether more pupils should have the chance to experience this form of […]

Based on data, I believed I would never succeed

Data can inform starting points but should never be used to cap expectations of learners, says Jaz Ampaw-Farr. “Based on data, I believed I would never succeed.” As a child my trajectory was pretty bleak. On paper I was a disadvantaged, female, looked-after child on free school meals with an ethnic background of “other (please […]

We need to document a child’s progress from birth to age 5

Those against data collection in early years are missing the point, says Jan Dubiel. How else will early years’ practitioners know how they (and the child) are doing? The appropriateness and value of collecting data on children has been hotly debated over the past couple of years, sparked in part by the introduction of baseline […]

Man up, Hammond, and show your face to the cameras

I wrote a grumpy thing this week. Twice a year, when the Chancellor announces their budgets in the Commons, Schools Week’s designer and I huddle around a screen to select which photograph will go on the front. In previous years we had lots of choices. George Osborne may not have been a charismatic man, but […]

The 18th century forerunners of the Michaela School model

Last weekend, The Sunday Times published a lengthy article about Michaela, the north London free school that styles itself as “the strictest school” in the country. As one of its teachers tweeted: “When we say strict, we mean strict.” The rights and wrongs of this austere approach are not the concerns of this column. What […]