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25 April 2026

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Opinion

Payment by results: that would never happen now… or would it?

Zimmer-framed educationist that I am, I was delighted to discover Schools Week’s new column on the history of education. So delighted, in fact, that I promptly (foolishly?) proposed a contribution of my own on a subject that is close to my heart – and that of the illustrious 19th-century poet and (which is less well […]

Free school meals are still the best measure of deprivation

It may not be the clearest way to allocate extra funds to disadvantaged pupils, but it’s the best there is, says Alex Sutherland. Every year, the UK government allocates £2.5 billion to state schools to support disadvantaged pupils via the pupil premium. To figure out how to allocate these funds, the government uses free school […]

Forget grammars! Sixth-form colleges are engines of social mobility

The government should consider how greater investment in sixth-form colleges could drive up standards, says James Kewin Sixth-form colleges share the government’s ambition to create an education system that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. But the plans unveiled earlier this month to achieve this are flawed and incomplete. Flawed because they overplay […]

School are not mini-immigration offices – and never should be

Schools should not make parents show their children’s passports. For anything. That’s a really simple rule. It’s also a rule the Department for Education won’t write that clearly. I don’t know why. But it should. So let us be clear. Schools have no right to make parents show a passport. Schools do not need to […]

Academies are vital to May’s reform agenda

The government’s determination to expand selection must be done within the current system – and that includes academies, says Amy Finch. But academy chains vary in their effectiveness; Reform’s new research attempts to find out why Selection in 2016 looks very different from grammars and secondary moderns, Theresa May insinuated last week at prime minister’s […]

Minority ethnic students are baffled by British values

Research corner with Dr Alison Davies, associate lecturer at the Open University. What have you been working on? We are in the midst of a longitudinal study compiling and examining the views of young people from minority ethnic backgrounds. We have been gathering their views on things that improve community cohesion and the barriers they […]

No one is talking about a return to the 11-plus

An element of selection will not necessarily lead to a return of the secondary modern, says Heath Monk. However, making selection work for all will need careful implementation There’s no subject that unites the warring factions of the educational world more than their hatred of grammar schools. Largely abolished in the Sixties and outlawed (twice) in […]

If you can pass the test you’re in. But who benefits?

The grammar schools proposal could be described as a “great right-wing fraud”, says David Blunkett… pretending you are delivering to the many what you know you can only deliver to the few Next month I will take part in a gathering at Ruskin College, Oxford, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of a seminal speech on education […]