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23 May 2026

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Opinion

Women need to get even – let’s ban men from school names

Is anyone bored of hearing the ways women are disadvantaged in education? I am. Commentators like me bang on and on about women being relatively less likely to become leaders, less likely to get into Oxbridge, more likely to get low wages. Frankly, it all gets a bit samey. But that’s because inequality is boring. […]

Work experience can benefit employers as well as schools

Ask not what employers can do for your students. Ask what your students can do for employers, says Gerard Liston It was encouraging to hear Justine Greening tell the Conservative Party conference that, ‘British business is the ultimate opportunity giver. I want to see businesses spotting and polishing up the talent of a new generation’. […]

Respecting teachers’ professionalism

Winning friends and influencing people are important, especially when new ministers are appointed and new policies are introduced. Suggestions for the Consideration of Teachers was published in 1905 by officials very aware of the strained relationship with the teaching profession as a result of payment by results, which had recently ended. This was their attempt […]

We are rewarding the wrong school leaders

The UK is falling behind in international league tables because it is appointing, rewarding and recognising the wrong school leaders, say Alex Hill and Ben Laker Why does the UK educational system fall behind its peers? In the 2012 Program for International Assessment (PISA) study, the UK invested the 8th largest amount of 34 OECD […]

Independent schools want to engage with state schools but red tape abounds

Tom Hicks was thrilled when his son had the chance to play in a local under-7 football tournament. But then bureaucracy showed the red card… As a kid, there was little that got the blood stirring more than the anticipation of a sports tournament. It would start the night before: you would lay out your […]

Developmentalism vs mastery: should teachers be ‘flinging mud at the wall’?

Should teachers ‘fling mud at the wall’ or should they follow a mastery approach, asks Heather Fearn There are two teaching mindsets. First, there are those teachers that expose children to the curriculum and assume they will learn it when they are capable. They might suggest a child is not developmentally ready to learn letter sounds; […]

Historians make the best superheads. Ugh.

While it is easy to lie with statistics, it is even easier to lie without them. And if you are going to accuse teachers from certain subjects of being worse school leaders than others, you probably ought to have some numbers to back you up. Researchers Alex Hill and Ben Laker are no stranger to […]

Should the new College of Teaching receive state financial aid?

Recent archival research at the school of education, University of Adelaide, and at UCL, Institute of Education, London reveals that the foundation of the UK College of Teachers (originally formed as the College of Preceptors 170 years ago) and its sister organisation in South Australia, set up in 1851, were both shrouded in controversy. These […]

The social capital of a private education

Privately educated pupils earn more – but they also get better “quality” jobs. Why is that, ask Anna Vignoles and Francis Green The role of private schooling has been controversial in England for many decades. Despite being a relatively small part of the school sector (about 7 per cent of pupils), private schools have an […]