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21 August 2026

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Opinion

‘Refuse, retract, resist’ school nationality data collection

Parents can choose not to be complicit in building border controls in our playgrounds – and so can schools, says Martha Spurrier. The spring school census started this week. For the second time this academic year, parents and guardians have been asked to share their children’s nationalities and countries of birth with the state – […]

Why we didn’t do the ‘disadvantage’ school league tables this year…

For the past two years Schools Week won love for publishing annual tables of schools getting great outcomes for pupils from lower-income families. But this year we have changed course. Editor Laura McInerney explains why. I’m going to make a confession. The award-winning Schools Week ‘disadvantage league tables’, which we first published in January 2015, […]

The long and the short of school uniforms

Last week a school in Kent gained national headlines for sending home girls whose skirts were deemed as too short. Uniform stories are not rare. Most weeks at least one will surface in a local rag. If the subject is outlandish enough, the national press will also pile in. Headteachers will defend their right to […]

Sixth-form colleges – not school sixth forms – are the route to social mobility

Education Datalab’s recent report on post-16 education has got it wrong, says James Kewin. It is a myth that the best way to improve the life chances of disadvantaged young people is to increase the number of school sixth forms. Last month, Education Datalab produced a report – handily summarised by Schools Week – entitled […]

An autism diagnosis doesn’t mean other special needs are being missed

An autism diagnosis doesn’t mean other special needs are being missed – it’s just the first step in the process, says Malcolm Reeve. Between 2010 and 2016 the number of children with autism in schools in England nearly doubled. The percentage in secondary schools increased markedly, even more in special schools. The broad SEN area […]

We must mend the primary and secondary split in education leadership

If primary and secondary leaders better understood each other’s phases, children would be better prepared for the move from key stage 2 to 3, says Allana Gay. School leaders suffer from fear of missing out. They aim to keep up with all of the latest trends for teaching styles, data manipulation, Ofsted and sources of […]

We can see mentally ill pupils, but what do we do?

I once cried on the tube in London. Tears dripped down my face, an inconsolable stream barely contained by my wet hands. I no longer remember what I was crying about. But I do remember the kindness of a hunched Nigerian woman, dressed in her Sunday best, who from her seat opposite, was watching me […]

What is going on with compulsory sex education and PSHE?

The consensus on the need for compulsory sex education has never been stronger, but it’s understandable that campaigners are impatient, says Freddie Whittaker As pressure mounts on the government to make personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE) and sex education compulsory in all schools, speculation is building over the form such a move could […]

How curiosity-driven science suffered a blow in the 60s

As the debate rages once again between “traditional” and “progressive” curriculums, and between formal and informal methods of teaching, I wonder whether we are doomed to revisit these themes with every successive generation. In 1965 I was part of the Nuffield junior science project pilot year. The goal was for children to come up with […]