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25 April 2026

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Opinion

Should we go or should we stay?

Next week there will be an election on the European Union. As a former citizenship teacher, I can tell you life will be easier for those citizenship teachers still out there if the country votes to leave. Pupils hate learning about the EU, teachers hate teaching it. It’s abstract, and far away, and difficult to […]

Are we heading towards a HExit?

Six months or six years before qualification? The end of university PGCEs? Kiran Gill sifts through the white paper’s proposals on initial teacher training Speculation and punditry are de rigueur in the run-up to the referendum on Europe. Initial teacher training (ITT) is a less debated topic, so this week, I’m throwing my euro-cent’s worth […]

If we join a MAT, will we lose our individual identity?

If we join a multi-academy trust, will we lose our individual identity? Christine says: There are those that say joining a multi-academy trust (MAT) is like getting married without the possibility of divorce for at least 125 years. Most of us wouldn’t get married if it meant subsuming our personality to another. And the same […]

Wilshaw and Carter to clash in first day of evidence

Sir Michael Wilshaw and Sir David Carter will appear together at the first evidence hearing next week of the select committee’s inquiry into multi-academy trusts. The pair often have differing views, says Neil Carmichael, which should make for an interesting session Next Wednesday the education select committee will begin its inquiry into multi-academy trusts (MATs) […]

Someone knock their bloody heads together

One of the few Shakespearean phrases I knew growing up was “someone knock their bloody heads together”. Unfortunately, I learned one day when I was about 20 that Shakespeare never said it. It’s still a good phrase though. And it’s an important one this week. A problem of politics is that it makes personalities impinge […]

Six steps the government must take to win back support from headteachers

More than 50 headteachers have this week signed an open letter to education secretary Nicky Morgan claiming her government has plunged the education system into chaos. The heads have put forward six key proposals to improve the education system. Steve Hitchcock, headteacher of St Peter’s CofE Primary School in Devon, who helped organise the letter, […]

England’s controversial ‘new’ grammar school: fair process, or not?

After tirelessly questioning council officials and probing internet archives, anti-selection campaigner Joanne Bartley questions the fairness of England’s first grammar school ‘expansion’. When Nicky Morgan stood in parliament on October 19th 2015 to approve the controversial Weald of Kent grammar school expansion, she said: ‘‘I assessed the proposal in line with our guidelines on making significant […]

SPAG bol***** — Why grammar tests are a poor use of classroom time

Grammar exercises and tests do little but fill in the government’s beloved tick-boxes and are not the best way to use precious classroom time, says Gerald Haigh When I was a child I had a Meccano set. It was the daddy of them all, ultra deluxe, in a wooden chest gold-stencilled “Meccano” in that distinctive […]

Cuts in the Education Services Grant will prevent councils supporting schools

The government may have made a “u-turn” on academisation, but dramatic reductions in the Education Services Grant will prevent councils from adequately supporting schools, argues David Borrow. The plan to sever the link between local authorities, schools, and their communities, he says, is ill thought-out and undemocratic No doubt about it: the government’s climbdown over […]