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26 April 2026

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Opinion

Mental health support for young people should be a priority

Mental illness affects about one in four people: that means six pupils in a class of 24. And yet young people, who often cannot access the right help, can be told that they are little more than “upset”, that they need to get out more. This year the UK Youth Parliament takes up their cause […]

How I had a fight in the name of social justice

Forget your pedagogical differences: teachers need to speak up about how a reduction of services to alleviate poverty is the real threat to closing the education gap, says Kiran Gill Last weekend I got into a fight. I had spent the day listening to stimulating talks at Michaela Community School in north London and debate was still rumbling […]

The overriding strength of the Cambridge history PGCE

Last week the Cambridge history PGCE almost disappeared in a puff of neo-liberal neglect. Its stay of execution is welcome: teacher training needs such a model of excellence, rigour, curriculum, mentoring and reading lists. he National College for Teaching and Leadership-imposed cap on university PGCE places kicked in before Cambridge had the chance to interview […]

Moral character is built by more than sport

Research suggests that widely held beliefs about the character building nature of sport are wrong, with students who take part in music, choir or drama outside school responding better to moral dilemmas than those who do not In May this year education secretary Nicky Morgan invested more than £500,000 in a schools project which, despite […]

You don’t need to be paid to do a professional job

Sir Michael Wilshaw is right: governors need professional development. But he’s wrong about the money. It would be a mistake to do away with the voluntary nature of governance altogether Governance is getting better. Boards are taking their development seriously, many more understand performance data than five years ago, and far more are concentrating on […]

Teacher recruitment could turn from a serious problem into a crisis

The government risks making a bad recruitment situation worse through its reforms to teacher education. Under its “school-led” policy, the infrastructure is becoming increasingly fragmented, undermining long established, and often genuinely schools-led, training partnerships On December 9, the education select committee will take oral evidence as part of its inquiry into teacher supply. The witnesses, […]

Whose knowledge is it anyway

We are entering an era of knowledge-porn. But while children need certain knowledge to take part in the “cultural conversation”, they also must be handed a way in to culture, and the ability to challenge it. This cannot be done with draconian authority, under-skilled teachers and cookie-cutter curriculums The introduction of a core knowledge curriculum […]

Why ‘Tired Teachers’ Might Hold The Clue To The Teacher Shortage

During an event at the RSA, editor Laura McInerney revealed for the first time the paper’s investigations into ‘Tired Teachers’   Over the summer our newsroom had one mission: to find out why everyone in schools said there was a teacher shortage yet government stats didn’t agree. We published our first deep investigations back in […]

Schools must not miss out on women leaders

There is inequity in school leadership, particularly at secondary level where men outnumber women almost two to one. An equalities network set up by ASCL is aiming to redress the balance Women significantly outnumber men in teaching, except when it comes to secondary headship where the reverse is true. This is not new, but progress […]