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14 April 2026

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Opinion

Creating a toolkit to help raise teaching standards

UK heads joined school leaders from around the world in Washington to explore ways of developing professional learning and providing effective feedback. Earlier this week, I was fortunate enough to be among 24 UK headteachers who travelled to Washington DC for the Teacher Development Summit organised by the Sutton Trust and the Bill and Melinda […]

Schools Week editorials

Edition seven editorial Free school sixth-form offer £500 recruitment ‘incentive’ to pupils A proposed sixth-form free school advertising £500 incentives to new pupils is at best questionable, but at worst it’s an uncosted bribe. The ‘academic scholarship’ is not a bursary for materials, travel or meals, typically given to pupils with parents on low incomes. It […]

The 13 most critical points in the NAO’s Academies and Schools Oversight report

Today the National Audit Office (NAO) released a document scrutinising the way schools are overseen and intervened on if under-performing. Reading it is illuminating. Academies have been complicated to keep abreast of over the last few years, and it does a good job of explaining who is responsible for what (so far as there actually […]

University-led teacher training should be valued, not derided

The transfer of initial teacher training numbers to the School Direct programme has all the makings of a crisis in future teacher supply There is no doubt that Michael Gove’s reforms to teacher education have left new Education Secretary Nicky Morgan with a dilemma. On the one hand, some of her colleagues still regard university […]

Let’s give young carers the pupil premium

The UK’s 160,000 young carers do not do as well as their peers at school. Giving them the pupil premium is one way to lower their barriers to learning At the most recent party conference events, politicians were asked about the addition of young carers to the pupil premium. Minister for schools David Laws said […]

Is a new model of school collaboration emerging?

Collaboration is a new buzzword in education, but there are many ways it can happen. Expert Alison Talbot describes how one option in particular may be coming to the fore. At the beginning of the school term, a number of exciting collaborations and partnerships coming to fruition, with many free schools, university technical colleges and […]

Schools Week editorials

Edition six editorial Ofsted ditches inspector who copied reports After presenting Ofsted with irrefutable evidence of recycled reports from inspections less than six months ago, they have sacked the inspector. Additional [contracted] inspectors have been caught doing this before and have been sacked. But what is truly shocking about this latest copy-and-paste story is Ofsted knew he […]

We make it simple: how the government’s new 16-19 league tables are calculated

The 16-19 accountability measures are changing. As the government releases its (very dense) guide setting out how the new measures will work, Schools Week’s Philip Nye, a former National Audit Office auditor, takes on the gruelling task of guiding you through the key features What’s changing? The new accountability measures will give a significant refresh […]

How to raise confidence and aspirations in girls

Last week we reported that many fewer girls are studying vocational subjects than boys. Mentors benefit everyone, but maybe they can play a particularly important role in developing confidence in girls Don’t you think feminism is going too far? I mean, shouldn’t everybody have equal opportunities, regardless of who they are? What about the boys?” […]