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27 April 2026

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Opinion

Heading up a board is serious business

Headteacher boards, the first attempt to move power to the regions, deserve the support of school leaders eadteacher boards (HTBs) are now up and running in each of the eight new Department for Education (DfE) regions. Regional schools commissioners (RSCs) and their boards have jurisdiction only over academies because it is only academies (and, for […]

Federations should not be swept under the MAT

Multi-academy trusts are on everybody’s lips, but don’t dismiss the federation option In an era of increasing school autonomy and declining local authority capacity, the need for schools to work collaboratively is greater than ever. There are a variety of ways schools can do this, from loose partnerships to more formal arrangements involving shared governance […]

The advantages of scale

Having co-authored a new report suggesting performance would improve if the government let every primary school spin out from its local authority and join an academy chain, Annaliese Briggs explains the thinking behind her idea There is something of a perfect storm ahead for primary schools. Pupils’ performance has steadily improved, but a combination of […]

Conservative Party Conference preview

Each week during the political conference season we will be inviting a commentator to give their views on what education policies they wish to see announced. Will Bickford Smith gives his view ahead of Nick Morgan’s first conference speech as Education Secretary. There is no government department more greatly applauded, or reviled, than the Department for […]

Right Angles: More than one angle on wearing the niqab

A student sent home for flouting uniform code is not exactly a hard-hitting story. But in a case this week the newspapers were all over just such a story for the simple reason that the student was muslim and her transgression was the wearing of the niqab, a face-covering veil. Reported first by the BBC, […]

Hunt’s Fight Back : Day 2 Roundup of Labour Conference

Where yesterday’s conference speeches from shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt felt like an imbalanced half of a football game; today felt like his comeback tour. In a speech and question session at the NASUWT union fringe Tristram Hunt came out fighting – defending Labour’s record on sponsored academies and outing problems with Ofsted. But let’s […]

Is it illegal to run a vegetarian school?

The introduction of universal free school meals for infants this month means questions are being asked about their nutritional and monetary value. However solicitor, Jade Kent, asks a different thorny question about their content. It’s an unusual question, but one that needs to be posed in an education system which now opens the door to […]

New ways of finding free school properties are needed urgently

As new free schools are due to open this month, some have opened in temporary accommodation and others have had to delay due to lack of suitable site. Natalie Evans suggests a better way forward. In many ways, the building should be the least important part of setting up a new school. Yet all too […]

Should we care about no notice inspections?

In 2009, Ofsted trialled no notice inspections. This week they announced a second attempt. Liam Collins explains some unexpected problems of this idea. Earlier this week, when Sir Michael Wilshaw announced Ofsted would be trialling 40 no notice school inspections, I wasn’t shocked or surprised or worried. I was actually quite bored by it. The […]