AQA is delighted to support Schools Week marking its 10th anniversary with this special supplement. As I’m sure all of you know well, AQA and its predecessor boards have been providing assessments for more than 120 years, helping students progress on their educational journey. What fewer people know is that we are an independent educational charity, committed not only to the highest quality exams, but to helping teachers at all our schools and colleges in delivering the best teaching and learning they can.
I’ve been personally glad to see Schools Week develop from strength to strength over the past decade. Its coverage consistently offers well-researched journalism that informs staffroom and wider policy debate. Countless stories from across the sector would not have broken without the investigative work of the team at Schools Week, and that deserves immense credit.
And what about the next 10 years? Schools Week’s role will be more important than ever, especially as the government embarks on its ‘decade of renewal.’ Whoever is in government, it is vital that independent, evidence-led journalism keeps them and the rest of us on our toes.
A key area of change in the near future will be reform of curriculum and assessment. Schools Week will no doubt play a vital role in covering those developments, particularly at a time when there are so many challenges facing the profession, children and young adults. And we can trust Schools Week to offer up diverse opinions and perspectives that can shape the debate.
As the government embarks on an ambitious policy and legislative agenda, several other areas are likely to attract significant attention – for example, how the government addresses regional inequalities. The government notes that where you live and what type of school you attend should not be a barrier to educational success. While it’s right that those regional imbalances are examined, we all know no-one has a simple or single remedy.
The secretary of state confirmed the teacher pay award for 2024-25, but still the recruitment of 6,500 additional teachers will not be easy. Nor will meeting increased demand for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), or providing childcare places across the country, though we can all see the urgency.
But as well as challenges come opportunities, not only in the legislative agenda, but in the energetic efforts made continually by teachers and others in the education sector to address some of the challenges facing schools.
The role of technology in education cannot be ignored. As the government looks to tackle many of the issues facing schools and education more broadly, it’s right that there is a role for technology to reduce teacher workload and prepare young people for the next steps in their lives, although only when used in a sensible and proportionate way.
AQA has been playing its part. Take, for example, our assessment tool AQA Stride, which is brand new and fully funded for all schools and colleges and has been designed to help teachers see how strong students’ understanding is of the fundamental mathematical concepts they will need for their GCSE Maths course. This could in turn ease teacher time and workload, raise standards by pinpointing specific areas of learning to target and produce data, insights and analysis to help inform education policy.
Whatever the issue, and wherever there is a story to be covered, with 10 years’ solid experience under its belt nothing should stop the Schools Week team providing the insight we all need on the key issues facing schools today. We wish them all good fortune for the decades to come.
