Opinion | Schools Week

Opinion

The early-learning goals aren’t there yet!

The review of early-years assessment has morphed into a review of the curriculum by the back door, argues Beatrice…

Expert Contributor

BEATRICE MERRICK

Opinion

How to manage a mobile phone ban in schools

Collecting pupils’ phones isn’t an invasion of privacy – it’s a sensible way to run a school, explains Peter…

Expert Contributor

PETER LEE

Opinion

Ofsted requires improvement – but how do we get there?

Ofsted’s name is mud this week. Amanda Spielman’s speech at last week’s Festival of Education went down like a…

Laura McInerney

LAURA MCINERNEY

Opinion

Graduate recruiters are clamouring for more talented women – and schools should be afraid

Gender pay rules are making corporations jittery, and rightly so. As Schools Week recently revealed, academy trusts usually have…

Laura McInerney

LAURA MCINERNEY

Opinion

Booze and backroom deals are under the accounting spotlight

The ESFA’s annual academies accounts direction document is usually fairly dry, but this year there are few more important…

Expert Contributor

PHILLIP REYNOLDS

Opinion

Punk leadership means daring to think outside the system

The education community has a jaundiced view of school leadership at present, which is seen as risk-averse or even…

Keziah Featherstone

KEZIAH FEATHERSTONE

Opinion

Ignore the naysayers, the new early-learning goals are great

Credit where credit is due, writes Clare Sealy; the government has done a really good job on its new…

Expert Contributor

CLARE SEALY

Opinion

No, teachers aren’t overpaid – despite what some think-tanks may claim

Last week, the Taxpayers’ Alliance, a right-wing think-tank, tried to claim that teachers are paid too much, flying in…

Expert Contributor

JACK WORTH

Opinion

Why schools need a coherent curriculum

The curriculum at so many schools has narrowed as the government lays down more and more core targets. Mary…

Expert Contributor

MARY MYATT

Must Read

Recruitment and retention

An impoverished work-life drives too many teachers out

The default position that teaching should be professionally (and sometimes personally) all-encompassing is a retention own-goal

John Dickens

Nansi Ellis and Haili Hughes

SEND solutions

We must reclaim our role as SEND and AP’s fixers. ASAP

New project aims to gather and broadcast the solutions to the SEND funding crisis that are lighting the way…

John Dickens

Emma Bradshaw and Tom Legge

The Knowledge

Are schools pushing views about race on their pupils?

Our new research shows some students’ free speech is being limited – but not in the ways some commentators…

JL Dutaut

Professor Karl Kitching

ITT

Degree apprenticeships are key to increasing and diversifying recruitment

Work to deliver the new qualification should continue at pace to meet recruitment challenges by making teaching more accessible,…

JL Dutaut

Melanie Renowden

ITT

ITT: Which is the odd one out?

The deeply flawed ITT reforms are a threat to sustainable teacher supply for purely ideological purposes, writes David Spendlove

JL Dutaut

David Spendlove

EXAMS

Exams

How sitting an exam re-affirmed my respect for our students

I still believe exams to be the best way of testing academic knowledge and understanding but they’re no bagatelle,…

JL Dutaut

James Handscombe

Exams

The number of penalties handed out to students caught cheating has risen for a second year

The stereotype that could be feeding exam anxiety

The ‘snowflake’ stereotype is damaging and unjustified, but a more pervasive idea may be perpetuating exam anxiety, says Stephen…

JL Dutaut

Stephen Caldwell

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