Opinion | Schools Week

Opinion

Cheating at key stage 2 SATs: what does it mean for secondary schools?

What if the reason a secondary school had a poor progress rate was not due to its own teaching,…

Laura McInerney

Opinion

Educational disadvantage: how does England compare?

We know there’s work to do with the disadvantage gap in this country – but where do we stand…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

How to lead a successful multi-academy trust

There are lots of ways MATs can improve their schools, writes James Toop, but there’s one common factor needed…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

How schools and communities can work together more closely

Schools urgently need more funding, but they also need more scope to mould pupils into better-rounded members of society,…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

Grade predictions are unreliable – so why do we still use them?

Too many school leaders rely on having their teachers make predictions about pupils’ grades – but no-one’s any good…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

3 ways in which government needs to help school governors

School governance is a vital but oft-forgotten aspect of the school system. Here Mike Parker lays out what he…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

Fixing the madness of the teacher transfer window

Welcome to recruitment silly season! It is the time of year when everyone wanting to move schools has to…

Laura McInerney

Opinion

Schools are at the sharp end of rising child poverty

Schools are going to enormous lengths to ensure hard-up children don’t miss out, but funding cuts threaten the subsidies…

Freddie Whittaker

Opinion

Schools’ designated mental health leads will need support

A recent green paper suggests a new role in schools to manage mental health– the designated senior lead. Dai…

Expert Contributor

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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