Opinion | Schools Week

Opinion

16 to 18-year-olds need funding too!

If 16-to-18 participation is “compulsory” then it should be funded at the same level as other compulsory phases, argues…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

Trustees beware: know your legal duties!

If there is a single part of the academy system that needs our urgent attention, it is trusteeship, argues…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

Free schools can’t be judged as a homogenous group

Tom Richmond is wrong on one thing, argues Thomas Byrne. There already are numerous free school successes – and…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

Schools: you must tell pupils about apprenticeships!

After news broke that only two of the 10 largest multi-academy trusts are actually implementing the so-called Baker Clause,…

Lord Kenneth Baker

Opinion

How school leaders can be sucked into dodgy dealings

Before I became a teacher I briefly worked for KPMG, one of the world’s largest auditors. It was shortly…

Laura McInerney

Opinion

Free schools: do their outcomes justify the cost?

There’s not enough evidence yet to see whether free schools have worked, says Tom Richmond, but what we do…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

The reception year isn’t all about learning to read

The UK’s dogmatic approach to teaching reading does a disservice to the different ways and speeds at which young…

Expert Contributor

Opinion

Education ministers need to stop arguing about skills

It is beyond tedious to watch two ministers argue in public over the meaning of the word ‘skills’ when…

Laura McInerney

Opinion

Progress 8 is biased towards grammar schools – here’s the solution

The school progress measures were a step in the right direction, but in their current form they can only…

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

20h

Emma Bradshaw and Tom Legge

20h

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

Have something to say?

We’re always keen to hear from new voices. If you’ve got an opinion you want to share with the education community why not job

Comment on articles and content

Get in touch

Send your pitch to our commissioning editor.