• Heads 'handcuffed' into anti-academy vows

    Unions are using strike action to “handcuff” headteachers into signing pledges not to academise for up to five years. National Education Union (NEU) members have held strike action at Catholic schools in the Diocese of Brentwood. The diocese has outlined plans for eight new academy trusts to take over its local authority-maintained schools, although the…

    5.00 Mar. 7th, 2020 | News

  • Revealed: The schools saving thousands slashing executive salaries

    Some smaller trusts are slashing inflated leadership salaries – with one saving a six-figure sum in the process. Four trusts, each with just two schools apiece, have reduced pay after facing government scrutiny for the amount pocketed by their chief executives. The Transforming Lives Educational Trust, with one secondary and one infant school in Warwickshire,…

    5.00 Jan. 25th, 2019 | News

  • Investigation: Meet the head paid £260k to run one school

    A single-school academy trust has upped the pay of its top executive to £260,000, making him one of the best-paid academy bosses in the country. It means that the pay of Colin Hall, listed as “head” of Holland Park School, west London, has doubled in seven years, despite a letter from the government in 2017…

    5.00 Jan. 25th, 2019 | News

  • A lack of sponsors? Simple, ditch compulsory academisation

    Today’s annual report by HMCI Amanda Spielman covers a lot of ground, but let’s pick up here on one important section that shows starkly the flaw in the government’s policy of compulsory academisation. The report points out that the turnaround rates for underperforming schools remain too slow and that a lack of sponsor capacity means…

    15.58 Dec. 4th, 2018 | Opinion

  • 'Inadequate' academy faces termination of funding over standards

    An academy in Central Bedfordshire faces having its funding withdrawn and being rebrokered to a new sponsor after it was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted. The Sandye Place Academy Trust has been issued with a termination warning notice by the Department for Education (DfE). It means that if the trust does not meet certain conditions, it…

    13.10 Jul. 6th, 2018 | News