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26 April 2026

Tag: coronavirus

How schools are live-streaming lessons around the world

Teachers are donning wireless microphones while pupils are replaced by webcams as schools invest thousands of pounds to live stream lessons to self-isolating pupils and those trapped abroad. The Department for Education revealed this week around 1,500 schools have been forced to partially close – with 84 per cent of state-funded secondary schools fully open, […]

How schools became the battleground of Cummings’s culture war

Schools have been hurled into the centre of a “culture war” by the publication of unexpected guidance thought to have originated in Downing Street that targets divisive educational issues. This has all the hallmarks of having been thrown in by No 10 in the expectation that there will be a massive row Documents supposedly meant […]

Coronavirus: Nearly one in six secondaries not fully open, DfE data suggests

Around 1,500 schools have now been forced to partially close, with as many as one in six secondary schools not open to all pupils, new government figures show. According to the Department for Education’s latest school attendance survey data, 84 per cent of state-funded secondary schools were fully-open to all pupils as of last Thursday, […]

DfE introduces intelligence gathering to monitor exclusions ‘in real time’

The government is switching to monitoring changes in the use of exclusions and other disciplinary measures “in real time”, a minister has said, amid concerns of an exclusions “spike”. Children’s minister Vicky Ford said the Department for Education was “introducing intelligence gathering and monitoring processes” to gather information on the use of exclusions as schools […]

RSCs will ignore trusts’ 2020 results data and ‘pseudo Progress 8’ scores

Regional schools commissioners will ignore academy trusts’ own data on their 2020 results and “pseudo Progress 8” scores provided by third parties when making decisions this year. RSCs oversee the academies sector, and are responsible for deciding if schools need to move between trusts. They are also involved in decisions on new free schools and […]

Government ‘flying blind’ over Covid tests for pupils

Schools have been placed in an “impossibly difficult position” as the government restricts Covid tests to those with “classic symptoms”, despite research indicating children are more likely to show other signs. Government guidance states the main symptoms of coronavirus are a high temperature, a new, continuous cough and a loss or change to your smell […]

Council encourages schools to contact test and trace teams first rather than DfE hotline

A council is urging schools to ignore new protocols for contacting the government’s national coronavirus helpline to report positive cases after it issued incorrect advice. The Department for Education seized control of handling calls about school Covid-19 cases last week after some were left in “limbo” waiting three days to get health advice from local […]

Spielman: Not ‘realistic’ to expect schools to provide ‘full’ online teaching

It is not “sensible or realistic” to expect schools to provide a “full on-screen taught programme” for all absent pupils, Amanda Spielman has said. The chief inspector of schools told academy trust leaders this morning that interim visits due to start next week will look at how schools are “responding intelligently and doing what is […]