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15 April 2026

Tag: Covid

Small academy trusts told to use reserves to fund urgent safety repairs

The government has warned small academy trusts and sixth form colleges they will be denied funding for urgent health and safety repairs if they could use their own reserves instead. The Department for Education published revised guidance on “urgent capital support” (UCS) funding today, tweaking eligibility rules. The UCS pot is earmarked for “urgent condition […]

Here’s how to solve the ‘hyper problem’ of interrupted learning

Delivering ‘more but faster’ is not what the evidence advises about improving learning, writes Tim Oates The development of a national approach to “learning after interruption” has been controversial. There are plenty of headline grabbing suggestions about what we might do, but it’s tricky to all at once hold in our heads everything we need to do. It’s one of those […]

Covid knocks permanent exclusions to lowest level since 2013 after pre-lockdown rise

Permanent exclusions dropped by more than a third to their lowest level since 2013 last year, official figures show, amid unprecedented disruption to schooling from Covid.   However government data does reveal exclusions had originally risen in the autumn term of 2019-20, before schools were closed for lockdown. No one should rest assured that exclusions […]

DfE seeks public ownership of Oak as budget set to halve next term

The Department for Education wants to take Oak National Academy into public ownership, according to the group behind the project, and its budget will be halved next term. The Reach Foundation has announced Oak will “stay open and free to use for at least the next two terms” after the DfE approved another grant worth […]

School repairs derailed by ‘inexplicable’ CIF delays and material shortages

Schools have been forced to delay building repairs by up to a year after the government awarded condition improvement funding almost two months later than usual. Some of the 1,199 schools which received CIF awards last month face an anxious wait to hear if contractors and the DfE will agree to defer projects no longer […]

Over 1 million children miss school because of Covid

More than a million children were absent from school last week because of Covid, new government data suggests. Department for Education attendance survey data shows around 1,050,500 pupils, or 14.3 per cent of the total pupil population were absent from state schools because of the virus last Thursday, up 25 per cent from 839,100, or […]

Vulnerable teenagers to be offered Covid vaccine, but routine jabs ruled out for now

The NHS is to offer a Covid vaccine to vulnerable teenagers at “greatest risk” from the virus, but the government has ruled out routine vaccinations of all children for now. Health secretary Sajid Javid said today he had accepted the recommendation by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine be offered […]

National funding formula: Extra cash for 1,300 remote schools

The government has more than doubled a funding pot for small schools in remote areas, with up to 1,300 more schools eligible for the cash next year. The Department for Education outlined on Monday how NFF cash will be allocated in 2022-23, including what individual schools would receive if every council adopted the “hard” NFF. […]