• Schools need to boost staff and governors' data literacy, research finds

    Schools must focus on boosting the data literacy of newly or recently qualified teachers and governors in order to improve their practice, new research has found. The report on ‘School cultures and practices: supporting the attainment of disadvantaged pupils’, released today, compared schools in London with those outside of the capital, and found that lower-performing primary…

    12.58 Aug. 8th, 2018 | News

  • Baker clause update: DfE gears up to start ‘direct intervention’ in schools

    Schools could face “direct intervention” from the Department for Education from September if they have failed to allow further education providers to promote vocational education to their pupils. The move is a part of a crackdown on non-compliance with the controversial ‘Baker clause’, an amendment to the 2017 Technical and Further Education Act, which came…

    17.00 Aug. 7th, 2018 | News

  • Hinds calls on tech companies to create new solutions to support teaching

    Education secretary Damian Hinds is calling on technology companies to help improve teaching and cut teacher workload, ahead of plans to develop new online resources for schools in the autumn. From September, the Department for Education (DfE) will work with the Chartered College of Teaching, the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) and other organisations to develop…

    0.01 Aug. 7th, 2018 | News

  • Heads concerned after 'lifeline' school improvement funding cut

    A “lifeline” government scheme that issued school improvement grants has closed, with £85 million from its coffers left unspent. The National Association of Head Teachers has expressed concerns after the Department for Education announced this week that no further routine grants will be awarded from the strategic school improvement fund, though emergency funding will still…

    12.38 Aug. 2nd, 2018 | News

  • MPs’ stern warning over ‘incoherent’ system and costly, ‘risky’ academisation

    A powerful committee of MPs has warned that the government failed to properly scrutinise the early stages of the academies programme and has not learned from its high-profile failures. A report by the parliamentary public accounts committee into the government’s record on converting schools into academies found the Department for Education “did not pay enough attention”…

    0.01 Jul. 11th, 2018 | News

  • Still no sign of the delayed 'healthy schools' rating scheme

    The government still doesn’t know when proposals for a ‘healthy schools’ rating scheme will come to fruition, 10 months after it was supposed to start in primary schools. The plan was first mooted in the government’s child obesity action plan in 2016, and it was supposed to be up and running in schools by last…

    11.17 Jun. 25th, 2018 | News

  • No teaching resources provided for National Democracy Week

    Ministers have refused to discuss upcoming new resources to help secondary schools teach pupils about democracy – even though schools imminently need the information. The idea was first mooted by the government last December and it has been mentioned at least twice since by the minister taking the lead on it. But with the July…

    7.00 Jun. 23rd, 2018 | News

  • Troubled UCAT trust to shed four schools after finances warning

    Four schools run by the troubled University of Chester Academies Trust (UCAT) will be rebrokered to new sponsors following the intervention of a government schools commissioner. Christine Quinn, the regional schools commissioner for the West Midlands, has “agreed with the trust to initially rebroker four schools” in order to “release capacity”, according to a parliamentary written…

    12.07 May. 25th, 2018 | News

  • Sex education reforms: can someone in the DfE give us a straight answer?

    In Blackadder: Back and forth, our eponymous antihero runs into Shakespeare after an experiment with a time machine goes awry. “This is for every schoolboy and schoolgirl for the next four hundred years!” Blackadder cries, as he punches the Bard in the face. If I had a time machine, I should like to go back…

    5.00 May. 18th, 2018 | Opinion

  • DfE takes action to force schools to follow the ‘Baker Clause’

    The Department for Education has begun to intervene in schools which fail in their legal duty to allow training organisations the chance to speak to pupils about technical qualifications and apprenticeships. Lord Kenneth Baker (pictured), the former education secretary behind the so-called “Baker Clause” obliging schools to introduce pupils to technical education, told Schools Week…

    12.00 May. 11th, 2018 | News

  • Grammar schools asked to prioritise poorest pupils

    The body representing most of the country’s grammar school headteachers will encourage its members to “prioritise” the poorest pupils in their admissions. The Grammar School Heads Association has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department for Education aimed as part of a push to improve access to selective schools for poorer children. The government…

    10.15 May. 11th, 2018 | News