DfE | Schools Week

Mandatory web monitoring in schools opens a slippery can of worms

While the compulsory retention of every website visit for every person in the UK was recently debated and passed in the House of Commons in the Investigatory Powers Bill, the plans for statutory surveillance of every child’s Internet use, in schools and at home, has gone unnoticed. Without Parliamentary or public discussion, children’s internet use […]

Six steps the government must take to win back support from headteachers

More than 50 headteachers have this week signed an open letter to education secretary Nicky Morgan claiming her government has plunged the education system into chaos. The heads have put forward six key proposals to improve the education system. Steve Hitchcock, headteacher of St Peter’s CofE Primary School in Devon, who helped organise the letter, […]

Calm down – the church isn’t after a ‘land grab’

The memorandum of understanding between the Catholic church and the government is little more than a written definition about their working relationship, says Paul Barber Much has been written over the past month about the memoranda of understanding (MoU) between the Department for Education (DfE) and both the Church of England and the Catholic church. […]

Less of a U-turn and more of a Z-turn

Do you remember last Saturday? It was boiling hot and the world was sunny – not least because Nicky Morgan had announced on Friday afternoon she wouldn’t be making all schools into academies after all. Except, it wasn’t that straightforward. (It never is). At 6.30am on Saturday I therefore found myself explaining to listeners of […]

A jobs board distracts from the teacher shortage

Patrick Hayes is stumped by the government’s “slightly odd u-turn” on a national teaching website. It’s been tried before – and failed, he says From the recently published white paper, Educational Excellence Everywhere, the Department for Education (DfE) seems to be labouring under the somewhat confused notion that the current teacher shortage can be addressed […]

Why we’re all on board in the north east

Heads in the north east say that teacher recruitment is one of their greatest problems. So its regional network set up a jobs board all of its own – and so far things are blossoming, says Mike Parker It was a scene worthy of George Orwell’s dystopian masterpiece, Animal Farm. “Four legs good, two legs […]

Nobody puts EAL in the corner

A DfE-convened national working party on English as an additional language is long overdue. Practitioners, researchers and the subject association NALDIC should all be involved to set a strategic direction for EAL, writes Diane Leedham They don’t seek it here, they don’t seek it there, the DfE seeks it – nowhere. Is it in […]

To reduce teacher workload, the DfE should lead by example

The timing of the publication of the workload principles and the recommendations will do little to change policy, says Ross McGill You could be pardoned for missing the publication of the workload principles from the Department for Education (DfE). Why? Because it was Easter and many teachers had long-forgotten their lesson plans and marking. Yet […]

Primary assessment: The exclamation issue has been skewed

When Ben Fuller wrote this article for Schools Week raising concerns over new requirements for exclamation sentences, it prompted a flurry of national media headlines. They included “Cripes! No exclamation allowed!” in the Sunday Times, and “Nonsense! Backlash over new school rules on exclamation marks” in The Telegraph. Schools Minister Nick Gibb even wrote his […]