education policy | Schools Week

Brexit will lead to delay in policy – but frustrations should be channeled into positive action

What impact will the decision to leave the European Union have on schools, the policies from the government, and our young people? Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, gives his thoughts on today’s vote. Teachers aren’t just teachers. They are citizens, parents, leaders, campaigners, travellers and more. All of these […]

Brexit: Vote to leave the EU will delay education policies

Questions have been raised about the impact of today’s vote to leave the European Union on the government’s education policies. Prime minister David Cameron, who led the Remain campaign, announced this morning he would quit before the Conservative party’s conference in October. Leave won the referendum with 52 per cent of the votes. Headteachers’ union […]

‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ – what it means for schools

Changes to statutory guidance on ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’ will come into effect in September 2016. Mark Orchison explains what this means for schools. The new government safeguarding guidance requires schools to put in place an effective and appropriate whole-school approach to online safety. Previous guidance focussed mainly on Prevent, but this updated guidance […]

Academy conversion: who do you have to consult?

Who do you have to consult when making the decision to convert to an academy – who needs to be involved and at what stage of the process? Jessica says: The question is asking about voluntary conversion. Involuntary, or forced conversions, have different procedures, which are not discussed here. First steps towards conversion The recommended first step […]

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 […]

How politicians and policy makers can raise the confidence of the teaching profession

Nearly half of teachers leave the profession within the first five years of teaching. Depressing isn’t it? Teachers are being worn perilously thin, so there is no doubt that politicians and policy makers need to work hard to recover the confidence of the teaching profession. I have some ideas that, in teacherly fashion, I’ve boiled […]

Why access to exam appeals — rather than how they are re-remarked — is the real social justice issue

Many people will say changes to the GCSE and A-level re-marking system are unfair, but are they correct? Editor Laura McInerney isn’t convinced. Ofqual’s decision to change the GCSE and A-level exam appeals process is unlikely to be an immediate hit. In future, instead of exam papers being re-marked they will be “reviewed”. Senior examiners […]

Why don’t we care about the purpose of education?

In one of the most significant periods of upheaval in education, debate around collaboration centres too much on structure and too little on the substance and purpose of education. Instead, says Marie-Claire Bretherton, it should revolve around the quality and purpose of school partnerships Earlier this year, our Lincolnshire teaching school alliance submitted evidence to […]

How you can evaluate the impact of your decisions

With the government increasingly asking for evidence that initiatives have had “impact”, Stuart Kime writes a step-by-step guide for creating those documents Professor John Hattie’s entreaty for teachers to “know thy impact” is a laudable and important one. But knowing is hard. How can a teacher or school leader know what impact their choices had […]