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16 April 2026

Tag: Geoff Barton

ASCL wants next year’s grades pegged to pre-Covid standards

School leaders’ union ASCL wants next year’s grades to be pegged back to pre-Covid standards, warning it is “difficult to justify… baking in” higher results. General secretary Geoff Barton told members there is no “easy answer” but the union “felt that returning to the grade distribution of 2019 represented the fairest approach for past, present […]

Geoff Barton to serve second term as ASCL leader

Geoff Barton is to serve a second term as general secretary of the ASCL school leadership union, after being re-elected unopposed. Elected in a landslide victory in the first contested election for the role in 2017, Barton’s first term was due to end next year. But ASCL announced today that the former secondary school headteacher […]

Ditch ideology and ‘knowledge-rich mantras’ to fix education, union leader tells ministers

Ministers must ditch “ideology, politicking and knowledge-rich mantras” and acknowledge a “relatively small number of changes” are needed to make education “world class”, a trade union leader will say this week. Could we now move beyond the ideology, the politicking, the knowledge-rich mantras Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, […]

Catch-up funding could be nearly ‘wiped out’ by Covid safety costs, warns ASCL

Funding for pupil catch-up support could be nearly “wiped out” by the costs schools face in making their sites safe, a leaders’ union has warned. The government has so far refused to reimburse schools for the cost of preventative measures, despite insisting on increased cleaning and efforts to keep protective “bubbles” apart. ASCL is urging […]

Do what’s best for pupils, even if government doesn’t like it, Barton tells heads

Schools leaders should defy the government and snub GCSE English to help the “forgotten third” of pupils destined to fail, the leader of the ASCL union has said. Geoff Barton, once a maverick headteacher who railed against Ofsted and said he would have to be dragged “kicking and screaming” into running an academy, has been […]

We must be more ‘forensic’ in funding campaign, Barton warns

Tales of teachers having to buy equipment for their schools are “unhelpful” and are eclipsing the more serious impact of education funding cuts, the leader of a headteachers’ union has said. Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told Schools Week heads and teachers need to find a “different […]