Justine Greening | Schools Week

What does Damian Hinds’ appointment as education secretary mean for schools?

The new education secretary shares some of his predecessor’s conciliatory instincts, but Tory red meat may be back on the menu, writes Jon Andrews Despite the great hype across news outlets, ministerial reshuffles barely capture the attention of anyone outside the great bubble of Westminster. This is a misconception – in education at least – […]

Plans to widen access to grammar schools delayed by reshuffle

Plans for a formal agreement between grammar schools and the government to widen access for disadvantaged pupils have been interrupted by the appointment of a new education secretary. Last year, the schools minister Nick Gibb said the Grammar School Heads Association would “codify” a commitment to improving admission rates for disadvantaged pupils in a “formal […]

‘Strengthened’ QTS proposals due out today

A consultation on lengthening the time it takes teachers to fully qualify into the profession is set to launch today and will run over Christmas. Justine Greening told MPs on Monday that long-awaited proposals on teacher qualification and career-long training would be unveiled before the end of the week. The proposals are expected to include […]

New figures: 18,000 schools face funding cuts

Education unions have revised upwards their predictions for the number of schools facing funding cuts to almost 18,000. The coalition of organisations behind the popular School Cuts website say 557 more schools face real-terms cuts in their funding by 2019 than originally thought. The website, run by the National Education Union, the National Association of […]

Greening’s taking education back to the 80s

This time last year, education was going back to the 1950s with grammar schools as the idea in vogue. This week, Justine Greening is taking us back to the 1980s, with her Youth Training Scheme for teachers (okay, apprenticeships), and back to the 2000s with her “social opportunity” areas. Let’s time-travel a little: it’s summer […]

Greening: Teaching will cease to be only for university graduates

Teaching will cease to exist as a university graduate-only profession under Conservative plans for a new degree-equivalent apprenticeship route to QTS, Justine Greening has confirmed, in a major shift in ministerial thinking. The education secretary wants higher apprenticeships to be seen as equivalent to university degrees, and envisages them working as a route into teaching, […]

Strategic school improvement fund opens its second round

Applications are now open for the second round of handouts from the government’s £140 million strategic school improvement fund. Schools have until October 20 to enter submissions, explaining what they want to do with the money and why they deserve it, via an online form on the gov.uk website. The recipients of the first round […]

56 learning projects win £20m from new schools fund

Fifty-six learning projects will receive £20 million in the first round of grants from the government’s new Strategic School Improvement Fund. They include schemes to improve progress in reading, modern foreign languages, and science, and each of them are to be delivered by schools and local authorities. The programmes will take place at academies and maintained […]

‘Standard’ and ‘strong’ GCSE pass rates: what is Greening talking about?

Education secretary Justine Greening announced today that a grade 4 will now be considered “a standard pass”, while grade 5 will be called a “strong pass”. So what’s this all about? Laura McInerney explains. Just when you thought the C-grade threshold problem was all but gone in education, Justine Greening decides to drag us all […]