politics | Schools Week

Pat Glass becomes shadow education secretary in Corbyn team shake-up

Former shadow education minister Pat Glass will serve as shadow education secretary following the resignation of Lucy Powell, it has been announced. Glass, who is the MP for North West Durham and a former senior local education authority worker, most recently served as shadow Europe minister in Jeremy Corbyn’s frontbench team. Her promotion comes after […]

Shadow education secretary Lucy Powell resigns

Shadow education secretary Lucy Powell has resigned from the Shadow Cabinet led by Jeremy Corbyn. In a letter to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Powell wrote that his leadership of the party was “untenable” and that he was “unable to command the support” of the cabinet and country. Powell is the fifth cabinet member to resign […]

Morgan “not standing for leader” after David Cameron resigns

Nicky Morgan is not putting her name into the ring for leadership of the Conservative party, Schools Week can confirm. National media outlets have reported that the education secretary has been put forward as leader, after prime minister David Cameron announced he would resign following today’s vote to leave the European Union. A spokesperson for […]

Academy trusts – don’t get caught out by new PSC regulations

From 6 April 2016, new company ownership rules came into force, which will affect some academy trusts. Hannah Catchpool explains. What do the Panama Papers have to do with academy trusts? The recent media focus on the offshore tax arrangements of the rich and famous may seem far removed from the day-to-day life of a school, […]

The real challenge awaits for Cameron and Morgan

The government may have made a u-turn on forced academisation, says Lucy Powell, but its misguided fixation with school structures remains David Cameron and Nicky Morgan have been forced into a humiliating climbdown. However they try to spin it, they have made a major concession by dropping their target to force all schools to become […]

Will small schools be able to breathe a big sigh of relief?

In a week of big news – threatened strikes, parent boycotts, backbenchers shouting about academies – there has been one quiet sigh of relief. And one awkward question. Buried in the middle of her speech at the weekend’s union conference, Nicky Morgan promised that “no good small school will close” due to “structural changes” – […]

Top schools now profit from the struggles of the weaker

School improvement funding has moved from allocation based on need to survival of the fittest, says Kiran Gill As a policy rationalist I have to admit to being a New Labour (first term) education fangirl, starting with the infrastructure and funding for school improvement. Once upon a time, local authorities were expected to offer school […]

White Paper: ‘Control freakery to the left of me, neglect to the right’

Education Excellence Everywhere is the title of the government’s education White Paper published today. Although it lacks the excitement promised by Enid Blyton’s The Naughtiest Girl in the School, there are similarities. Nicky Morgan’s introduction states that in 2010 the Conservatives “inherited an education system where one in three young people left primary school unable […]

From the frontline: thoughts on the school-led system

Former executive principal Ros McMullen sets out her vision of what a school-led system now needs. In the first of a two-part series, she says it is time to think about how to join the social policy agenda with the education reform agenda, and to unleash the best school leaders to operate as community leaders […]