PTE | Schools Week

Brexit could give schools space to get on with the job – we mustn’t waste this opportunity

Whoever is lucky enough to be education secretary under the new prime minister is going to have to perform a tricky balancing act. The B word will dominate everything about the (effectively) new government. And if that doesn’t work, we may be talking a lot about the E word. It’s possible that the new inhabitants […]

Ofsted is right about the knowledge-rich curriculum

The inspectorate doesn’t always get things right, says Mark Lehain, but its latest review is important Ofsted gets a lot of hate from teachers. It’s just so easy to blame it, and wish it wasn’t there, especially when school leaders cry “it’s what Ofsted wants” when introducing a new initiative. (Spoiler alert: it isn’t.) While I […]

Mark Lehain, Director of Parents and Teachers for Excellence

Standing in line at the Café Nero one street down from the Department for Education, a message pops onto my phone. “I’ll have an Americano… a full on Trumpian alt-right coffee, sorry, patriotic coffee.” It was sent by Mark Lehain, a former headteacher who now leads the Parents and Teachers for Excellence campaign, an unusual […]

School cancels Friday afternoon classes to run scouts club

A Surrey primary school has cancelled Friday afternoon lessons in favour of running a scouts club, using school funds to cover the Scout Association’s yearly membership fees. Weyfield academy, a member of the Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT), is one of the first primary schools to become an official scouting school – which means activities such […]

Beware John Blake, the “Red rebel” with great influence

My memory of early evening, Friday November 14, 2003, is hazy. My brain seems to think it was raining, and a Met Office report concurs. “Bands of heavy rain and showers were carried on gale-force south-westerly winds.” I’m pretty sure that a meeting I attended in the late afternoon took place after dark. A quick […]

Vote Leave campaigner and Tory donor behind Parents and Teachers for Excellence campaign

One of the two directors behind the Parent and Teachers for Excellence (PTE) movement was a key figure in the official campaign for the UK to leave the EU, Schools Week can reveal. Jon Moynihan, a venture capitalist and chairman of the finance committee of Vote Leave, is listed alongside Dame Rachel de Souza, chief executive […]

Pro-academy campaign group launched by ‘superhead’ Rachel De Souza – but funders remain anonymous

A line-up of education reformers – including a former adviser to David Cameron – have joined forces to launch a new campaign aimed at mobilising parents to highlight the achievements of academies and free schools, but details of the group’s funders will not be released. Rachel De Souza, chief executive of Inspiration Trust, has founded the […]