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14 April 2026

Tag: social segregation

Gaming app claims to help children’s cognitive self-regulation

A mobile phone app that encourages parents to play games at home with their children shows promise in closing the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils, according to a new study, although concerns have been raised over the small number of parents included in the research. A randomised control trial of 144 families evaluated by researchers at the […]

Poorer pupils less likely to do apprenticeships

Free school meals students across every region of England are less likely to access apprenticeship schemes than their wealthier peers, research from Teach First has found. The education charity is calling for apprenticeships to be made more inclusive, after finding that young people from sufficiently low income backgrounds to qualify for free schools meals are […]

‘Social need’ free schools would combat racist abuse in classrooms, charity claims

Allowing free schools to open where there is a “social need” would increase community integration and help prevent racist abuse in classrooms, a free school campaign group has claimed. The New Schools Network (NSN) has today released an analysis of exclusion data that reveals 20 children are excluded from school each day for racist abuse, arguing that […]

Fears of ‘free-for-all’ as government opens up free school bid criteria

New free schools will be allowed to open if their proposers can demonstrate a “social need” or “significant demand” from parents under new changes announced by the government which have sparked fears of a “free-for-all”. The Department for Education has released updated guidance on the application criteria for bids from sponsors, marking a significant departure […]

Teacher top-ups: a solution to under-performance in Northern schools?

Ofsted’s annual report for 2014/15 highlighted an educational gap, not only between primary and secondary, but also between the north and south of England. Duncan Sim offers some concrete proposals to address the discrepancies in both funding and attainment. The north-south divide starts young. This is, at any rate, what the statistics about the relative performance of secondary […]

What to make of ‘British values’ in the aftermath of Brexit?

More than 37 headteachers and representatives of professional associations have signed an open letter to Justine Greening calling for a renewed commitment to the teaching of PSHE, Citizenship and Religion in post-Brexit Britain. The letter to the Secretary of State for Education, dated Wednesday 27th July, points out that values education such as PSHE, Citizenship and Religion […]

A more balanced curriculum could lead us to a less poisonous class divide

The curriculum reforms of the current government are based on the idea that academic qualifications are a prerequisite for success. Ed Cadwallader argues that this places middle-class students at an advantage, proposing curriculum diversification to help fix the class divide. Whether or not you agree that the vote to leave the European Union was a […]