Labour delegates have endorsed radical plans that would abolish private schools by removing their charitable status and redistributing their endowments, investments and properties to the state sector. Conference delegates approved a motion that said such a commitment should be included in the party’s next general election manifesto. The motion added universities would be limited to…
Tag: Teaching
Parents, can you spot a ‘toxic’ school? A headteacher writes …
The banners are up, the adverts are in local newspapers. No sooner has the autumn term begun than schools are recruiting the next cohort of students. If it sometimes seems that they all say the same things about their engaging curriculum, personalised pastoral care and professional ethos, how can you tell them apart? For some…
The Guardian view on teacher workloads: big lessons to learn | Editorial
The new secretary of state for education, Gavin Williamson, knows a lot about the heavy workloads piled on teachers. His wife used to teach in a primary school. Then she left the profession to become a teaching assistant partly because, he said this month, “there was always a big challenge in terms of workload, and…
25% of teachers in England work more than 60 hours a week – study
A quarter of teachers in England work more than 60 hours a week, far in excess of their counterparts elsewhere in the world, research reveals. The study by the UCL Institute of Education said that five years of government initiatives to reduce excessive workload, introduced by three different education secretaries, have done nothing to cut…
Politically literate citizens seem to be a problem for Michael Gove | Laura McInerney
From the vast compendium of Michael Gove’s arrogant moments as education secretary one has been on my mind these last few weeks. He was never a fan of citizenship as a subject – the one that teaches children the rules of democracy – and, once in office, set out to slim the curriculum and get…
New teachers’ salary in England could reach £30,000, says DfE
Starting salaries for new teachers in England could rise to £30,000 within four years, the government has confirmed, as part of its plans to increase recruitment and improve the status of the profession. The announcement by the Department for Education (DfE) that it will push for higher pay for newly-qualified teachers was revealed by the…
School heads criticise new reception tests for five-year-olds
Headteachers and campaigners have urged the government to halt plans to introduce a start-of-school assessment for four- and five-year-olds, arguing it is a waste of money and will not benefit schools or children. About half of all primary schools in England will begin to trial the 20-minute test from this week as the new school…
Ofsted plan to inspect ‘cultural capital’ in schools attacked as elitist
A two-word term, invented in the 1970s by a French sociologist heavily influenced by Karl Marx, makes an unlikely entrance in Ofsted’s new framework [pdf] for the inspection of schools in England this week. Each institution is now to be judged on the extent to which it builds pupils’ “cultural capital”. What exactly does that…
Gap in academic skills of girls and boys widens, show Sats
Girls continue to outperform boys in all subjects by the end of primary school in England, according to the latest key stage 2 test results published by the Department for Education (DfE). The results, from the national curriculum tests and assessments taken by pupils in year six, known as Sats, showed 70% of girls reached…
The Guardian view on testing four-year-olds: wrong again | Editorial
Accountability in education is important. Politicians, acting on the public’s behalf, are right to seek evidence that schools are delivering a good service. So there is nothing wrong, in principle, with gathering information in order to track progress. The problem with the government’s new baseline assessment of four-year-olds – being trialled over the next six…
GCSEs: 10,000 pupils disappear from English schools at ‘critical’ stage
More than 10,000 children in England disappeared from schools at a “critical stage” of their GCSE courses, according to Ofsted, raising fears that schools are continuing to illegally “off-roll” pupils to improve exam results. Analysis published by the schools inspectorate found that 20,000 pupils left or moved state schools between year 10 and year 11,…
Teacher suspended after her pupils criticise Italian far-right law
An Italian teacher has been suspended over a video made by her students that compared a security law drafted by Italy’s far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, to Mussolini’s racial laws, provoking a storm of protest against her suspension across the country. Rosa Maria Dell’Aria was last week suspended for 15 days on half pay after…
Ofsted chief warns teachers over ‘subliminal’ exam anxiety
Teachers risk piling the pressure on their pupils by simply asking them how they are feeling about their exams, the head of the school inspections body Ofsted has said. Ofsted’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, said merely speaking about tests could subliminally cause a child anxiety. As thousands of youngsters across England and Wales began their…
Everyone welcome: inside the schools that haven’t expelled a child since 2013
Jason Thurley, headteacher at Beacon academy, near Grimsby, leans across the table explaining why yet another of his pupils was excluded before joining the school. “He’d brought in a £1 potato gun. It was at the bottom of his bag and so he goes up to his form tutor and says, ‘I don’t want to…
Teachers assessing pupils could replace formal exams, study says
Assessments by teachers of pupils’ abilities could replace traditional tests and exams such as Sats and GCSEs to reduce costs and “bring joy back to the classroom”, according to new research. In a paper published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers found teacher assessments accurately reflected the ability of their pupils’ performance…
Number of public sector pensioners on £100k trebles in seven years
The number of people in the public sector’s largest pension schemes retiring on incomes of more than £100,000 has more than tripled in the past seven years, according to figures obtained by a charity promoting intergenerational fairness. Pensions schemes covering the NHS, the civil service and the teaching profession were paying six-figure incomes last year…
The Guardian view on shrinking breaks: the right to relax | Editorial
Few adults would place shorter break times high up their list of concerns about schools. Some of them may have shone at football but many will remember hours spent pointlessly milling around the playground or, worse, smoking in the toilets? For a minority of children, now as then, breaks are dreadful. If you don’t have…
One in four teachers say pupils are being forced out to boost school rankings
One in four teachers in England say they have witnessed pupils being illegitimately removed from schools, often to artificially boost a school’s performance, according to a new survey published by Ofsted. The figures suggest the practice, known as “off-rolling” – pupils being shunted off a school’s roll in order to manipulate its exam results or…
Education secretary calls on schools to expel fewer pupils
The education secretary, Damian Hinds, has called on headteachers in England to expel fewer pupils, as an independent study revealed that almost eight out of 10 children who are permanently excluded come from vulnerable backgrounds. The long-awaited review of exclusions in England, carried out by a former minister for children and families at the Department…
Something is going very wrong for vulnerable kids – but is the school to blame? | Gaby Hinsliff
Whose fault is it that more children are being excluded from schools? Teachers, parents, politicians and seemingly everyone else with a passing interest in children’s long-term happiness have been arguing over this one for years but now a long-awaited review of exclusions from the former schools minister Edward Timpson is shedding some carefully filtered light…