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England’s largest teaching union will lobby the government to make teaching about LGBT+ relationships compulsory in all schools. The National Education Union has today voted to campaign for a strengthening of new government guidance on relationships and sex education to force all primary and secondary schools to teach LGBT+ education. The union will also demand […]

The National Education Union is to ballot its members on a potential SATs boycott next year after delegates at the union’s annual conference voted in favour of the action. Following a heated debate in which different union factions clashed over whether a 2019-20 ballot is achievable within the time available, and after a re-run of […]

The country’s largest education union will officially oppose “any reprisals” against pupils who walk out of school to campaign against climate change. At its annual conference in Liverpool today, the National Education Union voted to “stand in full solidarity” with pupils who strike or protest against climate change, and oppose punishment such as detentions and […]

Almost 100 academies are waiting to be transferred to new sponsors – with some still in limbo well over a year after the process began. In response to a question from Labour, the government said 93 academies are currently going through the rebrokerage process, which is when a school moves from one academy trust to […]

A former vice-principal who fraudulently claimed expenses from a company linked to his school will not be banned from teaching, the government has ruled. Alan Stevens, who was vice-principal at Sawtry Community College, admitted two counts of fraud by abuse of position at Peterborough Crown Court in 2017 and received a suspended sentence. A prohibition […]

England’s network of illegal schools is “not just a faith school problem”, an Ofsted director has said, after new data revealed thousands of pupils could be languishing in “appalling” alternative provision, sometimes at the taxpayer’s expense. Inspectors have described visiting unregistered settings with “open sewers”, “exposed electrical work” and “holes in walls and floors”, as […]

The number of appeals against GCSE and A-level exam grades rose by more than 40 per cent in 2018, the second year of a new appeals process. There were 847 appeals in 2018, up from 597 in 2017. Of last year’s appeals, 400 were upheld, up from 260 the previous year. The increase in 2018 […]

A long-awaited £95,000 cap on pay-offs for school staff is to finally be implemented, the government has announced. The restriction, first mooted in 2015 by David Cameron’s government, will stop the “huge exit payments” made when public sector workers leave their jobs, the Treasury said today. It is clearly wrong when people leave public sector […]

Another school run by the Academies Enterprise Trust is in hot water and may be rebrokered to another sponsor because of falling standards. Dominic Herrington, the national schools commissioner, has issued another “minded to terminate” notice to AET warning the trust over performance at the ‘inadequate’-rated Bexleyheath Academy in London. If there is no clear […]