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The government should consider scrapping teacher assessments of writing at key stage 2, a senior Ofsted official has said. Joanna Hall, the watchdog’s deputy director for schools, told MPs on the education select committee this morning that the government should “have the debate” about whether to “remove teacher assessment entirely” from writing in primary schools. Hall said inspectors […]

The government will extend its ‘opportunity areas’ programme to fund schools and councils in six more places – claiming it will help “define a new role” for Britain as it leaves the European Union. Ministers will widen the scheme to include Bradford, Doncaster, Fenland and East Cambridgeshire, Hastings, Ipswich, and Stoke-on-Trent. Schools and councils in those areas will receive […]

Employers should judge the educational attainment of job applicants in the context of their schools’ average performance scores to widen access to top roles, MPs and peers have said. The all party parliamentary group (APPG) on social mobility, in a report published today titled The Class Ceiling, has called on employers to adopt ‘contextual recruitment’ […]

The human rights charity Liberty will write to every headteacher in England to demand better information for parents over the collection of pupil nationality data. Schools will next week attempt for the second time to collect information on their pupils’ nationality and country of birth, first introduced in September last year. The move prompted unease […]

A Cumbrian academy trust with just two schools has been warned over its finances and had its spending powers restricted – becoming the latest in a growing list of primary-only trusts to run into difficulties. The Building Futures Enterprise Academy Trust, sponsor of Tebay Primary and Yanwath Primary schools in Penrith, has been issued with […]