A new report from MPs on the Education Select Committee calling for sex education to be made statutory, has much in it to be welcomed by those who have been campaigning for improvements in the provision…
Ed Miliband’s pledge that Labour, if elected, would limit school classes for five, six and seven-year-olds to 30 pupils reignites a core question about how best to spend money to improve education. In…
It is not yet possible to tell whether the government’s flagship academies policy has been “a positive force for change” in the English education system. That’s the finding of a long-awaited report by…
The thorny issue of what democracy is, what it’s not and whether it is an appropriate system for government has been at the top of the agenda at the start of 2015. At the same time, we are in the lead-up…
The Durham Free School is to have its government funding removed in a snap decision made by Nicky Morgan, the secretary of state for education. The move comes after a damning Ofsted report which found…
In 2013, 3,900 young people were permanently excluded from secondary schools in England. The most common reason for these children to be removed from the mainstream school system was persistent disruptive…
Only a tenth of education reforms carried out around the world since 2008 have been analysed by governments for the impact they have on children’s education. A new report by the Organisation for Economic…
As politicians get out of their starting blocks early this year now campaigning for the general election has begun, it’s hard not to be sceptical about new education policy announcements. Politicians on…
In the last few months the UK’s two main political parties have entered into an apparent bidding war over which of them can elevate the teaching of character highest on their educational agendas before…
Barely one month after the current government was elected in 2010, the secretary of state for education Michael Gove announced the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England. Now, only a few…
The teachers of tomorrow should be eager to prepare for “your future, their future”, according to the National College for Teaching and Leadership’s new teacher-training recruitment campaign. Sadly they…
The furore over the suggestion by shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt that private schools need to contribute more to state education or face the removal of their tax breaks has been predictable…
The longest and most enthusiastic applause during Nicky Morgan’s first conference speech as secretary of state for education was for her predecessor Michael Gove. This seemed apt for a pre-election effort…
Teaching children to read with phonics has been a central plank of recent “Govian” education policy. A new set of statistics shows that 74% of children in the first year of primary school now meet the…
Devolving power to English regions and cities could offer a real chance to introduce more local oversight of the way academies and free schools are being managed. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have…
The shortage of foreign language skills in the UK is now a permanent preoccupation, with some sources placing the estimated cost of the deficit as high as £48 billion a year. Britons are now seen as a…
Recent inspections of schools run by academy chains have shown many of these schools to be failing. Yet Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, is still not allowed to regulate the very organisations that are…
The latter days of Michael Gove’s time at the Department for Education were dominated by the Trojan Horse extremism plot in Birmingham. But in his four years as secretary of state, there were recurring…