Extra £4.6bn a year promised by Boris Johnson will favour affluent areas, says thinktank Boris Johnson’s pledge to “level up” pupil funding in English schools will benefit grammar schools and those in more affluent areas, while schools serving the most disadvantaged communities will miss out, a report claims. The new Read more…
Readers respond to a previous letter from Rev Nigel Genders, chief education officer of the Church of England The Church of England’s attempt to defend collective worship (Letters, 31 July) should be recognised as a self-serving effort to uphold Christian privilege. Nigel Genders says worship offers children time to pause Read more…
Couple say their children are being indoctrinated and school did not provide good alternative A couple who say their children are being religiously indoctrinated during Christian school assemblies are to launch a high court challenge. Lee and Lizanne Harris will say in a judicial review claim in the autumn that Read more…
Six-figure salaries at 988 charitable trusts despite increase in deficits New concerns have been raised over the pay handed to academy school bosses after it emerged that almost 1,000 academy trusts paid a six-figure salary to at least one staff member last year. A total of 988 trusts, the not-for-profit Read more…
Readers come to terms with the UK’s new prime minister Rafael Behr rightly says: “To the 92,153 party members who voted for him”, Boris Johnson “offers a remedy to … shrunken Tory popularity” (Brace yourself Britain, for a long stint of bad government, Journal, 23 July). However, making him leader Read more…
Reception tests are a worrying development, say Mary Fawcett and Colin Richards, while John Davies is inspired by the children’s writer Michael Rosen Many readers will be shocked to read about testing four-year-olds (Education, 23 July). The fact that “the test is not a measure of individual children and will Read more…
Only a fundamental change in the conditions schools operate in will bring a significant reduction in workload, writes Chris Pratt Yet another survey demonstrates teachers’ excessive working hours, many of them spent on activities that contribute little to children’s learning (Ofsted is source of stress for teachers, says Ofsted survey, Read more…
Labour MP Emma Hardy hears that schools are deliberately choosing expensive suppliers Some schools are deliberately pricing school uniforms beyond the means of poorer families so “only posh kids go there”, MPs have been told. Emma Hardy, the Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, has written to Read more…
Three heads forced to quit by stress and bureaucracy reveal how they recovered in new roles Wanted: a highly qualified leader willing to work long hours under stress in an organisation that is severely underfunded and constantly judged, for an unsympathetic employer. As job adverts go, it’s not the most Read more…
Parents, teachers, carers and children have been telling you for years that there’s a crisis I understand that by the time you read this you may well be on holiday, contemplating how to spend your time on the backbenches. Excuse the cynicism, but anyone involved in education has a struggle Read more…