Category Archives: Education policy

England’s university free speech tsar says role is not to conduct ‘culture wars’

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Arif Ahmed pledges to remain politically neutral in his role and to ensure academic freedoms are maintained

England’s newly appointed university free speech tsar says his role is not to conduct “culture wars” and has pledged to be politically neutral in his efforts to combat threats to academic freedom.

Arif Ahmed, a former philosophy professor at Cambridge University, said he would measure his success or failure by surveys of students and by the number of complaints made under procedures being created by the Office for Students (OfS), England’s higher education regulator.

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Sunak’s plan to ditch A-levels is out of touch with reality, says union

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Head of National Education Union says new qualification would need 5,300 additional teachers in England

Rishi Sunak wants to scrap A-levels and replace them with a single qualification that includes compulsory English and maths, bringing upheaval to sixth-form education in England that would last a decade.

The new baccalaureate-style Advanced British Standard, which Sunak announced in his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester, would also kill off the T-level vocational qualification the government launched just three years ago.

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Catholic and C of E primary schools in England ‘take fewer Send pupils’

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LSE research suggests faith-based admissions requirements deter disadvantaged children

Church of England and Roman Catholic primary schools take fewer pupils with disabilities or special needs than other local schools in England, according to research that suggests faith-based admissions requirements deter pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The findings led the author, Dr Tammy Campbell of the London School of Economics, to conclude that faith schools “serve as hubs of relative advantage” for children from more affluent families who were less likely to have special needs.

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Loose language leaves Labour accused of flip-flop on private schools

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Shadow ministers used ‘charitable status’ as shorthand for main goal of introducing tax changes

Has Labour flip-flopped on stripping private schools in England of their charitable status? Senior party figures from Keir Starmer down have certainly been guilty of using loose language, conflating such a move with their plan to apply VAT to private school fees and other tax breaks.

Starmer said in July last year: “When I say we are going to pay for kids to catch up at school, I also say it’ll be funded by removing private schools’ charitable status.”

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Rishi Sunak’s planned A-levels reforms could include baccalaureate

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PM wants pupils in England to study a wider range of subjects including maths and English until they are 18

The A-level system in England could be reformed with a new style of British baccalaureate in which children would study more subjects after the age of 16, according to reports.

The proposals include English and maths becoming compulsory up until the age of 18, the Times said. Students would also be required to study a wider range of subjects in post-16 education.

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G20-bound Rishi Sunak defends ‘correct’ Raac school closures

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Prime minister says example set by schools will not necessarily have to be followed by other public buildings

Rishi Sunak has defended his government’s decision to shut down schools because of problems with crumbling concrete, as he aims to use this weekend’s G20 summit in New Delhi to draw a line under another bruising week in office.

The prime minister told reporters on the trip to India that his education secretary, Gillian Keegan, had done the right thing in ordering 147 schools to shut buildings made with aerated concrete, after officials became concerned about structural defects. On Friday evening the Scottish government said 16 of 32 local authorities have identified Raac in their schools.

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More than half of dilapidated English schools were refused rebuilding money

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Only four schools were rebuilt in 2021 in government scheme intended to cover 500 schools over 10-year period

More than half of English schools that are so dilapidated they are at risk of partial closure were refused money under the government’s school rebuilding scheme, Department for Education (DfE) statistics show.

Amid mounting concerns about a wider apparent neglect of the schools estate in recent years, beyond the immediate alarm about crumbling concrete panels, it emerged that of 500 rebuilt schools planned for England over 10 years from 2020, just four were completed in 2021.

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England’s concrete crisis could extend to hospitals and courts, experts say

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Labour demands urgent audit of government’s handling of longstanding concerns about Raac

England’s growing buildings crisis could expand beyond schools to other public buildings such as hospitals and courts, experts have said.

More than 100 schools were forced to partially or fully close this week after a dramatic escalation of the government’s approach towards crumbling concrete.

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Ministers face calls to explain delay in closing schools over concrete crisis

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Labour calls for audit of handling of longstanding safety fears as government pledges to fund repairs expected to cost at least £100m

Headteachers are racing to find temporary classrooms for thousands of children amid a growing building safety crisis that has left ministers under pressure to explain why they were slow to shut buildings in more than 100 schools.

With the new academic year due to start next week, Labour demanded an urgent audit of the government’s handling of longstanding safety fears about aerated concrete found in the roofs, floors and walls of hundreds of schools, hospitals and other public buildings.

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New school safety warning prompted by beam collapse at building considered safe – UK politics live

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Schools minister Nick Gibb said the collapse happened at a school previously thought to have been at no risk from aerated concrete

We want to speak to school leaders and staff at affected schools or colleges in England. Does your building contain aerated concrete? What are you planning to do?

What communications have you received? How will this affect you?

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More English schools could close due to crumbling concrete, minister warns

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Nick Gibb says buildings continue to be surveyed for risk of collapse after over 100 were told to shut

The schools minister has warned more schools in England could face closure after more than 100 were told to shut just days before term starts for thousands of pupils.

The government has refused to publicly reveal the 104 education facilities that have been told to shut buildings due to the presence of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC), a material at risk of collapse.

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English schools told to close buildings made with crumble-risk concrete

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A week before start of term, DfE says buildings should be taken out of use regardless of assessed risk

More than 100 schools are facing the immediate closure of buildings constructed from potentially dangerous aerated concrete panels, plunging the beginning of term into chaos for thousands of pupils.

The government has found that 156 schools in England have reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) materials but only 52 have put mitigations in place against risks including collapse, it admitted on Thursday. Engineers have warned the material is at risk of cracking and spalling and of “shear failure”.

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Record north-south gap in top GCSE grades blamed on ‘London-centric policies’

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North-east school leaders call for government to recognise challenges for pupils in different parts of England

The largest gap on record between top GCSE grades awarded to pupils in London and those in north-east England has prompted warnings of a “continuing widening” in the north-south education divide.

School leaders in the north-east accused the government of “London-centric” policies, while Labour said it showed that “levelling up is dead and buried” through the failure to help disadvantaged communities.

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Disadvantaged students to bear brunt of grade deflation, say experts

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Social Mobility Foundation says it expects GCSE and A-level attainment gap based on income to grow this year

Disadvantaged students are likely to bear the brunt of grade deflation when this year’s A-level and GCSE grades are published, according to experts, who said the government’s decision to impose pre-pandemic grading in England was premature.

This week hundreds of thousands of sixth-formers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will receive the results of their A-level, BTec and other exams. But a survey of students by the Social Mobility Foundation (SMF) found that those from disadvantaged or low-income backgrounds in England were less likely to have received the help they needed to restore learning lost during the pandemic.

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Nearly 100,000 fewer top A-levels this year in grading plan, research suggests

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Tens of thousands of students face likely drop in As and A*s as ministers aim to return results in England to pre-pandemic levels

Tens of thousands of A-level students face disappointment on results day next week, amid warnings that nearly 100,000 fewer As and A*s could be awarded as the government seeks to return grades to pre-pandemic levels.

Up to 50,000 candidates this summer are likely to miss out on the top grades they might have expected last year, according to one estimate, throwing applications for the most competitive universities into doubt.

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Relief as teachers in England settle for 6.5% – but there may be battles ahead

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While many welcome the end of strike action, the campaign for fair pay and better funding for state schools looks set to continue

Ministers will have heaved a huge sigh of relief to see teachers and school leaders in England vote to accept a 6.5% pay offer and end strike action in state schools in England.

After months of disruption as a result of strikes by members of the National Education Union (NEU), there were real fears in government of an escalation of the dispute, with coordinated strike action in the autumn term by four unions.

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‘Put learners first’: Unesco calls for global ban on smartphones in schools

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Major UN report issues warning over excessive use, with one in six countries already banning the devices

Smartphones should be banned from schools to tackle classroom disruption, improve learning and help protect children from cyberbullying, a UN report has recommended.

Unesco, the UN’s education, science and culture agency, said there was evidence that excessive mobile phone use was linked to reduced educational performance and that high levels of screen time had a negative effect on children’s emotional stability.

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Make nurseries exempt from VAT and business rates to boost wages, say MPs

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Committee also says government has more work to do to tackle structural problems in early years childcare

Ministers should remove business rates and VAT from nurseries so that they are able to pay their staff more, a group of MPs have recommended.

In the spring budget, Jeremy Hunt pledged to reform the childcare system, including by offering parents of children aged nine months to three years 30 hours a week of free childcare in term-time, which was expected to cost £4bn. The government claimed that it would reduce childcare costs for a family by almost 60%.

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Private school funding increased twice as much as public schools’ in decade after Gonski, data shows

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Exclusive: Government funding since landmark education review released ‘has gone to those least in need’, says national convenor of Save Our Schools

Real government funding to private schools has increased almost twice as much as funding to public schools in the decade since the landmark Gonski review recommended changes designed to fund Australian schools according to need.

From 2012 to 2021, per student funding to independent and Catholic schools rose by 34% and 31% respectively, while funding to public schools increased by just 17%, according to parliamentary library data provided exclusively to Guardian Australia. In Queensland, the growth in government funding to independent schools per student has been nine times greater than to public schools.

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Sunak to force English universities to cap numbers of students on ‘low-value’ degrees

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Exclusive: Move penalises courses with a high proportion of working-class or minority ethnic students, critics say

Rishi Sunak will force universities to limit the number of students taking “low-value” degrees in England, a measure which is most likely to hit working class and black, Asian and minority ethnic applicants.

Courses will be capped that do not have a high proportion of graduates getting a professional job, going into postgraduate study or starting a business, the prime minister will announce on Monday.

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