Weekly round-up: Parent complaints ‘like the Wild West’

Catch up on all your must-read Tes news and analysis right here:

• Revealed: Eight in 10 school leaders see rise in vexatious complaints
  The vast majority of school leaders are seeing an increase in vexatious complaints from parents, creating an “unmanageable” drain on resources, a Tes investigation reveals.
• Parent complaints: DfE told urgent change needed to help schools
  The national body representing multi-academy trusts has called for the Department for Education to make urgent changes, saying that the volume of complaints that schools are dealing with is “not sustainable”.
• Budget 2024: what it means for schools
  Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget this week included £105 million for 15 new special free schools but little else to cheer education sector leaders.
• School leaders call for ‘double digit’ pay rise for all teachers
  The NAHT school leaders’ union has recommended a pay rise of at least 10 per cent for teachers for 2024-25, in its submission to the independent pay body, saying that this is needed to tackle the “recruitment and retention crisis”.
• Ofsted: Eight concerns over English teaching
  Ofsted has raised concerns about the teaching of writing and spoken language in primary and secondary schools in a subject report for English.
• Poorer pupils still behind on maths and reading after Covid
  Disadvantaged pupils are still further behind their peers in maths than they were before the pandemic, and poorer students’ reading levels “have not recovered”, research shows.
• Reception pupils in nappies reveals societal challenges
  More children are starting Reception not school-ready, creating added pressures for early years staff - and this is a symptom of a wider issues in society, writes multi-academy trust leader Gail Brown.
• ‘Schools must value teachers who return from overseas’
  Schools have been wary of hiring UK teachers returning from teaching overseas, but the government should encourage this to help with the recruitment difficulties, writes one former international school principal.
• Middle leader tips: balancing fidelity to school policy
  Balancing the need for consistency with teacher autonomy is a crucial part of being a middle leader - here’s expert advice on how to get it right, as part of Tes’ Middle Leadership Essentials series.
• Birmingham bankruptcy and childcare cuts: the painful truth for schools
  Funding disasters at councils across the country make it clear why schools have had to take on so many more pastoral and social care responsibilities - but that cannot hold forever, warns former DfE adviser Sam Freedman.
• Striking the right balance on school autonomy in MATs
  Giving schools freedom and flexibility in how they adhere to trust-level requirements is better than top-down diktats, writes MAT CEO Carol Dewhurst.

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