Need to know: GCSE plans, teacher shortages, behaviour

In the week when the government announced what GCSE and A-level exams will look like next summer as it seeks to bring the assessment system back to “normality” post-Covid, new figures for trainee recruitment raised further fears of teacher shortages and experts shared advice on how to tackle low-level disruption in classrooms.

Catch up on your must-read Tes news and features articles from the past week right here:

News

• Revealed: How exams will run next summer  
  The Department for Education and Ofqual have just announced their plans for GCSE and A-level exams in the summer - here’s everything you need to know.
   
• Secondary teacher trainees 40 per cent below target 
  The government has missed its target for recruiting secondary teacher trainees by a huge margin, with some subjects up to 55 per cent below target, new figures show.
   
• Labour pledges fully funded breakfast clubs in all primary schools 
  Every primary school in England would offer fully funded breakfast clubs under a Labour plan announced at the party’s conference this week. According to shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson, this would be the “first step on the road to a modern childcare system”.
   
• Oak National Academy is ‘a betrayal’ of teachers, warns union leader
  The transformation of online school Oak National Academy into a national curriculum resources provider could undermine teachers’ autonomy and affect staff retention, a union leader has warned.
   
• DfE shake-up to shrink teacher training market by 25 per cent
  Around a quarter of teacher training providers could be culled from the market following the conclusion of the controversial government reaccreditation scheme for the initial teacher training sector, Tes understands.
   
• Ofsted: Small primary schools much more likely to be ‘inadequate’
  England’s smallest primary schools are five times more likely to be rated “inadequate” by Ofsted than the largest, analysis shows, raising fears that the current inspection framework is more difficult for smaller schools.
   
• GCSEs: AQA swaps English texts to improve diversity
  AQA, England’s biggest exam board, is to introduce more diverse texts in its GCSE English literature course from next September to allow students to access a wider range of writers.

Features

• How to tackle low-level disruption 
  Low-level disruption in the classroom can have a serious impact on learning, but how can teachers stop it? Kate Parker asks the experts.
   
• GCSEs 2023: What Ofqual says about exams next summer 
  Here’s what the chief regulator of Ofqual, Dr Jo Saxton, told Tes offering justification for the plan for running GCSE and A-level exams in 2023.
   
• Oak National Academy: ‘Teachers must always decide what they teach’
  In an exclusive interview with Tes, the interim chief executive of Oak National Academy, which has been newly transformed into a national curriculum resources quango, says that it has no intention of threatening teachers’ autonomy in the classroom or damaging the curriculum resource market.
   
• Allergies in schools: why more action is needed 
  Given that as many as 40 per cent of children have an allergy, most teachers are likely to be responsible for at least one pupil with a serious allergy - yet many staff have no training in how to handle an allergic reaction, writes Hannah Fearn.
   
• Labour’s free breakfast plan is hard to swallow, says head
  The idea of all primaries running free breakfast clubs sounds great - but how will schools cope, asks one school leader.
   
• Why the DfE must put families at the heart of education
  “Scrapping the whole families agenda” was the biggest mistake Michael Gove made as education secretary, writes this former Department for Education adviser, who explains how the current government can put things right.
   
• EYFS: Why we need a mongrel curriculum
  A “mongrel” curriculum combining child-led and adult-led approaches to learning is better than just one or the other in the early years, says nursery school headteacher Dr Julian Grenier.