Need to know: School funding, Oak National and behaviour

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With the summer holidays drawing to a close, school and academy trust leaders this week sounded the alarm over the scale of the funding crisis that schools are facing this winter; the move to turn Oak National Academy into a curriculum quango came under attack; and one head shared his “curriculum” to improve students’ behaviour.  

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

News

• Energy bills: Why schools are facing a “catastrophic” winter 
  School leaders have warned of the drastic action they will be forced to take this winter, including cutting staff and restricting heating, in the face of a funding crisis caused by soaring energy bills and “unfunded” pay rises.
   
• DfE relaunches Oak National Academy with drastic subject cuts 
  Online school Oak National Academy, which is being turned into a national curriculum resources provider, will relaunch with a much-reduced curriculum after England’s biggest multi-academy trust pulled its resources from the platform.
   
• Nick Gibb starts a new job in schools 
  Former schools minister Nick Gibb has joined the board of trustees at a large academy trust made up of more than 30 schools.
   
• Three key priorities for the new education secretary
  Whoever is appointed education secretary under the incoming prime minister must focus on fixing attendance, closing the regional attainment gap and the rise in pupil mental health problems, says children’s commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza.
   
• GCSEs: Modern languages “in a vicious circle of decline” 
  The number of students taking modern foreign languages at GCSE has fallen - and the situation will only be reversed by government intervention, exams expert Professor Robert Coe has warned.

Features

• School funding crisis: Budgets “worthless” as costs soar 
  School budgets set before the summer holidays will have to be torn up because of rising costs and the announcement of staff pay rises for which schools aren’t receiving extra funding - meaning that job cuts look “inevitable”, says this academy trust leader.
   
• GCSEs 2023: How exams will run next summer 
  With Ofqual and the Department for Education confirming details about their plans for GCSEs and A levels in 2023, Grainne Hallahan reflects on what assessment will look like next year.
   
• School funding: Doing nothing is “not an option” for government 
  Many schools and academy trusts are now in an “impossible position” because of funding pressures, says Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, as she calls for the government to bring “credible” policy proposals to support the sector.
   
• What is joining a MAT really like for teachers? 
  Given the government’s aim of transferring all state schools to academy trusts by 2030, Tes invited seven teachers to talk openly about their very different experiences of their schools’ transition to a multi-academy trust.
   
• How to teach students to behave well 
  Students need to be taught how to behave - and this “student behaviour curriculum” is the way to do it, says headteacher Bruce Robertson.