Weekly round-up: Teacher pay and Ofsted’s ‘duty of care’

Catch up on all your must-read Tes news and analysis from the past seven days right here:

• Teacher pay: 6.5% pay rise recommended by pay body 
  Teachers should get a 6.5 per cent pay increase for 2023-24, according to the independent pay review body. The School Teachers’ Review Body’s recommendation, which was leaked in a newspaper, is considerably higher than the 4.5 per cent offer made by the government.
   
• Teacher strikes: Unions urge new pay talks after 6.5% leak
  The Department for Education has been urged to “urgently” restart negotiations with education unions over pay and publish the independent pay review recommendations.
   
• Heads, governors and teachers to mass lobby MPs
  Headteachers, governors and teachers will join a mass lobbying of Parliament next month to protest the “unprecedented crisis” facing schools, raising issues such as a lack of school funding and problems with staff recruitment.
   
• School support staff to vote over strike on pay
  Members of Unison, including school support staff, began voting this week on whether to strike over pay, with the union describing the offer of a flat rate £1,925 rise as “nowhere near” enough.
   
• GCSEs: Pearson sorry for history question error
  Exam board Pearson Edexcel has apologised to GCSE students for a “disappointing” error in a history exam paper, which candidates say put them off.
   
• How will GCSEs and A levels be graded this year?
  What’s different about the approach to grading GCSEs and A levels in 2023? Tes speaks to Ofqual chief Jo Saxton about the role the exams regulator is playing in ensuring a return to pre-pandemic grade distribution.
   
• GCSEs: Soaring food prices ‘likely’ to hit grades
  Students whose families used food banks during the pandemic received lower GCSE grades, almost half a grade per subject, than would be expected, according to a new report.
   
• GCSEs: Only a quarter of students had recommended NTP support
  Just a quarter of Year 11 students received one-to-one or small group tutoring to help them recover lost learning and prepare for GCSEs during the second year of the pandemic, a study shows.
   
• Ofsted told to declare ‘duty of care to teachers’ 
  Ofsted should publicly accept that it has a duty of care to teachers in the schools it inspects, a public health expert has said after the death of headteacher Ruth Perry.
   
• Belonging: the missing piece of attendance, attainment and behaviour
  In Tes’ fourth Leadership Forum webinar, our expert panel discusses why a sense of belonging has to underpin all functions in a school if pupils are to thrive - and how to build it.
   
• DfE to fund half of catch-up tutoring costs next year
  The Department for Education will fund half of schools’ tutoring costs next year under the National Tutoring Programme - more than the 25 per cent subsidy that the government originally planned.
   
• Safeguarding concerns rising, say most school staff
  Almost three-quarters of school staff feel that there are more safeguarding concerns being raised than this time last year, Tes research shows.
   
• Why vocational music courses are proving so popular
  While entries for GCSE music have been dropping, take-up of vocational music courses has exploded, finds Dan Worth.
   
• DfE to reveal school buildings at risk of collapse
  Data revealing the condition of all school buildings in England is set to be published before 20 July, schools minister Nick Gibb has said amid fears that the risk of school blocks collapsing is now “very likely”.
   
• Why we can’t leave government to create a school system alone
  In response to Tes editor Jon Severs calling for more clarity on what an academy trust-led school system should look like, Leora Cruddas, chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, argues that we should take on the responsibility of definition ourselves.