Weekly round-up: Teacher burnout and replacing A levels

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

• Teaching becoming a ‘military-style tour of duty’
  The idea that teaching is a lifelong career has been “blown” amid the dramatic rise in teachers leaving the profession, the chief executive of mental health charity Education Support has told Tes.
   
• Sunak: Advanced British Standard to replace A levels
  The prime minister has announced a plan for a new qualification for school leavers called the Advanced British Standard, aimed at bringing together A levels and T levels.
   
• Advanced British Standard: everything you need to know
  What exactly would the new Advanced British Standard entail, how much would it cost and will it ever actually happen? Dan Worth investigates.
   
• The Tes Magazine Leadership Forum: a new series for school leaders
  Don’t miss Tes’ exciting new series of guides and interviews giving leaders at all levels access to world-class education management expertise.
   
• Is the end nigh for performance-related pay?
  Wales dropped PRP for teachers in 2020 in favour of yearly pay rises. Could England follow suit? Grainne Hallahan investigates.
   
• Ofsted top grade ‘out of reach’ for ‘good’ schools
  The shrinking chance of schools moving from “good” to “outstanding” is revealed in a Tes analysis that shows how Ofsted’s four-grade system is redundant, according to school leaders.
   
• Lack of exam data ‘put Ofsted under pressure’
  Ofsted’s school inspections have been under “tremendous pressure” for two years because inspectors have had no exam data to work with, the chief inspector has admitted.
   
• Lockdown advice for schools after malicious emails
  The Department for Education has issued guidance on when schools should go into lockdown after threatening emails were sent to schools in several regions of the country.
   
• MATs worried about financial stability
  Nearly one-fifth of academy trusts are not confident in their long-term finances, a new survey of trust leaders shows.
   
• Schools face ‘rising tide of mistrust’
  Schools are facing a “rising tide of mistrust” from the public following the pandemic, a senior leader in the academy trusts sector has warned.
   
• Keegan mobile ban ‘unnecessary’ and ‘desperate’
  The education secretary’s announcement about a “ban” on mobile phones in schools has been dismissed as a “desperate attempt to grab a headline”.
   
• Banning phones is the right call - but schools aren’t the problem
  If the government is worried about the impact of phones on children’s education, it should be targeting social media companies, writes trust leader Sufian Sadiq.
   
• Flexible working toolkit: what schools need to know
  The DfE has published guides for schools explaining how and why they should introduce flexible working for staff.
   
• Most teachers have not seen workload cut by Oak
  More than half of teachers say they have not had their workload reduced by using Oak National Academy resources, according to a survey.