Weekly round-up: Teacher workload and Covid masks row

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

• Revealed: How schools are trying to cut teacher workload 
  Most teachers and leaders say their school has introduced policy changes in five key areas to tackle workload in the past year, a new report finds.
• Oak to get up to ‘£2 million’ to develop AI teacher assistants 
  Oak National Academy is to be given extra government funding to invest in building artificial intelligence tools to help cut teachers’ workload.
• Covid: Williamson opposed masks in ‘no-surrender mode’ 
  Former education secretary Gavin Williamson opposed masks in schools during the pandemic because he was in “no-surrender mode” with trade unions, the Covid inquiry has heard.
• Is the school buildings crisis solvable?
  Up to £15 billion is needed to fix school buildings once RAAC concrete and inflation are taken into account, according to education leaders and experts.
• School support staff unions agree £1,925 pay deal
  Two unions representing school support staff and business leaders in England have accepted a flat pay rise of £1,925 backdated to April, equating to 9.42 per cent for the lowest-paid employees.
• DfE workforce strategy delayed amid ‘uncertainty’
  Ministers have delayed publication of the Department for Education’s updated recruitment and retention strategy amid “uncertainty” over future planning and the prime minister’s plans for the Advanced British Standard qualification, Tes has learned.
• Absence is a UK-wide problem. Here’s how to tackle it
  Poor attendance has been an issue across the UK since the pandemic, but schools in Scotland are showing that the tide can be turned, finds Emma Seith
• Ofsted is not ‘reliable’, say overwhelming majority of teachers 
  Nine in 10 teachers from schools across all inspection gradings believe Ofsted is not a “reliable and trusted arbiter of standards”, new research shows.
• Bauckham to take over as Ofqual chief regulator 
  Sir Ian Bauckham has been announced as the new chief regulator at Ofqual and will take over when current chief Dr Jo Saxton leaves at the end of the year.
• ‘Most schools’ to cut tutoring owing to cost 
  A majority of school leaders say tutoring will be unsustainable once government funding for the National Tutoring Programme finishes at the end of this academic year, according to a new report.
• DfE school hardship fund a ‘sticking plaster’ 
  An extra £40 million of government funding to help schools struggling financially this year, which was announced as part of the teacher pay deal, has been dismissed as a “tokenistic sticking plaster”.
• Online Safety Bill: five things schools should do 
  With new legislation coming in to help protect children online, deputy head Luke Ramsden, of the Schools Consent Project, explains what it means in terms of schools’ safeguarding responsibilities.
• Interview: the first female head of a 1,400-year-old school 
  Jude Lowson, the first female head at The King’s School in Canterbury, reflects on her own school days, why she moved from advertising to education and the pressures of leading one of the world’s oldest schools.