It’s been a jam-packed week of education news - with more stories due to pile in over the weekend, thanks to the Easter teaching conferences.
While we at Tes Towers naturally believe there’s no such a thing as too much news, to avoid bombarding readers all at once, we’ve compiled our weekly round-up of education stories two whole days earlier than usual.
The week kicked off with yet more criticism of school performance in “the North”. Children in this amorphous region not only face deprivation, but also “poor schools”, according to the children’s commissioner, picking up on a theme previously pushed by Nicky Morgan, Michael Wilshaw and George Osborne’s Northern Powerhouse think tank, albeit one that is increasingly facing challenge.
By mid-week, the debate had turned to a major piece of research about grammar schools - a policy area that just refuses to go away, to the chagrin of many leading voices in the education sector. But many of those same leading voices were no doubt nodding sagely at the researchers’ findings, that grammar school pupils perform no better at school than their contemporaries at non-selective schools from similar backgrounds.
That same day, former education secretary Justine Greening left us in no doubt about her position on grammars. That is, she said that improving social mobility was “far more complex” than deciding whether a school is selective. When it was pointed out that her 43-page social mobility strategy launched before Christmas, Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential, did not mention grammar schools once, she laughed and said “no”. Her (not at all) well-guarded secret is out.
Education secretaries come and go, and so do directors of the New Schools Network. Just two working days after Toby Young resigned from the role last week, Mark Lehain - the director of the Parents and Teachers for Excellence (PTE) campaign - stepped up to take his place on an interim basis. What now for Mr Young? Well, he’s unlikely to be turning his attentions to the free school he founded, the West London Free School, from which he resigned as a trustee almost a week after stepping down from the NSN.
Events took a dark turn later in the week when schools across the country were put on lockdown after receiving an email saying that pupils would be “shot in the street”. Thankfully, it was later confirmed as a hoax but, coming only a week after many pupils were evacuated due to hoax bomb threats, some commentators worried that schools might become complacent about these kinds of warnings.
The working week ended with deep criticism of the Department for Education’s oversight of academy finances by MPs on the Public Accounts Committee, which called for action to be taken on “excessive” salaries.
And...breathe. At last, the holidays are finally here: but Tes.com never sleeps. Over the coming days, we’re expecting a barrage of stories to emanate from the union conferences, providing plenty to occupy teachers with, in between revision sessions and marking - and Easter egg eating, of course.
