Teachers are giving up running extra-curricular activities and leaving the profession after being denied pay progression because of issues outside their control. A union boss this week also warned of an “increasing groundswell of opinion” against performance-related pay (PRP), as teachers spoke of how being passed over for pay rises... Read more

How to grow a school    @PTE_Campaign Mark Lehain, the director of Parents and Teachers for Excellence, takes time out from the Tory Party conference to visit MEA Central, a new secondary in Levenshulme, Manchester. I don’t blame him, I’d take time out of any party conference to visit a... Read more

An academy trust has made the rare decision to “de-merge” an all-through school into primary and secondary provision because it wants two heads it can hold to account separately. The request to split Yate Academy in Gloucestershire was one of ten escalated for ministerial approval by headteacher boards in the... Read more

A school locked into a controversial PFI contract was charged more than £1,000 to move an LCD screen, while another forked out £640 to have a computer table removed. The pay-outs were revealed following an investigation by the JPI Media Investigations team into the spiralling costs of private finance initiatives.... Read more

A secondary headteacher received death threats after two sixth-formers reportedly told a national newspaper he pushed “anti-Brexit propaganda”. Ciran Stapleton, the head of St Joseph’s Catholic High School in Slough, said after the story’s publication last month his own children asked him “why do these people want you to die?”... Read more

Headteachers in Kent have been told their staff may have to sleep in school if Brexit causes traffic chaos across the county. In new guidance Kent County Council said the option of staff sleeping at school “could be considered” if problems on the roads prevented them getting home at the... Read more

A school rapped by Ofsted over the “well-established” off-rolling of pupils has been warned it could be moved to a different sponsor. Ormiston Academies Trust has been issued with a termination warning notice in respect of Ormiston Denes Academy in Suffolk. Earlier this month, it was revealed that Ofsted had... Read more

A long-delayed report into the benefits of military ethos in schools will still be published, Schools Week has been told. But, bizarrely, both the Department for Education and Ministry of Defence – which allegedly commissioned the report – have now disowned it. It was announced last April that former children’s... Read more

Assaults on school premises have soared 72 per cent in the past four years, with 27,805 reports received by the police since 2015. New figures obtained by Schools Week under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the growing need for police intervention in schools, as well as the worsening situation faced... Read more

Gavin Williamson’s rebooted attempts to train more armed forces veterans as teachers has been labelled “pointless” after take-up tanked. New £40,000 Troops to Teachers bursaries were introduced last September to encourage ex-service personnel into the classroom. Announcing the move in March last year, former defence secretary Gavin Williamson (pictured), who... Read more

A sponsored academy in one of the country’s poorest neighbourhoods has been named in the top 10 schools in the country for progress 8. Heartlands Academy in Birmingham, which converted as a sponsored academy in 2012, had a progress 8 score of 1.46 this year, placing it sixth in the... Read more

The first university technical college to receive an early monitoring visit for its apprenticeship provision has been heavily criticised by Ofsted. London Design and Engineering University Technical College (LDE UTC) was found to be making “insufficient progress” in two out of the three themes assessed, and can now expect to... Read more

The Department for Education’s Standards and Testing Agency paid out £3 million to settle a legal dispute to a mystery supplier. New annual accounts reveal the payment was made during the last financial year to a “third party” – but the document contains no further information. Earlier accounts state the... Read more

The gap between the lowest-attaining early years pupils and the rest of their cohort has widened again this year. Results for the early years foundation stage profile, published today, shows the gap between the lowest-attaining 20 per cent of children and their peers has risen from 31.8 per cent in... Read more

The proportion of A-level pupils reaching the top grades has fallen even further this year, despite prior attainment remaining constant. Provisional figures released by the Department for Education this morning show that 12.3 per cent of all pupils who sat their A-levels this summer received three A*-A grades or better,... Read more