Education news

10 January

Bills

Top minister tells Tories ‘put up or shut up’ ahead of grooming gang vote

Schools bill ‘won’t cut pay’, but will restore academies’ ‘core purpose’

Labour’s ‘act of vandalism’ bill risks pay cuts for 20k teachers, claim Tories

Bid to halt safeguarding bill sickening, says Phillipson

Schools bill is ‘educational vandalism’, say Tories

LAURA TROTT: Labour’s plan to overhaul academies will lead to the return of mediocracy in our schools

‘Labour has no clear vision for improving education’

Failure to report child sex abuse to be made a crime

Curriculum

Labour scraps computing hubs, with languages scheme scaled back

‘Less vital’ curriculum areas to be ‘combed back’, says Francis

Only 1 in 4 young adults got financial education at school, study shows

Music education

Banging the drum for music education: the UK school run with an orchestra

Skills and qualifications

Warning of ‘skills chasm’ amid huge UK regional divide in qualifications

Accountability & OfstedThe Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills – a non-ministerial department responsible for inspecting and regulating services that care for children and young people, and services providing education and skills

Tell schools how they’re being judged on progress, DfE warned

Martyn Oliver on Ofsted reform: 8 things we learned

Poverty

UK charity steps up campaign against child hygiene poverty

Covid

Children ‘dropped down the agenda’ during pandemic

Mental Health

Child mental health crisis: Better resilience is the solution, say experts

Absence

Small drop in absence ‘but still a long way to go’

Safeguarding
‘An invidious position’: the safeguarding disconnect affecting children and teachers

Funding

Rising SEND costs will ‘wipe out’ school savings, IFS warns

‘We can’t go on like this’: Costs will outstrip school funding rises (again), says IFS

Final round of trust growth funding falls £18m short of requests

School buildings

Ninety per cent of schools hit by crumbling concrete scandal have not had RAAC removed

Pay

NEU to launch indicative ballot over 2.8% pay rise recommendation

Sixth form college teachers to stage three more days of strikes in pay dispute

Early years

Parents in Welsh county told to come to school to change nappies if their child is not toilet trained

Therapy dogs

Growing trend of school dogs is ‘overwhelming’ teachers who are ‘unprepared’ to deal with incidents of ‘scratching’ and ‘biting’ in classrooms, experts warn