Education

Gove calls for pupil premium to be protected

13.05.13: Funding to help the most disadvantaged pupils should be protected from cuts during the next Spending Review, education secretary Michael Gove has urged. The pupil premium is paid to schools for each student who is eligible for free school m...

Demos calls for students and parents to inspect schools

07.05.13: The current system of school inspection is “profoundly toxic” the think tank Demos has warned in a new report. Detoxifying School Accountability, published today, calls for Ofsted inspections to be replaced by ‘multi-persp...

Almost 50% of young people enter higher education

25.04.13: The number of students going into higher education is at the highest rate ever, statistics from BIS show. In 2011-12, 49.3% of young people in England entered higher education. This is just below the 50% mark governments have long pledged t...

MPs ‘sceptical’ of Government oversight of academies

23.04.13: The academies scheme has been criticised by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) for wasting millions of pounds on over-complex and inefficient funding systems. The number of academies increased from 200 in April 2010 to 2,886 in March 2012...

Harsher inspections for early years childcare

19.04.13: Ofsted plans to toughen its inspections of nurseries and childminders, and reclassify ‘satisfactory’ as ‘requiring improvement’. Head of Ofsted Sir Michael Wilshaw said the number of poor nurseries was “unaccep...

£5m evaluation of early year’s education launched

18.04.13: A new eight-year study will examine early education in England, to help understand what constitutes good quality provision. The £5m Evaluation of Early Years Education study will test the provision’s impact on educational develo...

Highly-qualified apprentices ‘more valuable’ than graduates

08.04.13: Apprentices who have done the highest, degree-level apprenticeship are more desirable to employers than people with standard university degrees, new research suggests. In a survey of 500 firms commissioned by BIS and conducted by ICM, in wh...

Thousands more school places needed, NAO warns

15.03.13: 256,000 new school places will need to be provided by 2014/15 to meet increased need, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found. A new report shows that despite a net increase of almost 81,500 primary school places in the past two years, th...

Half of schools improve Ofsted rating

08.03.13: Almost half the schools inspected in England last term have improved their overall rating, Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has announced. Out of more than 2,000 state-funded schools, 977 inspected by Ofsted between October and De...

Performance targets raised for primary schools

05.03.13: Tougher targets for primary schools could mean more are ranked as ‘under-performing’. Schools minister David Laws will announce today that schools will be deemed under-performing if under 60% of pupils do not reach a satisfactory sta...

Young offender education to be provided by academies

14.02.13: Academies and free schools could provide education in young offender institutes (YOI), justice secretary Chris Grayling has proposed. The move could create ‘secure training colleges’ and cut the reoffending rate. Grayling is due...

Gove’s EBacc plans to replace GCSEs scrapped

07.02.13: Plans to replace GCSEs with an English Baccalaureate, or ‘EBacc’, are to be scrapped in a major Government u-turn. Education secretary Michael Gove had planned “more rigorous” exams in core subjects from 2015, but a...

Wrexham teachers to gain skills through university partnership

05.02.13: Teachers in Wrexham are being the opportunity to further their skills and education, in a partnership with Wrexham County Council and Glyndwr University. Up to 100 teachers a year will be sponsored to attend the university’s MA educat...

A great start to the day – and the year

01.02.13: Blackpool made national headlines earlier this year when it launched a pilot project to provide universal free breakfasts for primary school children. PSE hears from council leader Simon Blackburn, the driving force behind the idea, about the ho...

Tackling the digital divide

01.02.13: Richard French, director of education policy at BCS Learning & Development Ltd, part of BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, speaks to PSE about the new traineeship programme proposed by the Government. Despite the younger generation...