I’ll ensure our schools have no excuses for failure | Michael Wilshaw

Last year’s riots proved that the schools in our most deprived areas need leaders with drive and high expectations Those who took part in the riots last August were overwhelmingly young and from disadvantaged backgrounds. Half of those who appeared in court were under 21, and three times more likely to be entitled to free [...]

Baby boom takes schools to breaking point

Two-shift day and use of empty Woolworths stores among ideas to cope with surge in primary age pupils A council in east London is drawing up plans to convert an empty Woolworths store into a classroom and teach children in two shifts, in emergency measures across Britain to cope with a dramatic increase in primary [...]

A new generation of schools offers a cure for jobless youth

In east London, the best jobs aren’t going to local people. A new school aims to solve that. Youth unemployment, over a million now, is the most painful feature of the recession; a breach of the promise one generation makes to the next. But it’s not new – unemployment among the young was rising even [...]

Nostalgia for grammar schools is misplaced | Susanna Rustin

A rose-tinted view of the past is gaining currency, but my 80s comprehensive didn’t leave me the victim of a failed experiment Grammar school nostalgics are having a moment. On a BBC documentary this month, Michael Portillo described the decision to turn his old school, Harrow County, into a comprehensive as “vandalism”. A forthcoming book [...]

State schools hover on the brink of huge private sector revolution

The Swedish company given the go-ahead last week to run a Suffolk school is expecting to make £5m profits this year. It is set to open the floodgates to an unprecedented level of commercial involvement in British learning under the education reforms spearheaded by Michael Gove Giving a key speech last September at a community [...]

Fears over green building standard for new schools

UK Green Building Council and Aldersgate Group urge Education Secretary not to scrap BREEAM requirement for new schools Businesses have made a last-ditch attempt to prevent the Education Secretary scrapping a rule requiring new schools to meet the globally recognised BRE Environmental Assesment Method (BREEAM) green building standard, after a spending review report argued the [...]

Is the new chief inspector of schools just an instrument of government?

Michael Wilshaw, the new Ofsted chief, comes with a reputation as a ‘heroic’ head, but is he now just an instrument of government, unsympathetic to schools more challenging than his? Walking through Mossbourne academy’s long, high, glass atrium you have to speak in whispers, for every classroom door is left open to reveal rows of [...]

Schools that fail bright pupils to be named and shamed

Schools minister to remove incentive for secondary schools to ‘game’ league tables by focusing solely on achieving C grades Secondary schools that fail to push bright children will be named and shamed in a bid to prevent comprehensives from manipulating the league table rankings, the schools minister has said. Nick Gibb said he wanted to [...]

Letters: Boarding schools are no Harry Potter fantasy

Boarding Concern has been campaigning for several years about the psychosocial problems facing young children caused by early boarding. It has been an uphill struggle, because as George Monbiot points up (The British boarding school remains a bastion of cruelty, 16 January), the trauma of the privileged has little political purchase. We strongly welcome Monbiot’s [...]

Barclays puts up £1.25m for parents starting free schools

Bank backs coalition education policy with funds, advice and work experience for free schools and their pupils Barclays bank has thrown its weight behind one of the coalition’s most controversial education reforms by offering £1.25m to parents hoping to set up free schools. Since the coalition came to power, parents, charities and businesses have been [...]

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