At last, a Conservative MP has made the case for the expansion of grammar schools. Jonathan Gullis MP – a former teacher – is urging the Prime Minister to lift the ban on new free schools being selective. He is thought to have the backing of 200 fellow back benchers – and quite possibly cabinet…
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, author of the catchphrase ‘education, education, education’, has waded into this debate again as he pauses from his globe-trotting. During his premiership, he made it a policy to have 50 per cent of young people attend university – a wrong-headed ambition in my view. That figure has now been achieved,…
The Government has issued a white paper setting out the future of education and I broadly welcome it, but there is one important omission. Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, launched the document with a list of highlights including a minimum school week of 32.5 hours by the start of the next school year. Other changes…
An alarming poll of almost 1,000 primary school teachers and senior staff revealed that half of new pupils aren’t ‘school ready’. There has for some time been a percentage of four-year-olds who turn up at school barely able to eat properly and still wearing nappies. Some parents, who perhaps began school in this manner themselves,…
Teaching is a professional job. Teachers must be professional at all times and leave their politics outside the school gate. What they must never do is seek to influence their pupils in a partisan way. It is a fundamental expectation of the profession to present all subject matter in a balanced manner. It should not…