Whoever wins the General Election will have a huge inbox. There will be decisions to make on all manner of things including health, defence and the economy. There is one thing, however, that they shouldn’t tinker with too much – at least in England. That is education. Since the new national curriculum was introduced in…
The man who is likely to be our next Prime Minister has opined on the subject of education. In a wide-ranging speech, Sir Keir Starmer attempted to set out what a Labour government would do for our schoolchildren. Of course, being a Labour leader he neglected to mention that his own education benefited from the…
Once again, the progressives in our education system are determined to put untested theory above years of experience – and prevent schools from excluding any pupils. The initiative comes from the London borough of Southwark and is in response to its previously having a high exclusion rate. It seems that rather than try to reduce…
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…
A new study has declared the way school pupils learn to read is ‘uninformed and failing children’, and there have been calls on the government to drop its phonics focus. I disagree. The UCL’s Institute of Education says that phonics learning isn’t ‘underpinned by the latest evidence’ – but it is underpinned by the experience…