When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, he famously said that his government’s priority would be ‘education, education, education.’ But what kind of education did he mean? The answer was simple: a university education. His target was to send half the nation’s students to university – and it’s been achieved. But what did Tony…
The majority of organisations involved in the government’s National Tutoring Programme don’t use qualified teachers, we have discovered. Our research looked into the 32 providers on the programme and only six state on their websites that they use teachers to deliver learning. The scheme, in theory, is sound – children have lagged behind in their…
For once both main political parties agree on one thing – that schools shouldn’t be closed. And they are right. Children have spent six months out of school already this year and further time missing classes could see irreversible harm to their education. Those who are affected most are the less able and the disadvantaged…
In the current economic uncertainty caused by the Coronavirus crisis, education was never going to be the main focus of yesterday’s Budget. I was pleased to see the funding initiatives that were in there – from investment in FE colleges to scrapping the reading tax – but I’m hoping to see more radical reform over…
As we leave 2019 behind and all the political uncertainty of the past three years I am hopeful that the new year could hold real promise for education. For someone like me who has backed the changes to the curriculum, supports testing and schools being held to account and believes in selective and specialist state…