HEP Talks

The Education Brief: Saturday 14 June 2025 - Top stories include: Christine Gilbert set to be appointed Ofsted chair Stop Talking About Relevance in the Curriculum AI guidance for schools: 9 key findings for leaders This week’s deep dive:  WalkThrus London Conference 2025 We’ll also tell you what’s happening at HEP this week and what we’ve been watching, listening to, and reading! Watching - https...

The Education Brief: Saturday 7 June 2025 - Top stories include: Maths hubs funding drops (but DfE says it’s not a cut) Teacher supply: why 5 subjects face gloomier forecasts Schools risk ‘inadvertently’ breaking minimum wage law Popular schools should prioritise places for poorer pupils, says charity This week’s deep dive:  Schools and Academies Show 2025 We’ll also tell you what’s happening at H...

The Education Brief: Saturday 24 May 2025 - Top stories include: Teachers are set for a 4% pay rise from September. The STRB wants every school to publish a flexible working policy. The House of Lords is flooding the government’s schools bill with amendments. Ofsted is quietly overhauling the toolkits behind its upcoming ‘report card’ inspection system. This week’s deep dive:  The SEND System: Cri...

The Education Brief: Saturday 17 May 2025 - Top stories include: Labour has torn into the Conservatives’ £70 million SEND improvement plan for being too little. The government is merging its behaviour and attendance hubs into a single support scheme. School-based mental health teams will be expanded to nearly a million more pupils by 2026. SEND sport is getting a boost with a three-year extension...

The Education Brief: Saturday 10 May 2025 - Top stories include: Ofsted may delay its controversial school report card inspections until 2026. The government is shortening the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship from 12 to nine months. Funding for England’s acclaimed maths hubs will drop by 20% this September. 218 'stuck' schools will receive support from the newly expanded RISE teams. Th...

The Education Brief: Saturday 3 May 2025 - Top stories include: Trainee teacher numbers rise by 8%, with surges in STEM subjects like physics and computing. Education unions are taking the Teaching Regulation Agency to court. NAHT are taking Ofsted to court over its new inspection regime. Interim EHRC guidance ruled trans pupils must use toilets matching their biological sex. 82% of school leaders...

The Education Brief: Saturday 26 April 2025 - Top stories include: Teacher job adverts are down, and the education sector is bracing for a staffing squeeze. Pupil suspensions surged by 12% last spring, with the North East topping the exclusions charts. An Inspector Calls reigns supreme for literature GCSEs, but calls for change are growing louder. School budgets are under fresh strain as pay rises...

Welcome to HEP Talks: Roundtables, where we take the big questions in education to our member schools. In this second episode on Ofsted, we're diving into the recently proposed changes to the inspection framework—what they say, what they really mean, and whether they hit the mark. Joining us for this episode, we have: Jade-Simone Bacon, Headteacher at St Michael’s C.E. Primary School Lucy Walk...

The Education Brief: Saturday 5 April 2025 - Top stories include: Ofsted is considering renaming the proposed ‘secure’ grade on its five-point school report cards. A new trial suggests AI could “revolutionise” how student writing is assessed. Bridget Phillipson has called for more male teachers to act as role models for boys. The cost of repairing England’s crumbling school estate will exceed £13....

The Education Brief: Saturday 29 March 2025 - Top stories include: The Schools Bill has ignited fierce debate between councils and academies over admissions. Oracy is now back in the spotlight of the national curriculum review. Ofsted’s Sir Martyn Oliver has declared full support for headteachers who ban mobile phones. International schools are growing uneasy over the US government’s rapid rollbac...

The Education Brief: Saturday 22 March 2025 - Top stories include: The government’s interim curriculum review outlined 4 areas of focus for the national curriculum. Severe absence has reached its highest point on record, especially affecting those with SEND. The UK’s "lost learning crisis" has worsened; researchers propose 10 bold solutions. Government support for rising employer nationa...

The Education Brief: Saturday 15 March 2025 - Top stories include: Ofsted Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver insisted that inspections must involve grades. School leaders have warned that budgets for next year are even tighter than expected. Councils given approval to divert £82 million from education budgets to cover SEND deficits. The latest TES investigation into academy CEO pay has revealed soa...

The Education Brief: Saturday 8 March 2025 - Top stories include: England’s £11 billion EHCP budget is not improving outcomes for children with SEND. School leaders across England are facing an alarming surge in parental abuse. Concerns are growing over the government’s decision to scrap behaviour hubs. The government’s supervised toothbrushing scheme is set to roll out in England. This week’s dee...

The Education Brief: Saturday 1 March 2025 - Top stories include: Ofsted is set to trial its proposed new inspection framework with visits to around 240 schools. New analysis reveals that CEO pay at the largest multi-academy trusts continues to rise. Teachers in four Haringey secondary schools have gone on strike over plans to raise class sizes. The 750 schools that will take part in a pilot offer...

The Education Brief: Saturday 15 February 2025 - Top stories include: Ofsted reports marks down for behaviour have halved since Covid, but teachers disagree. Teach First has announced James Toop as its new CEO. 60% of academy trust CEOs say new reforms would have no impact on their schools. Government minutes reveal a heated exchange between Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and headteacher K...

The Education Brief: Saturday 8 February 2025 - Top stories include: Academy trusts are under growing financial pressure. The government is investing £2 million in a new “writing framework” and literacy training. The Education Secretary has voiced concerns over the growing number of parental complaints. School leaders have slammed the government’s new intervention plans for “stuck schools.” This w...

The Education Brief: Saturday 1 February 2025 - Top stories include: Schools are becoming a vital safety net for struggling families. Exam board Pearson has been fined £250,000 pounds after it breached confidentiality rules. Whistleblowers have slammed Ofsted’s planned report cards as “rushed and botched.” Per-pupil school funding will rise by 1.2 per cent after inflation, which won’t keep up with...

The Education Brief: Saturday 25 January 2025 - Top stories include: Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson unveiled a series of measures at BETT to integrate AI and technology into schools. New data reveals a 220 per cent rise in suspensions for racist abuse in primary schools. The government has appointed two expert panels to advise on making mainstream schools more inclusive and reforming the S...

The Education Brief: Saturday 18 January 2025 - Top stories include: Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson spoke in front of the Education Committee. The Confederation of School Trusts raised concerns over the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Sir Kevan Collins has been named lead non-executive board member for the DfE. A new report from Headrest calls trust in Ofsted "almost irrecovera...

The Education Brief: Saturday 11 January 2025 - Top stories include: IFS warns rising SEND costs are set to devour any potential school savings. The NEU is launching an indicative strike ballot over the government’s proposed teacher pay rise. Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver talked with the Education Select Committee about report cards, SEND, and the Ofsted complaints process. Labour has s...

The Education Brief: Saturday 21 December 2024 - Top stories include: The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill Ofsted criticises curriculum ‘barriers’ for SEND pupils in mainstream Survey reveals an increasing formalisation of SATs practice in the first term of Year 6 across UK primary schools This week’s deep dive: Autumn Term wrap-up with Fran and James We’ll also tell you what’s happening at H...

The Education Brief: Saturday 14 December 2024 - Top stories include: Home education in England has risen by 21 per cent over the past year. The DfE has proposed a 2.8 per cent teacher pay rise for 2025 to 2026. Exam malpractice in schools and colleges has reached a three-year high. Ofsted will investigate how schools and colleges are using artificial intelligence. This week’s deep dive:  Key Stag...

The Education Brief: Saturday 7 December 2024 - Top stories include: The government missed its teacher recruitment targets, with the worst shortfall on record. The government has announced £740 million to create more SEND places in mainstream schools. Plans to introduce on-screen GCSE exams by 2025 and 2026 have been delayed. Ofsted’s annual report highlights rising concerns over “flexi-schooling”...

The Education Brief: Saturday 30 November 2024 - Top stories include: Rising costs in schools are set to outpace the government’s latest funding boost. Suspensions in England's schools have soared to a record high, with rates jumping 40% last year. New data reveals a widening disadvantage gap among reception pupils. New EPI research reveals that 3,500 schools in England are "isolated" from leaders...

The Education Brief: Saturday 23 November 2024 - Top stories include: A new Teaching Commission aims to address the teacher recruitment and retention crisis. Ambition Institute, Education Development Trust, Teach First, and UCL Institute of Education secured contracts to deliver the Early Career Framework from 2025. A report on the Behaviour Hubs programme reveals contrasting outcomes. The governm...