HEP Talks

The Education Brief: Saturday 18 November 2023 - Top stories include: Ofsted says that schools tackling high absences will be viewed favourably during inspections. Former Education Secretary Damian Hinds replaces Nick Gibb as schools minister. Students will receive exam aids for one more year due to pandemic disruptions. Teacher wellbeing in England has hit a five-year low. This week’s deep dive: ...

In this episode of HEP Talks, Luke Kemper talks with Monica Bhogal, Director of the Schools Consent Project, and Luke Ramsden, Deputy Head of St Benedict's School in Ealing and Chair of Trustees the Schools Consent Project. The episode centres around the concept of consent, a topic that has been propelled into the limelight by recent events. the Schools Consent Project takes the legal definiti...

The Education Brief: Saturday 11 November 2023 - Top stories include: Financial support for Teach First’s autumn cohort has resulted in a doubling of recruitment. The DfE has allocated £35 million pounds to provide temporary buildings for schools amidst concerns over RAAC. Education unions have called on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt for £1.7 billion pounds in additional funding for schools. Increasing t...

The Education Brief: Saturday 4 November 2023 - Top stories include: School leaders may discontinue tutoring programmes when NTP subsidies expire next year. School support staff unions in England have accepted a pay rise deal worth £1,925 pounds. The EEF published three reports focusing on teacher workload, flexible working, and school leadership. Sir Ian Bauckham CBE will serve as the interim chi...

The Education Brief: Saturday 28 October 2023 - Top stories include: Former Ofsted Chief Sir Michael Wilshaw criticised the watchdog for moving away from using data in inspections. Ofsted has temporarily suspended evaluations of MATs until the end of the current financial year. The UK government’s £40 million-pound "hardship fund" will be split between academies and local authority-maint...

The Education Brief: Saturday 21 October 2023 - Top stories include: The AQA has announced that GCSEs may potentially be moving online from 2026. The DfE’s school funding error has prompted calls for Schools minister Nick Gibb’s resignation. New pay scales for teachers and school leaders for 2023-2024 were confirmed last week. This week’s deep dive:  The Education Policy Institute Annual Report 20...

The Education Brief: Saturday 14 October 2023 - Top stories include: Education unions demand £370 million in per-pupil funding after a mistake in calculations for the national funding formula. The Commons Education Select Committee is set to investigate the value of single-word Ofsted judgements. The results for last year’s key stage 1 tests have been published, showing slight improvement over the...

In this episode of HEP Talks, Luke Kemper talks with Keren Mitchell, co-founder of the not-for-profit, social action-inspiring organisation SuperKind. The conversation centres around what SuperKind can do for schools, and specifically how schools can use different parts of the website to facilitate the integration of social causes in curriculum. Keren discusses research that shows that introducing...

The Education Brief: Saturday 30 September 2023 - Top stories include: Ofsted’s national director of education Chris Russell will retire at the end of this year. Ofqual’s chief regulator Dr Jo Saxton will take a new role as chief executive of UCAS. The government and a youth charity will spend £5.8 million on four projects to examine whether contested trauma-informed practice helps keep children s...

The Education Brief: Monday 25th September 2023 - Top stories include: 27 new schools have been added to the list of those containing RAAC. One in five formal complaints to Ofsted in 2022-23 resulted in some change being made. Indebted councils do have targets to “manage demand” for EHCPs. Ofsted has released a music subject report with seven key findings. This week’s deep dive:  Key Stage 1 Histo...

The Education Brief: Monday 18th September 2023 - Top stories include: Ofsted will not inspect schools with RAAC this term. The disadvantage gap has finally stopped widening this year. The DfE is reviewing its workforce approach with a focus on flexible working. One third of teachers are now using artificial intelligence tools to help them with their work. This week’s deep dive:  researchED Nation...

BBC Teach has released new resources that deal with trauma-informed approaches for care-experienced children. In this episode of HEP Talks, Luke Kemper talks with Andrew Tomlinson, former Head of Content and Commissioning at Bitesize and BBC Teach, about what inspired the BBC Teach team to commission the resources and ways in which schools can use them. The resources themselves include "three...

The Education Brief: Monday 11th September 2023 - Top stories include: Catherine McKinnell has been appointed as shadow schools minister. Sir Martyn Oliver outlined his priorities for the role of Chief Ofsted Inspector. The Teacher Development Trust and the International Society for Technology in Education have produced guidance on the role of artificial intelligence in education. This week’s deep...

Monday 4th September 2023 - Top stories include: GCSE grades have recovered, but the impact of Covid still lingers. The DfE published its consultation response on proposed new rules affecting school attendance. Study finds “no evidence” selective school systems have a positive effect on pupil outcomes. This week’s deep dive:  Getting ready for the 2023/24 academic year We’ll also tell you what’s h...

Wendy Baverstock, primary school teacher at Eldon Primary, curriculum resource creator, and amateur historian, has created a series of resources designed for year 6 pupils about 20th century London migration. The resources are a fantastic look into the lives of migrants to London during that time, and they include personal stories from relatives and ancestors of students and teachers in present-da...

Keeping you up to date with what is happening in education. Top stories include: Members of the NASUWT teaching union in England have voted in favour of industrial action The proportion of key stage 2 pupils reaching the expected standard in all three areas of reading, writing and maths is unchanged from last year, showing no recovery to pre-Covid levels. The government has accepted a recommendati...

The Education Brief: Monday 10th July 2023 - Top stories include: Councils are approving higher numbers of deficits for primary schools across the country. The DfE released guidance aimed at increasing transparency around the growth of academy trusts. A SEND charity is asking more than 30 councils to guarantee they will not breach their legal duties over education provision for SEND pupils. Sir Ke...

The SEND Review Improvement Plan was published on 2 March, 2023. The Improvement Plan is a follow up on the SEND and AP Green Paper released earlier last year. This podcast is part 3 of our series about SEND and ‘inclusive education’, and in it, Margaret Mulholland and Luke Kemper conduct a close examination of the Improvement Plan including both its strengths and weaknesses. How well does the Imp...

The Education Brief : Monday 3rd July 2023 - Top stories include: Police are investigating a cyber-attack aimed at exam boards. NAHT is “confident” that it will get past the threshold required for strike action. 700,000 pupils in England attend schools requiring major repairs. An FFT analysis highlighted the difference in the proportion of Year 7 students with EHCPs being admitted to mainstream se...

The Education Brief: Monday 26th June 2023 - Top stories include: What is being disrupted by the NEU strikes in July. A new national action plan for education being developed by the DfE could mean more direct questions for schools.  The National Foundation for Education Research says school leaders have “significant concerns” about sourcing suitable tutors as part of the National Tutoring Programm...

The Education Brief: Monday 19th June 2023 - Top stories include: Ofsted confirmed changes to their inspections last week. Former Ofsted Chief Inspector said Ofsted’s one-word judgements should be replaced. The government has opened a new consultation for evidence on the use of artificial intelligence. The government opened a consultation for the introduction of a British Sign Language GCSE. This...

The Education Brief: Monday 12th June 2023 - Top stories include: Gillian Keegan said that some changes being made to Ofsted inspection “will be immediate”. The DfE has released updated ‘keeping children safe in education guidance’. The DfE is worried marking boycotts might mean even more trouble for teacher recruitment. Record numbers of state school teachers are leaving the profession. This week...

The Education Brief: Monday 5th June 2023 - Top stories include: Five members of an independent expert advisory panel will assist the DfE’s review of relationships, sex and health education guidance. The Standards and Testing Agency has released the 2023 scaled scores for key stage 1 SATs. Spending policies aimed at schools in disadvantaged areas are gradually being eroded. The government wants th...

In this HEP Talks episode, we have the privilege of delving into a thought-provoking podcast interview with Penny Rabiger, an ex-teacher and educational consultant who has worked with the Key for School Leaders , Lyfta , and the BAMEed Network , and who is also a member of HEP’s Racial Equity Steering Group as well as a school governor. This podcast explores anti-racist school governance and provi...

The Education Brief : Monday 22nd May 2023 - Top stories include: Capita is delaying the marking of Year 6 Sats papers by a week due to “technical issues”. Only 6 percent of schools are planning to extend lesson times to hit the 32.5-hour DfE-advised target. The DfE is reviewing its early headship coaching offer after low uptake. Multi-academy trusts will not yet be inspected by Ofsted. This week’...