Inside Your Ed

Doctors, nurses, train drivers, ambulance drivers, postal workers, university academics – the list of professions that have gone on strike since the start of 2023 is as broad as it is deep.  On that basis, the recent strike action by teachers has certainly not come as a surprise. Even before the end of last year, teacher and headteacher unions were warning of huge discontent among their members. ...

The decision in 2012 to remove the duty on schools to arrange a work experience placement for all 14 to 16-year-olds was perhaps not one of the most high-profile changes made by then Education Secretary Michael Gove.  Even so, it generated plenty of grumbling at the time, with the British Chambers of Commerce later describing the decision as ‘careless’.  Over a decade later, the Social Market Foun...

In a cost of living crisis and with widespread strike action taking place across the education sector, it is always going to be difficult for the government to build momentum behind any new policy ideas.  That said, there is one proposal that the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appears particularly keen on: an ambition for all pupils to study maths until the age of 18.  As it stands, around half of 16...

Almost exactly a year ago, EDSK released an episode of this podcast about what the Department for Education should put into their upcoming Schools White Paper – which would set out the government’s plans to reform the state school system in England.  The White Paper was then published in March 2022, and in May some of the plans in the White Paper were converted into the Schools Bill – which was es...

Despite all the turmoil in our education system since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been occasional glimpses of long-term policymaking at the Department for Education.  One of the best examples of this is the White Paper in January 2021 that set out a large package of reforms to Further Education, or FE, in England. Like schools, colleges are used to being buffeted around by seemi...

At the start of 2023, the cost of living crisis is still dominating the news. In recent months, the government has chosen to spend billions of pounds on reducing energy bills to ease the financial pressures on households.  However, ministers have paid much less attention to another significant strain on many families’ budgets: the cost of childcare.  In the UK, over a quarter of parents’ joint inc...

Thanks to a turbulent few months in British politics, it is easy to forget that earlier this year the government announced a sweeping set of reforms to the Higher Education system in England that could have a significant impact on both students and institutions.  However, two Prime Ministers later at the end of 2022, the policy environment has changed dramatically.  In the Chancellor’s Autumn Stat...

On the 27th of November 2012, the then Coalition Government published a major review of the apprenticeship system in England, which had been led by the entrepreneur Doug Richard – hence the title ‘the Richard Review’.  The Review put forward a wide range of reforms to the design, delivery and funding of apprenticeships – all of which were intended to raise the quality, and eventually the quantity,...

“We shall withdraw charitable status from private schools and all their other public subsidies and tax privileges. We will also charge VAT on the fees paid to such schools” said the Labour Party manifesto. In 1983.  Here we are 40 years and many changes of government later with the Labour Party yet again calling for major changes to the way that private schools are treated.  Government-funded scho...

As you have probably noticed, the Government has been going through Education Secretaries at quite a rate – with five people having held the post since July of this year. Given the chaotic political landscape in recent months, it is easy to forget that back in July, an important announcement was made about teacher pay. In effect, teachers and school leaders were offered a pay rise of between 5 and...

“I want children and young people to have access to mental health support in schools.” said Liz Truss during her campaign for the Conservative Party leadership this summer.  Unfortunately the Prime Minister is having to deal with a few other matters at the moment, but that does not detract from how serious the issue of mental health has become.  Approximately one in seven young people aged 11 to 1...

In some years, the political party conference season from mid September to early October can pass largely without incident. This year, party conference season was a bit of a rollercoaster.  To kick things off, the Liberal Democrat conference didn’t happen at all, as it would have clashed with the Queen’s funeral.  Then came the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, which had a spring in its step a...

The “education prime minister” was how Liz Truss described herself during her leadership campaign this summer, and she offered plenty of proposals for how she would change things from primary schools up to universities.   To help deliver her education reforms, Kit Malthouse has been appointed as Education Secretary – the fourth person to take on this role in the last 12 months.  Although I’m sure...

To say that the last two years of public examination results have been controversial would be an understatement.  In 2020, many students’ final grades were set by an algorithm, only for the government to change its mind and hand out the grades that teachers had awarded their students in the first place.  In 2021, the government walked away from the process altogether and allowed schools and colleg...

“After schools shut their gates on Friday afternoon they will remain closed until further notice. This will be for all children, except for those of key workers and for children who are the most vulnerable.”  So said former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson on Wednesday 18th March 2020.   Most pupils eventually returned to school in September of that year after six months out of the classroom,...

Perhaps one of the most enduring debates in the world of teaching is the question of whether teaching is an art or science.  In recent weeks, not one but two new books have made a strong case for placing a greater emphasis on the science of teaching.  At the beginning of June, Ross McGill – the founder of Teacher Toolkit and probably the most followed teacher on Twitter – published a book called ‘...

You don’t often see teaching unions, schools, colleges, universities and education charities publicly join forces to resist a new government policy, but the debate over the future of qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds in England has done just that.  In 2016 when the government published their plans for T-levels, the new technical qualification for 16 to 19-year-olds, it raised an obvious questi...

At the end of March, the government published two significant documents in the space of two days. First came the government’s plans for the future of the state school system in England, which grabbed plenty of media attention.   Next came their new consultation on how to improve the support available to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (or SEND for short),...

A Greek philosopher once said that “change is the only constant in life.” I’m sure that rings true for anyone working in careers education in England over the past decade.  In many respects, it seems obvious that we need to provide young people with careers information, advice and guidance because they need help to find out what jobs are available, and which qualifications and courses they need to...

As the UK economy slowly emerges from the pandemic, the government has already begun withdrawing many of the schemes that it introduced to support young people over the last two years.  This includes the demise of the Kickstart programme, which subsidised jobs for young people who were unemployed, as well as the incentive payments for employers who recruited apprentices during the pandemic.  But t...

Who would have thought - you wait three years for a government response to an independent review of the Higher Education system, and then two responses come along at once.  Unsurprisingly, when ministers recently published their plans for the Higher Education, or HE sector, the headlines were dominated by the decision to freeze tuition fees at £9,250 for the next three years as well as some contro...

“Failing children and taxpayers”, “a bureaucratic nightmare”, a “spaghetti junction of funding”, “baking in deepening inequalities”, “pouring taxpayers’ money down the drain”..... Judging by these reviews, it is hard to conclude that the National Tutoring Programme in England has been a resounding success thus far.  Having been announced in June 2020 as part of the government’s COVID recovery effo...

One of the most common criticisms of politicians and policymakers is that they keep chopping and changing between different policies, making it hard for any idea or approach to build momentum and recognition among those it is trying to reach.  On that basis, perhaps we should be glad that the apprenticeship levy – which was introduced in 2017 – is still very much alive and kicking as it celebrates...

As the Chancellor Rishi Sunak set out his ‘Plan For Jobs’ in July 2020, he recognised that the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic were hitting young people particularly hard.  In response, the Government wanted to generate new jobs and opportunities for them, and so the £2 billion ‘Kickstart’ programme was born.   Through Kickstart, employers were asked to create new jobs for any 16 to 24-year-...

The ‘Varsity Blues’ cheating scandal in the United States, which began almost exactly two years ago to the day, is one of the most astonishing education stories in living memory.  The rich and famous, including Hollywood actresses, hedge fund managers and a number of chief executives, paid vast sums, sometimes over a million dollars, to fraudulently boost their children’s prospects of getting into...