As far as I can tell, I may be one of the few people who likes the Liz Truss plan for an automatic Oxbridge interview for those with 3 A*s — with objections spanning the traditional right press, the centrist Dads, and (less surprisingly) the liberal left. So I want…

A change to the published schedule for Sunday thoughts this week, to take account of (likely next PM) Liz Truss’ six point education plan released late on Saturday night, and her briefing that she wants to be ‘the Education Prime Minister’. I want to offer some general reflections, as well…

Hello. Fresh from being off on holiday for a couple of weeks while the country burst into flame (literally and metaphorically), I’ve been watching the emergent Tory leadership contest. I’m sure both my regular readers are pleased normal service on Sunday thoughts is resuming. — — — Liz Truss’ team…

The NEU are on the move. Even the more moderate ASCL isn’t ruling out strike action. The reason — a slew of data showing that teacher pay is falling in real terms, and some horrific data on teacher supply. What will teacher pay be in Sep, could we see strikes…

It’s been a bad week for Sir Keir Starmer, with a slew of articles saying that he’s boring and uninspiring — including some fairly breathtaking anonymous briefing from his own Shadow Cabinet. (Remarkably, this is in some quarters getting more pick up than the PM’s ethics adviser resigning on the…

In 2016, Nicky Morgan proposed to make every school an Academy. Her White Paper argued that: The academy system is now sufficiently mature to move to the next phase, with every school an academy. This would not have been possible in 2010, but will now help to spread high standards…

I’ve been thinking about the Jubilee this week, obviously. But also West Wing (an occupational hazard), about schools, and about whether we were wrong about the Big Society. One of the privileges of my job is to meet with a lot of schools. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve…

Schools Week reported earlier this week that civil servants in DfE are sitting in corridors and communal areas, as the result of a “get back to the office” drive conflicts with the steady reduction of desk spaces in central government offices. …

The REF. The Research Excellence Framework. …