Documents Mentioned Below Can Be Found On

Academy and School News Update, December 2 2017 to January 7 2018

Documents mentioned below can be found on

Now Teach – a charity set up to help people put skills acquired during a successful career to use in the classroom – has been given £350,000 to expand in to Hastings, an opportunity area

Education New Year Honours listis at

The DfE is launching a new service designed to give more vulnerable children the chance to attend some of the country’s highest quality independent and state boarding schools.The Boarding School Partnerships Information Service – which is being launched in collaboration with the Boarding Schools’ Association – will link local authorities up with a host of children’s charities and boarding schools so they can work together to identify more young people on the edge of care who can be put forward for bursaries and scholarships, helping them attend some of the country’s best schools.

The DfE is asking parents, teachers and young people to help shape a new relationships and sex education curriculum that will help them stay safe and face the challenges of the modern world.The current statutory guidance for teaching Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) was introduced in 2000. It currently fails to address risks to children which have grown in prevalence in recent years, including online pornography, sexting and staying safe online.The guidance is being updated after legislation was passed by Parliament earlier this year to make relationships education compulsory in all primary schools and relationships and sex education compulsory in all secondary schools.As part of that process, an eight week call for evidence ending on Feb 12 will invite views on age-appropriate content on mental wellbeing, staying safe online and LGBT issues in the updated subjects. See

Employers, education and training providers can now apply for a share of £170m to establish new Institutes of Technology (IoTs), which will specialise in delivering the higher level technical skills that employers need. See

The DfE has launched plans to improve and increase development opportunities for teachers as part of a drive to attract people into the profession.The proposals in a consultation ending on March 9 on strengthening Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) and improving career progression for teachersinclude a plan to boost the support and mentoring available to new teachers. The overall period before teachers gain Qualified Teacher Status could also be extended to enable this, giving even greater standing to the teaching profession and preparing teachers for a successful career. Under the current consultation proposals, the changes to Qualified Teacher Status will become statutory from September 2019, and will apply to teachers starting their Initial Teacher Training from that point. Teachers who complete Initial Teacher Training will have the same pay, rights and protections as current newly qualified teachers as it currently the case.There will also be a renewed focus on the importance of high-quality development opportunities for existing teachers. Proposals include the expansion of professional qualifications, creating guidance about professional development entitlements, ring fencing development budgets within the schools that need it most and a new fund to encourage teachers to take sabbaticals so they can gain expertise that can be used in a school environment.See

To coincide with the publication of the above consultation, applications have also opened for schools to bid for a share of the next round of the Leadership Equality and Diversity Fund, worth over £1.8m over the next two years. This fund will support teachers from under-represented backgrounds – including women and people from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds – to progress into leadership roles.

The DfE has announced plans to boost social mobility through education, with the key document being “Unlocking talent, fulfilling potential”, in written and schematic format. A copy of these documents can be found on the above website, Documents-Latest Documents

How these relate to delivery plans for each opportunity area can be found at

One overarching ambition will focus on places and communities across the country that feel they have been ‘left behind’, because they have not yet seen the improvement that other parts of the country have already benefited from. A further four ambitions will cover the key life stages of people’s education.

Ambition 1: Closing the word gap

Boosting access to high quality early language and literacy, both in the classroom and at home, ensuring more disadvantaged children leave school having mastered the basic of literacy that many take for granted.

Ambition 2: Closing the attainment gap

Raising standards for every pupil, supporting teachers early in their career as well as getting more great teachers in areas where there remain significant challenges.

Ambition 3: Real choice at post-16

Creating world-class technical education, backed by a half a billion pounds in investment, and increasing the options for all young people regardless of their background.

Ambition 4: Rewarding careers for all

Boosting skills and confidence to make the leap from education into work, raising their career aspirations. Building a new type of partnership with businesses to improve advice, information and experiences for young people.

The plan sets out action and investment in a range of areas including:

£50million to boost school nursery provision in some of the most challenging areas, so more children benefit from early education support before they arrive at primary school.
A consultation on proposals to enhance early careers support and professional development for teachers, in particular those working in challenging schools and areas. This will help to further drive up standards in schools by retaining the best teachers and attracting the best individuals to the profession with a ‘gold-standard’ training and development offer.
A new £23 million Future Talent Fund to trial a range of new teaching approaches to support the education of the most-able children from less well-off communities.

As part of this social mobility action plan, the DfE has announced a range of measures to help more children from disadvantaged backgrounds master the basics of reading and develop their language skills in primary school, these relating to ambitions one and two above.Programmes announced include:

A new Centre of Excellence for Literacy Teaching that will set up a national network of 35 English Hubs across the country – backed by £26 million investment - to work with schools in challenging circumstances and help raise standards. The centre will also promote and share effective practice with a particular focus on language and literacy teaching in reception. This mirrors the approach with Maths Hubs – high performing schools which share their knowledge with other schools locally;
From April 2018, new phonics and reading partnerships will be set up, to drive improvements in teaching and encouraging more pupils to enjoy reading a wide range of literature. Another 20 phonics and reading roadshows will also be run across the country and include a specific focus on reception teaching. This new investment worth £435,000 will build on the successes of the phonics programmes,
£5.7 million through the Strategic School Improvement Fund for initiatives that boost literacy and numeracy skills in early years and primary education in 469 schools around the country, benefitting around 40,000 children; and
Inviting organisations to bid for the contract to launch a £5 million fund to trial approaches across the North of England that will help parents and carers to support early language development at home. Research shows that this early home learning environment plays a vital role in developing a child’s vocabulary, and provides additional benefits to those gained from attending formal early education.

There will also be a new £7.7 million curriculum to encourage the development of high quality teaching resources by organisations, including by leading cultural and scientific institutions. These resources will help teachers deliver the government’s new curriculum while reducing workload and giving them more time to focus on teaching.

A recent study, “Economic returns to GCSEs: region and disadvantage”, estimates the potential value to the economy if more disadvantaged children achieved at least 5 good GCSEs, including English and maths, with the results presented by region. The data revealed that 45% of London’s disadvantaged boys, and 52% of the city’s disadvantaged girls, achieved five or more A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and Maths, whereas the figure in all other regions was under 32% for boys and under 42% for girls. This led to an attainment gap in London of 21 percentage points, compared to over 30 percentage points in other regions.See

Pledges to create more flexible working opportunities in schools have come in following the government’s first Flexible Working in Schools Summit, which took place in October. For details of these see, For details of the DfE policy on this issue see

Justine Greening has announced that the Generation UK-China scheme will be expanded to give twice as many young people from disadvantaged and less represented backgrounds the opportunity to take up internships in China from 2018.

The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) ranks England joint eighth out of 50 countries, and among the highest performing countries in Europe.The results are based on a study of the reading comprehension and enjoyment of a cohort of 340,000 nine-year-olds around the world

In light of the national roll out of Universal Credit, the DfE has launched a consultation asking for views on how the government should continue to offer early years education to the families who should be receiving the 15 hours of free childcare for two-year-olds from disadvantaged families. See

The government has published proposals to improve mental health support for children and young people in England. Over £300 million has been made available to fund them.The government is asking people for their views on the planned measures, which are set out in a green paper. The measures include:

encouraging every school and college to have a ‘designated senior mental health lead’
setting up mental health support teams working with schools, to give children and young people earlier access to services
piloting a 4-week waiting time for NHS children and young people’s mental health services
a new working group to look at mental health support for 16 to 25-year-olds
a report by the Chief Medical Officer on the impact that technology has on children and young people’s mental health, to be produced in 2018

The consultation on the green paper will run for 13 weeks until 2 March 2018. See

The Education and Health Select Committees have launched a joint inquiry to “scrutinise the proposed scope and implementation of the green paper, and to follow up on their previous recommendations.” The committees intend to begin hearing oral evidence this month

A copy of the green paper in a full and quick read formats can be found on the above website, Documents-Latest Documents

A Pupil Mental Health Crisis?' Survey report 2017 has been issued

A copy of this can be found on the above website, Documents-Latest Documents

The DfE has set out four themes that will underpin the government’s careers strategy. The plans to improve the provision of careers guidance and advice in schools include:

Interactions between schools and businesses - "Secondary schools will be expected to provide pupils with at least one meaningful interaction with businesses every year, with a particular focus on STEM industries.”

More time with employers from an early age – The government has pledged £2 million to pilot ways of engaging children in careers from an early age, including in challenging areas.
Dedicated careers leaders - The government aims for every school and college to have a dedicated careers leader, with £4 million to provide training and support for at least 500 schools and colleges (equivalent to £8000 per school) “so they can give the most up-to-date advice and fully prepare young people for the world of work”. The strategy calls for governing boards and head teachers to give ‘explicit backing’ to careers leaders.
Careers hubs – The government has pledged £5 million funding to develop 20 careers hubs, led by the Careers and Enterprise Company to work across the Gatsby Benchmarks for good careers guidance, linking together schools, colleges, universities and local businesses.
Specialist advice for adults who need it most - The National Careers Service will provide access to specialist support for adults with low qualification levels and special education needs.

A copy of the Careers Strategy can be found on the above website, Documents-Latest Documents

The DfE has also issued “Careers guidance and access for education and training providers -statutory guidance for schools on providing careers guidance”. New provisions within the Technical and Further Education Act 2017 have come into force. As part of the Act, schools must “ensure that there is an opportunity for a range of education and training providers to access registered pupils during the relevant phase of their education for the purpose of informing them about approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships”. To meet the requirements of the Act a school must “explain in a policy statement how providers can get involved with your school and the opportunities you have for them to talk to your pupils”. For more details, see

A copy of this document can be found on the above website, Documents-Latest Documents

The DfE has issued updated Data protection: privacy notice model documents. The privacy notices have been enhanced to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), which comes into force in May 2018. The DfE highlights that these models are simply a recommendation; schools and local authorities are free to review and amend the wording to reflect their individual circumstances.See

The DfE has updated the Local authority interactive tool (LAIT). See

The DfE has issued Research and analysis on the effects of the English Baccalaureate. See

The DfE has issued updated technical guidance on primary accountability, school-level progress measures and similar schools. See

The DfE has issued lists of staff qualifications that meet the DfE criteria for counting in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework staff/child ratios. See The DfE is also consulting on the proposed criteria for the minimum content of level 2 early years assistant qualifications. See

The DfE has issued information about the EBacc performance measure and the criteria qualifications must meet to count towards it, along with how the attainment measure will change to a school’s EBacc average point score for the results of exams taken in 2018 onwards. See

The DfE has issued a consultation, which ends on Feb 22,seeking views on proposed changes to the statutory guidance 'Keeping children safe in education'. See

The DfE has issued advice for schools and colleges on how to prevent and respond to reports of s*xual v*olence and harassment between children.

A copy of this Document can be found on the above website, Documents-Latest Documents

The National Education Union (NEU) and UK Feminista, a feminist pressure group have issued their report regarding s*xual harassment of girls in schools, in the Houses of Parliament. For schools in particular, the NEU and UK Feminista recommend the following:

“adopt a ‘whole school approach’ to tackling s*xism
take a zero tolerance approach to s*xual harassment”

See

The DfE has issued 16 to 18 accountability headline measures, guide for schools, colleges and local authorities on new measures in the 2017 performance tables. See

The DfE has issued “Recruiting a headteacher, a guide to help governors and trustees make effective decisions when recruiting and selecting headteachers and other school leaders”.

A copy of this Document can be found on the above website, Documents-Latest Documents

For an associated toolkit, see via

Find and compare schools in Englandfor primary, secondary and special needs schools and colleges has been updated as from Jan 3, see

On Dec 14 the DfE issued Primary school performance tables, 2017.Nationally, 61% of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics: 65% of girls and 57% of boys. Girls made more progress in reading and writing while boys made more progress in mathematics. The attainment gap between pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) and other pupils has widened by 1% compared to 2016, with 43% achieving the expected standard in reading, writing and mathematics this year. Pupils with special educational needs (SEN) had the biggest attainment gap, with just 18% reaching the expected standard in all three subjects.511 primary schools fell below the floor standard and 524 were identified as ‘coasting’. See

The DfE has issued ready reckoners to calculate progress scores for pupils and schools for the 2017 key stage 2 revised data release. See

The DfE has issued revised information on the 2017 national curriculum assessments at key stage 2, including breakdowns by pupil characteristics. See

The DfE has issued provisional information on the 2017 phonics screening check and assessments at key stage 1, including breakdowns by pupil characteristics. See

The DfE has issued findings from a study of early years provision quality within the larger study of early education and development (SEED) project. See

The DfE has issued provisional statistics on the achievements of young people at the end of key stage 4 in England, in the 2016 to 2017 academic year. See

The DfE has issued comparisons of Ofsted ratings for local authority schools and sponsored academies since 2010. See

The DfE has issued a report into how young people make educational choices after they turn 16 years old and what information they use. See

The DfE has issued a report on how learners, parents, teachers and careers guidance professionals use information, tools and data to make informed choices in education. See

Staff malpractice in public exams 2017:

2,715 penalties were issued to students in 2017, up from 2,180 compared to 2016 and representing 0.015% of entries (compared to 0.011% in 2016).
Having access to a mobile phone was main reason for student penalties.
895 penalties were issued to staff, up from 360 in 2016. This still involves a very small proportion of the total number of staff in England (350K FTE staff).
Exam boards are more likely to issue formal written warnings for similar offences rather than informal advisory notes this year.
120 penalties were issued to schools or colleges, down from 155 in 2016.
The actual number of penalties issued to schools or colleges is small given the overall number of centres (over 5,000).

Ofqual has published its review of the 2017 summer exam series, during which a range of new GCSEs and A levels were awarded for the first time. This report provides a broad overview of exam planning, exam administration, marking, the awarding process and what happened post-results. See

For details about the National Reference Test in 2017, see

Ofqual said it would review

the risks and benefits of the long-established practice of some teachers who write or contribute to exam papers also teaching the qualification
the effectiveness of the safeguards used to reduce the risk of malpractice where a teacher has the dual role of writing and teaching a qualification

Their interim report explains how they have gathered evidence to inform their review, the nature of that evidence, the options they are considering and their next steps. See