Ofsted inspections are to be postponed for the final week of term in order to give schools time to consider measures for potentially coping with the Omicron variant of the virus in January. Furthermore, the Department for Education (DfE) have stated that face-to-face teaching should still continue alongside the usage of face masks in communal areas…
A report has revealed that 1 in 4 private school teachers felt stressed by remote learning, due to parental pressure, during the lockdowns. Undoubtedly, the parent-teacher boundaries became blurred during the remote learning period, with some parents taking a more active approach to their child’s learning, much to the dismay of some teachers. Many felt…
GCSE and A-Level pupils will be given a choice of topics and advance information in order to “maximise fairness”. According to the Department for Education (DfE) the decision was influenced by the learning disruption caused by Covid. After a consultation that amassed over 6,000 responses, the decision is that for GCSE English literature, history and…
New advice has been published by Ofsted with instructions on how to gather evidence on thorough investigations of individual subjects, as well as assess schools’ catch-up work. Here are some of the key features Ofsted’s inspections teams will be looking out for: Assess the Quality of Catch-up Tutoring Tutoring is a significant part of the…
The Department for Education (DfE) plans to launch extra tutoring provision to complement the National Tutoring Programme (NTP). The government is upscaling its tutoring offer with £1 billion designated for 100 million hours worth of catch-up support over the next three years. The majority of the investment will go towards the schools themselves, which will then…
A new survey conducted by the Royal Society of Chemistry has revealed that trainee and first year science teachers feel unprepared to teach science practical lessons due to Covid restrictions. More specifically, the research shows that more than half (52 per cent) of trainee and first year chemistry teachers said that they felt unprepared to teach…
According to research, within the first eight months of the current school year the number of children being registered for homeschooling rose in the UK by 75%, with the main reason being due to anxiety around Covid. The Department for Education says it supports parents that are homeschooling and it plans to launch a registration…
Education secretary Gavin Williamson has recently outlined his plans for Ofsted, exams and catch-up funding. Here are some of his key education objectives for the near future: Accelerated Ofsted Inspections Williamson is considering accelerating the timetable of Ofsted inspections. There are some schools that have not been inspected for 14 years, and many of them…
According to a recent Tes poll, 8 in 10 teachers believe that the workload for grading GCSEs and A Levels has been too intense. Two thirds of teachers have reported that they have lost at least a week of their own time to grading work. A Tes survey conducted of 2,800 teachers suggested that 64 percent worked…
This year’s teacher assessed GCSE and A-Level grading system has put immense pressure on both teachers and students. Students particularly feel overwhelming pressure due to the amount of mock exams and assessments they have had to perform in order to generate evidence for their grades. Unfortunately, this has taken its toll on the mental health…
