All posts filed under: Education

what this means for the process of learning

what this means for the process of learning

Published by skeptic

Deep in Book VII of Plato’s Republic, Socrates describes prisoners chained inside a cave, mistaking shadows cast on a wall by firelight for reality itself. They name the shadows, debate them and develop expertise about them. The prisoners are completely, sincerely wrong, and they have no idea. The cave isn’t a place of stupidity, it’s a place of convincing, well-organised illusion. But Plato’s real interest wasn’t the cave, it was in the periagoge – a Greek word meaning the turning of the soul away from shadows and toward the light. For Plato, this was education itself: not the filling of an empty vessel with facts, but a fundamental reorientation of how a person relates to truth and how they come to know that truth. The shadows persist but today they aren’t cast by firelight, they are generated by machines. Large language models (LLMs), image making and AI-powered search produce outputs that are fluent, confident and immediate. But here’s the crucial difference from Plato’s original problem, his shadows were at least connected to something real. What …

Boys want to challenge harmful ideas about manhood – working with them, not lecturing them, is the key

Boys want to challenge harmful ideas about manhood – working with them, not lecturing them, is the key

Published by skeptic

In a recent BBC documentary, former England men’s football manager Gareth Southgate explored the challenges facing young men in Britain, including low school attainment, declining employment opportunities, low self-esteem and poor mental health. The positive masculinity Southgate promotes focuses on ambition to achieve, emotional openness, resilience and learning from setbacks, advocating for the role of positive male role models. But there is a part of boys’ lives where low expectations cause the most lasting damage and where the consequences fall hardest on girls and women as well as on boys themselves. That part is intimate relationships. Too often sex education misses the deeper opportunity to examine the messages about male-female relationships young men absorb – be tough, don’t show emotion, pursue sex as conquest. Southgate’s documentary, Gareth Southgate: Changing the Game for Young Men, didn’t cover relationships with girls or sex education explicitly. Boys told him that they feel like they’re seen as a problem. “There’s a bad stigma around young men – it’s obviously not good,” one said. And a teacher in the documentary …

More than 500k pupils in schools with EHCPs

More than 500k pupils in schools with EHCPs

Published by skeptic

The number of pupils with an education health and care plan has reached another record high, with more than 500,000 children now receiving statutory support for special educational needs in school. Annual data released by the Department for Education today shows there are 11.6 per cent more pupils with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) in schools in the 2025-26 academic year, a total of 538,547. This is up from 482,640 in 2024-25, and represents 6 per cent of the school population. It is the second time there has been a jump of 11.6 per cent – the highest since 2016 – in the past decade. The number of pupils receiving SEN support but without an EHCP has also increased by 2.8 per cent, to more than 1.3 million. In total, around 1.8 million pupils in England have SEN, up by 5.2 per cent from last year. Mainstream school increase The proportion of pupils with an EHCP in mainstream state-funded schools has increased from 56.2 per cent in 2024-25 to 57.8 per cent in …

Almost half of the disadvantage gap ‘locks in’ by age 11

Almost half of the disadvantage gap ‘locks in’ by age 11

Published by skeptic

Almost half of the GCSE attainment gap between poorer pupils and their better-off peers is “locked in” by the end of primary school, new research has warned. By the time they reach the end of key stage 4, disadvantaged pupils are 18 months behind those from less deprived backgrounds. Research from the Education Policy Institute and Education Endowment Foundation found lower prior attainment at age 11 was the “largest contributor” to the gap, adding 6.8 months, Pupils’ lower prior attainment at age seven also contributes 1.6 months. The report said this reinforced “that early intervention has a ‘protective’ factor against gap-widening later on”. Overall, lower prior attainment in the early years and primary contributes 44 per cent of the gap seen at key stage 4. But pupils’ past performance isn’t the only factor in the gap. The report found disrupted schooling – notably pupil absence – plays a “progressively larger role as children progress from primary to secondary school”. Absence contributes around a fifth of the attainment gap at key stage 2, rising to a …

‘Early education partnerships’ to get grants of up to £50k

‘Early education partnerships’ to get grants of up to £50k

Published by skeptic

New partnerships between primary schools and early years settings will be given grants of up to £50,000 to improve reception readiness. The Department for Education has set out how new “early education partnerships”, announced last year in the best start in life strategy, will work. Early education minister Olivia Bailey said the partnerships will create a “more coherent and connected early years landscape”. Partnerships will focus on inclusion and support for children with SEND and additional needs and from disadvantaged backgrounds. Strengthening transitions Guidance released by the Department for Education today states the primary objectives of the partnerships are to strengthen transition between early years and school and improve reception readiness. In 2023-24, around 67 per cent of children achieve were judged to have a “good” level of development across areas like language, personal development, maths and literacy. Ministers want to increase this to 75 per cent by 2028. The partnerships will build the evidence base for effective transitions, especially among vulnerable pupil groups. This will ensure more reception teaching time is spent on the …

GCSE computing entries drop by 10,000 in two years

GCSE computing entries drop by 10,000 in two years

Published by skeptic

More than 10,000 fewer students are sitting GCSE computing compared to two years ago, while French has also seen a sharp decline. Ofqual has released its provisional entry statistics for GCSEs and A-levels for this year’s summer exams. Here’s what you need to know… 1. Overall entries up again after dip Last year’s GCSE and A-level entries saw a drop in entries by 0.5 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively. This was despite the slight increase in the number of 16- and 18-year-olds that year. This was also after the number of GCSE entries had been “slowly but steadily increasing” since 2021. At the time Ofqual said the decrease in A-level entries was because that cohort had sat their GCSEs in 2023, when grading went back to pre-pandemic standards after grades soared due to Covid marking. But GCSE entries increased by 1.1 per cent, to 5,840,185 in summer 2026. The number of A-level entries have also increased to 845,485 – a 2.9 per cent rise. This was down to a 4.3 per cent increase …

Unions slam ‘lack of meaningful progress’

Unions slam ‘lack of meaningful progress’

Published by skeptic

Unions representing school support staff have threatened the government with industrial action over a “lack of meaningful progress” on improving pay. The leaders of GMB, Unison and Unite, which between them represent more than 500,000 education workers in England, have written to education secretary Bridget Phillipson with concerns the remit of the new School Support Staff Negotiating Body (SSSNB) will initially be “very limited”. Gary Smith, Andrea Egan and Sharon Graham have also expressed fears a move to encourage all schools to join trusts comes “at precisely the moment when a coherent national framework for school support staff remains absent”. Unless there is “meaningful progress” on pay, the unions “we will have no option but to escalate our response publicly and industrially”, they said. Labour pledged in its election manifesto to re-establish the SSSNB. The body was developed under New Labour but scrapped by the coalition government. Bridget Phillipson In their letter, the union leaders called SSSNB “our best and long overdue opportunity to address the deep-rooted inequalities, fragmentation, and inconsistency experienced by school support …

Pupils more likely to miss school on their birthday

Pupils more likely to miss school on their birthday

Published by skeptic

Pupils are up to 55 per cent more likely to miss school on their birthdays, according to new government absence analysis. Department for Education research also shows pupils are missing school after medical appointment and when the term ends with a “broken week”. The DfE has also produced new guidance for schools on how to communicate with parents about attendance. Common absences The DfE analysed school attendance patterns for years 1 to 11 in 2023-24. Across all pupils, overall absence rates were higher on birthdays. This gap peaked in year 8, when pupils are almost 55 per cent more likely to be absent on their birthday. Analysis also found that pupils were missing more of the school day after a medical or dental appointment. If pupils had an appointment during the morning session, just 54 per cent were present for the afternoon session. However, many of these pupils were recorded as having another medical appointment (39 per cent). Absence rates were higher in schools that had a broken week at the end of term. Analysis …

what secondary school pupils choose to eat

what secondary school pupils choose to eat

Published by skeptic

Changes are on the horizon for the food that students can choose in English schools. The government is proposing updates to the school food standards, which set out what schools can serve. The changes are aimed at increasing fibre and reducing fat, sugar and salt in school food. These will, for example, remove deep fried foods and fruit juice from school menus, while also limiting how often options such as pizza can be offered. Our new research examined what students chose in secondary school under the current school food standards, and highlights students’ established patterns of food choice. In our study, we examined more than a quarter of a million choices made by over 800 11- to 18-year-olds in a secondary school. By looking at what they chose over one academic year, we developed a profile for each student – and were able to look at patterns of food choice. We found that students fell into one of five groups, which we named according to the foods and drinks that dominated. Sandwiches and savoury snacks …

Academy trust with £9m deficit names new CEO

Academy trust with £9m deficit names new CEO

Published by skeptic

The academy trust in the largest financial hole in England has named its new chief executive, days after the resignation of its last boss. Lisa Walton has today been installed as acting CEO of the St Ralph Sherwin Catholic MAT, which has been the subject of ministerial scrutiny and strikes after sliding into an over £9 million deficit. This comes after the 25-school chain announced on Friday that previous chief Kevin Gritton, who had been in post for almost four years, had resigned with immediate effect. The new CEO St Ralph chair Sarah Noon confirmed this afternoon that Walton has been appointed acting chief until August 2027. “The appointment is effective from today and has been approved by the Bishop of Nottingham and the Department for Education,” she added. For the last four years, Walton has been deputy of the East Midlands Education, which has 24 schools on its books. “During this time, she also served as interim CEO for 14 months. She is a practising Catholic,” Noon continued. “On behalf of the trust board, …