This is a great piece below on the emerging ‘second transition’ year in schools from Owen Carter writing for Schools Week in January 👇

schoolsweek.co.uk/what-is-the-se…

Another twist in the multi-million pound MIS turf war that schools are caught up in

Kudos to Jack Dyson first revealing the potential dodgy practice impacting schools that is now being investigated

schoolsweek.co.uk/competition-wa…

Good to see the leadership unions pick this issue up after it was raised by their members. We first revealed the potential problem in March

schoolsweek.co.uk/pensions-some-…

Loads of chat this weekend about Labour’s promised curriculum review, but what about the party’s other policies?

Luckily, we’ve got a Labour Policy Tracker with, as it stands, all 27 announced policies (although do let us know if we’ve missed any!)

schoolsweek.co.uk/the-schools-we…

👌

Lots of talk this week about government keeping a closer eye on schools that don’t appear to be inclusive

But is this happening, why and is the data even robust enough to pick them out?

Awesome investigation from Samantha Booth a few months back digging into all this

Scissor statement in the wild: 'Are academies decentralising?'

It seems obvious to me (and others in thread) that giving power on curriculum, hiring, pay to schools is decentralising.

But others are in good faith saying shift on finance away from LA to DfE means it centralises.

Quite the piece from Tim Leunig on Labour’s private school VAT plan 👀

Important points by Ed Vainker about the changing face of teacher recruitment.

Schools being left behind in the flexi-working revolution means that graduate pipeline could dry up - so what can we do to shift recruitment to non-grads already in schools?

Here’s his plan 👇

Really interesting analysis showing far fewer less than ‘good’ grades have been issued under Oliver’s tenure so far.

But, it’s early days to draw firm conclusions, it’s a trend that had already started before he joined, and lots of thoughts on why it might be

SCOOP: Pupil data is being used to check for benefit fraud and pursue parents under a secret deal between Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions

An extraordinary revelation uncovered by the unfaltering Defend Digital Me. Full story brought to you by Schools Week

schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-secre…

Ministers are attempting to introduce more oversight of unregulated alternative provision

It follows an investigation by Jessica Hill last year revealing a huge rise in children being placed in such settings

schoolsweek.co.uk/out-of-sight-o…

‘Whilst the government focuses on forcing councils to make cuts to balance the books, the system to support children and families crumbles. And it is disabled children and their families who suffer’

Safety valve latest from Samantha Booth 👇

If you want to find out more about this then Samantha Booth is basically the one journalist covering it full time.

Chaminda Jayanetti has also written a fair bit about it.

A very healthy and active set of Movers and Shakers this week 🤣