The government will legislate to allow councils to open schools again, end the automatic academisation of failing maintained settings and make academies follow reformed national teacher pay scales and conditions buff.ly/3ZZ3AzP

My prediction for the care system in 2025 is short and sweet: nothing will change while businesses decide the fate of children and young people in care. The rest is just mood music.

Bit surprised there hasn't been more interest in the below, especially given the current academies debate. And this seeming to be a part, as the piece and recent investigations argue, of "a move of spending away from classrooms, and towards highly-paid managers."

National education debates are increasingly presented as false polarised choices: relationships vs. results, equity vs. excellence. In truth, the most impactful teacher leaders show us it’s not either/or—it’s both. This is when we can truly transform the lives of children.👇👇 👇

🔻'One feature marks out our system as a global outlier: our management structures are labyrinthine' buff.ly/40q454R

👀 A union is balloting members over what would be the biggest strike against an academy trust in a row over teacher working conditions buff.ly/4h1iXxA

🌟 Have Your Say on the Haringey Youth Strategy! We need YOUR help to shape the future of youth services in our borough. Your ideas are crucial in creating a vibrant & inclusive environment for all young people in Haringey. Survey closes on 3 Feb. 👉 youthstrategy.commonplace.is

Harris Federation's annual accounts finally drop, hours before the midnight deadline, confirming CEO Sir Dan Moynihan as English state schools' first £500k-a-year leader: schoolsweek.co.uk/moynihan-becom…

Half a million quid of money for kids education going into the pocket of a bloke running a MAT where 27% of teachers leave each year.

❌ Exclusive: Academy leaders fear potentially transformative academisation will be kiboshed by parents and unions emboldened by government proposals to make academisation 'discretionary' Our investigation 🔽 buff.ly/4hCpwq6

What's the evidential basis for this? No great difference in results between academies and non-academies. Big MATs seem to fare worse on measures such as teacher turnover and levels of qualified teachers. And spend more on management, rather than in classroom.

"The fact is multi-academy trusts have misused their supposed freedoms, badly, to be honest. We've seen excessive CEO pay go up. Teachers in academies are paid less." - Daniel Kebede at today's education committee. We have a severe recruitment and retention crisis, yet big

Caribbean & overseas-trained teachers at Harris Federation are balloting because they often wait for many years before their schools will help them achieve pay equality with their UK-trained peers. All educators, including overseas-trained teachers, deserve fair pay for the work

So, I continue to think debate around this bill can lack a sense of what has actually been going on in academies, even though datasets in particular are starting to build up quite a picture - around eg teacher turnover, QTS, spending -which does seem worthy of much more scrutiny.

Earlsmead Primary School in #Tottenham is paving the way for inclusivity with a new Autism Resource Base✨ With tailored support & meaningful interactions, our young superstars are set to thrive👏 👉 shorturl.at/M8oU5

Auto-enrol eligible pupils for free school meals, say MPs bbc.in/3XpCIaj

New: Half of England’s academy trusts lack elected or appointed parents in their governance educationuncovered.co.uk/news/half-of-e…

💛❤😍theguardian.com/society/2025/m…

Remember when Gove told everyone that becoming an academy would give them “freedom from LA bureaucracy”? That top slice is really something!

Harris Federation's accounts have dropped a bit earlier than usual this year, with Schools Week carrying the annual story about increase in Sir Dan Moynihan's £500,000-plus salary two days in advance of accounts publication deadline. schoolsweek.co.uk/best-paid-acad…