Inside Your Ed

Should struggling independent schools be converted into state schools?

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 05:00:00 +0000

VAT on school fees, the end of their business rates relief, a big hike in employers’ National Insurance contributions, falling pupil rolls. It is no exaggeration to say that independent schools in England have had a very tough couple of years financially.

These pressures have already forced some independent schools to close, but what if, rather than closing, these struggling schools became state schools instead?

That may sound outlandish but, as my new report for the Private Education Policy Forum shows, 27 independent schools have jumped from the independent sector into the state sector since 2007 – either as academies or free schools.

So why did these independent schools decide to move into the state sector? What obstacles did they face along the way? And, crucially, have these former independent schools become successful state schools?

To discuss this new report, I’m delighted to be joined by my co-author, Dr Tilly Clough, a lecturer in law at Queen's University Belfast.

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Is the push for more AI and ed tech in classrooms a big opportunity or big risk?

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 05:00:00 +0000

On the 28th of October 2021, the first ever episode of Inside Your Ed was released. Almost four and a half years later, I’m delighted to say that this is episode number 100 of Inside Your Ed – quite a milestone for a podcast with a tiny budget but a big interest in education policy.

Of course, little did we know in October 2021 that just a year later, the launch of ChatGPT would herald the emergence of a new form of Artificial Intelligence, or AI.

The long-term impact of this new Generative AI on our education system remains unclear, but that has not stopped the Department for Education, or DfE, from making not one, not two, but three announcements in the early weeks of 2026 on this very subject.

So what has the DfE announced in relation to AI and other forms of education technology, or ed tech? Are there any reasons to be cautious about the DfE’s direction of travel? And what will ultimately determine whether children and young people stand to benefit from a greater use of AI and ed tech in schools and colleges?

My guests are Renate Samson, a policy and data consultant who co-authored a major report last year for the Ada Lovelace Institute and Nuffield Foundation on AI in education, and Dr Cat Scutt, the Deputy Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching.

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Why are so many graduates finding it hard to get a job?

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

“It’s been a terrible year to graduate and find a job” said a recent headline in the Financial Times.

Other newspapers have also chipped in with equally gloomy headlines such as “Where have all the graduate jobs gone”, “It’s a jobs desert” and ‘It’s so demoralising’: UK graduates exasperated by high unemployment”.

So why are so many seemingly well qualified young people finding it hard to get a job? To what extent is AI to blame for graduates’ labour market woes? And are the challenges facing graduates likely to get better or worse in the coming years?

My guests are Sarah O'Connor, the employment columnist and associate editor at the Financial Times, and Stephen Isherwood, the joint Chief Executive of the Institute of Student Employers, a membership body that supports organisations who recruit graduates.

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What lies ahead for schools and colleges in 2026?

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 05:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to Inside Your Ed – I hope you’ve all had a great start to 2026.

Last year concluded with an action-packed autumn term of education policies, including the Curriculum and Assessment Review, a Post 16 White Paper and a new levy on international students along with several announcements on extra funding for schools and families.

But fear not, because this year is already poised to offer plenty more drama and debates. A Schools White Paper is expected in the coming weeks, including reforms to the support for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, or SEND for short, and that all comes on top of simmering tensions over this year’s teacher pay awards and Ofsted’s controversial new inspection framework.

To share his views on what is coming up in 2026, I’m delighted to be joined by Pepe Di’Iasio, the General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, which represents over 25,000 leaders in primary, secondary and post-16 education.

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To V or not to V - that is the question....

Thu, 18 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0000

In January 2025, I recorded an episode of Inside Your Ed titled ‘Will the debate over vocational and technical qualifications ever end?’.

It is therefore rather fitting that my final podcast of 2025 will prove beyond all reasonable doubt that this debate shows no sign of ending anytime soon.

In November this year, the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review proposed the creation of V levels - a new set of vocational qualifications for 16 to 19 year olds that are intended to sit between academic A levels and technical T levels.

The Government accepted this recommendation and has since launched a consultation on the design and implementation of V levels in order to get these new qualifications ready for September 2027.

So what problems are V levels supposed to solve? What opportunities and risks lie ahead for learners and providers with this new brand of qualifications? And will V levels be seen as a prestigious choice for young people or will they struggle to compete with A levels and T levels in terms of their visibility and profile?

My guests are Professor Dame Alison Wolf DBE, the Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management at Kings College London and author of a government review of vocational qualifications in 2011, and Shaun Hope, the principal of Bishop Auckland College, which delivers further education, vocational training and higher education to over 4,000 students across Durham.

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Is the new international student levy going to be taxing for the HE sector?

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 05:00:00 +0000

For the Higher Education, or HE sector, it may be starting to feel like one step forward is almost immediately followed by one step backward.

Last year, the announcement of a rise in tuition fees in line with inflation was accompanied by a large increase in taxes on employers, including HE providers, which probably wiped out some, if not all the extra fee income.

This year, the decision to again raise fees in line with inflation was accompanied by a brand new tax on HE providers in the form of an international student levy.

Needless to say, this new levy comes at a time when many universities and other providers are known to be struggling financially, and that’s before you even consider potential problems with the levy itself.

So what is this new international student levy? Are there likely to be winners and losers in different parts of the HE sector following the levy’s introduction? And are there ways that the levy could potentially be improved, or should the sector just keep fighting against it regardless?

My guests are Rose Stephenson, the Director of Policy and Strategy at the Higher Education Policy Institute, and Chris Havergal, the editor of Times Higher Education.

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Everyone agrees the SEND system is broken, but how do you fix it?

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 05:00:00 +0000

“Today is a landmark moment in improving the lives of children with SEND and their families. For too long, families have found themselves battling against a complex and fragmented system.”

Those words from then Children and Families Minister Edward Timpson back in 2014 accompanied the launch of a new system for supporting children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities, or SEND for short.

A significant part of this new system was Education, Health and Care Plans, or EHCPs, which would identify any additional needs of children and young people aged up to 25 and set out the extra support that they are legally entitled to receive.

Just over a decade later in 2025, and the SEND system is widely regarded to be complex, fragmented and facing financial ruin. What’s more, the current government’s planned reforms to SEND, which were scheduled for this autumn, have been delayed until the New Year.

In October, IPPR, a progressive think tank, published a new report called ‘BREAKING THE CYCLE: A BLUEPRINT FOR SEND REFORM’, which set out their proposals for putting special needs provision on a better and more sustainable path.

So what did this new report identify as the main problems facing the SEND system? Does SEND provision need major investment, major reform or both? And when the financial pressures on local and national government are so acute, can EHCPs survive in their current form for much longer?

My guests are Geoff Barton CBE, chair of the IPPR Inclusion Taskforce that fed into this new report and also a former headteacher and union leader, and Eleanor Harris, co-author of this new report and also the Director of Policy, Impact, Research and Communications at The Difference, a charity focused on inclusion.

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What final grade does the Curriculum and Assessment Review deserve?

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 05:00:00 +0000

The goal was evolution, not revolution, and when the final report from the Curriculum and Assessment Review, chaired by Professor Becky Francis, was published on November 5th, that is precisely what was delivered.

Across primary and secondary education in England, the Review proposed changes to the system as a whole as well as individual subjects, with all the changes firmly rooted in the evidence that the Review’s expert panel had received.

The Government has accepted a large number of recommendations from the Review but, rather unexpectedly, ministers have also decided to ignore some of the Review’s evidence-based recommendations and instead announce their own reforms.

So what were the main proposals in the Review’s final report? Was the Government right or wrong to reject some of the Review’s proposals? And does the goal of evolution not revolution mean that debates over some controversial topics are far from over?

My guests are the same two experts who joined me to digest the interim report from the Curriculum and Assessment Review back in April - Mary Myatt, an education adviser, writer and speaker, and Dale Bassett, the director of curriculum and assessment at United Learning, a group of over 100 schools.

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Does the Post 16 White Paper have the right answers, or even the right questions?

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 05:00:00 +0000

It is entirely normal for a Government to announce plans to reform either Higher Education (HE) or Further Education (FE). What is much less normal is a Government announcing a plan to reform HE and FE at the same time.

The Post 16 Education and Skills White Paper, published on the 20th of October, sought to do precisely that, as it set out the Government’s plan “to educate and train the workforce of the future and give people the skills and knowledge they need to succeed.”

So what are the main proposals in this White Paper? How much control do ministers even have over universities, colleges and other local and regional stakeholders? And will the plans in the White Paper bring HE and FE closer together or merely reinforce the status quo?

My guests are Shane Chowen, the editor of FE Week, and Nick Hillman OBE, the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute.

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How do you get more young apprentices into small businesses?

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Prime Minister Keir Starmer generated plenty of headlines at the Labour Party conference in late September when he set a new target of two-thirds of young people completing some form of higher level learning beyond school or college.

Rather than hitting this target purely by expanding university degrees, the government has set an extra sub-target of ensuring that by 2040 at least 10% of young people pursue higher technical education or apprenticeships by age 25, a near doubling of today’s figure.

However, as two new reports from the Edge Foundation explained earlier in September, young people can face many barriers when trying to access apprenticeships, while employers can face many barriers when trying to recruit young apprentices, particularly small and medium-sized companies - often known as SMEs.

So what are the barriers facing young people and employers? Should tackling these barriers be a local, regional or national responsibility? And is more funding the key to unlocking more apprenticeships for young people, or are there better solutions out there?

My guests are Anna Ambrose, the Chief Executive of the charity Workwhile, and Katy Dorman, the Apprenticeship Strategy Manager at Norfolk County Council.

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Does the Higher Education system need more 'super universities'?

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 05:00:00 +0000

If you were looking for reasons to be optimistic about the future of Higher Education, or HE, in England, the last academic year was a rather disappointing spectacle.

The inflation-linked rise in tuition fees towards the end of 2024 was swallowed up by the simultaneous increase in National Insurance costs for employers, including HE providers, while this summer’s Spending Review across all government departments offered no solutions to the sector’s funding woes.

In contrast, this academic year has started with HE in the news for a more positive reason, with the announcement on September 10th that the University of Greenwich and the University of Kent intended to “formally collaborate” to create a new “super-university”, provisionally titled the London and South East University Group.

So what is this new university group, and what is it trying to achieve? Could other universities be tempted to follow suit by setting up their own group-like structures? And is the notion of university groups the future of HE in this country or merely a distraction?

My guests are David Kernohan, the Deputy Editor of Wonkhe – a higher education news site - and Rachel Hewitt, the Chief Executive at MillionPlus, the Association for Modern Universities.

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Why have Ofsted's inspection plans caused controversy (again)?

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 05:00:00 +0000

When Ofsted, the school and college inspectorate in England, launched a consultation earlier this year on their new framework for conducting inspections, the response from teachers and leaders was pretty damning.

That’s not to say that an inspection system is ever likely to be universally loved, but Ofsted’s original plans – which we discussed on this podcast back in February – created a huge backlash.

So Ofsted went away and had another go, culminating in their new set of proposals for conducting inspections, released on September 9th. Unfortunately for Ofsted, the response from all the major unions has been just as critical at the second time of asking.

So what changes has Ofsted announced to their upcoming inspection framework? Are these changes the ones that critics wanted to see? And which parts of future Ofsted inspections are likely to prove controversial for many months to come?

My guests are Helena Marsh, the principal of Linton Village College, a comprehensive secondary school in South Cambridgeshire, and Mark Enser, a writer and columnist and also a former Ofsted inspector.

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What 'lessons' does Nick Gibb have for current and future education ministers?

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to Inside Your Ed – I hope you all had a great summer.

For many people working in politics, the summer break offers a gentler pace of life while most MPs and government ministers are away from Westminster. However, one former MP and minister decided that instead of putting his feet up, he should publish a new book that was almost destined to attract plenty of attention.

At the start of August, former schools minister Sir Nick Gibb and his co-author Robert Peal launched ‘Reforming Lessons: Why English Schools have improved since 2010 and how this was achieved’.

As you would expect from someone who was not afraid to take on his critics as a government minister, Nick Gibb puts forward a range of arguments and evidence to explain the major changes that he oversaw during his time in government.

I’m delighted to be joined today by Sir Nick, whose career includes 27 years as an MP, five years as Shadow Schools Minister and over 10 years as Schools Minister, for which he received a knighthood earlier this year.

So, what drove Nick Gibb’s thinking about how to improve schools in England? Is there anything he would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight? And where does Nick Gibb agree and disagree with the Labour Party - both past and present - when it comes to raising school standards?

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Five years on, are the challenges with T-levels growing or receding?

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Since T-levels were introduced in 2020 as new technical qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds, they have rarely been out of the spotlight.

In the last two years alone we have had major reports on T-levels from the Education Select Committee in Parliament, Ofsted and the National Audit Office – none of which painted a particularly rosy picture of how these qualifications have fared so far.

The latest in this long line of inquiries came on the 27th of June, when the Public Accounts Committee in Parliament, which monitors government spending, published its verdict on how T-levels have been designed and implemented.

So what concerns did the Public Accounts Committee raise about T-levels? Why has this new brand of qualifications struggled to deliver the ambitions set out for them when they were launched five years ago? And are things likely to get better or worse for T-levels over the rest of this Parliament?

My guests are Robert Halfon, the MP for Harlow from 2010 to 2024 who was twice Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships at the Department for Education, and Sorah Gluck, a Senior Policy Advisor at the Edge Foundation.

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How and when are we going to get 6,500 new teachers?

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 05:00:00 +0000

On Thursday 4th July 2024, the Labour Party won a resounding victory in the UK General Election.

In their election-winning manifesto, Labour’s number one pledge within their mission to ‘break down barriers to opportunity’ was to recruit 6,500 new teachers.

This pledge for 6,500 teachers has been repeated many times by government ministers in the 12 months since the election, but we’ve hardly heard anything about how the pledge will be delivered, or what it means in practice for schools and colleges.

So, what exactly was the original pledge that Labour made in their election manifesto? Why is it proving so difficult for the government to even define their pledge, let alone deliver it? And what risks lie ahead as the Government tries to attract more people into the teaching profession?

My guests are James Zuccollo, the director for school workforce at the Education Policy Institute, and Jack Worth, an education economist and school workforce lead at the National Foundation for Educational Research.

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Did the Spending Review deliver good or bad news for the education sector?

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 05:00:00 +0000

On June 11th, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the result of the Government’s Spending Review, which confirmed the budgets that each government department will have until 2028.

The Department for Education, or DfE’s budget will rise from £101 billion to £109 billion over this period – an increase of 0.8% after adjusting for inflation.

So, is the Spending Review outcome a good or bad result for the DfE? How did schools, colleges and universities fare in relation to each other within the DfE’s spending plans? And what question marks remain about how the DfE will prioritise its spending going forward?

My guests are Katie Carr, an Associate Director at the consultancy Public First, and Dani Payne, Senior Researcher at the Social Market Foundation think tank.

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Do we need to rethink how we train teachers and leaders in schools?

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 05:00:00 +0000

I think most people would agree that England’s rise up the international education league tables over the past decade or so has been a welcome sign of progress.

But when government funding is now in such short supply and is likely to remain so for some time yet, sustaining this recent progress may become increasingly challenging.

A new report from IPPR and Ambition Institute, written by Loic Menzies and Marie Hamer, argues that the way in which we support and invest in the teaching workforce through continuing professional development, or CPD, may be the key to unlocking higher education standards in future.

So, what does this new report want to change in terms of how we invest in teachers and leaders? How easy would it be to convince teachers, leaders and schools to spend more time and money on CPD? And could improving the quality and quantity of training go some way to convincing more people to stay in the teaching profession?

My guests are Avnee Morjaria, associate director for public services at IPPR, and Loic Menzies, an associate fellow at IPPR and co-author of this new report.

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Will flexible working for teachers help tackle the recruitment and retention crisis?

Wed, 21 May 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Since the COVID pandemic, many jobs have been transformed by the dramatic expansion of hybrid and remote working.

A recent survey by the education charity Teach First found that 80% of young people now want some element of hybrid work in their jobs – which sounds like bad news for frontline professions such as teaching.

However, far from giving up the fight, some schools and trusts have decided to build flexible working models so that their teachers can enjoy some of the same flexibilities found in other professions.

So, what does flexible working look like in a school environment? What are the biggest challenges that leadership teams can face if they embark on the journey towards more flexible working? And could greater flexibility for teachers make a serious dent in the recruitment and retention challenges facing schools across the country?

My guests are Robyn Ellis, a school and college trust leader at Dixons Academies Trust, and Neil Renton, Headteacher at Harrogate Grammar School.

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Should employers pay more towards the cost of Higher Education?

Fri, 09 May 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Shortly before £1,000 tuition fees were first introduced in 1998, a landmark report by Sir Ron Dearing had pointed out that employers were also “major beneficiaries of higher education through the skills which those with higher education qualifications bring to the organisations which employ them.”

This led Dearing to recommend that government should “seek an enhanced contribution” from employers towards the cost of Higher Education, or HE. Almost three decades later, these ‘enhanced contributions’ have not materialised, even though tuition fees for students have risen from £1,000 to £9,535.

A new report by Professor Dave Phoenix, Vice-Chancellor of London South Bank University, which was published in April by the Higher Education Policy Institute, says it is time to reopen the conversation about employers helping meet the costs of HE.

So, what exactly has Professor Phoenix proposed? Is it fair to ask employers to pay more towards the cost of HE or are they already making a big enough contribution? And how likely is it that employers will be able to afford extra contributions when faced with so many other financial pressures?

I’m delighted to be joined by Dave Phoenix to discuss his new report, and we are also joined by Johnny Rich, Chief Executive of the Engineering Professors’ Council, who has previously written about this fascinating and controversial topic.

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Does Skills England have the skills that England needs?

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 05:00:00 +0000

No-one is surprised when a newly elected government decides to create new initiatives and new organisations to signify a change in direction and a break from the past.

Skills England, a new agency within the Department for Education, was announced by Prime Minister Keir Starmer just after last year’s General Election, along with his observation that “our skills system is in a mess”.

But since that announcement, Skills England has not had an easy ride, with some observers describing it as a power grab that lacks clarity and clout, while others have questioned whether we needed Skills England in the first place.

So, why has the government created Skills England? What challenges is Skills England likely to face inside and outside government? And will Skills England, as the Prime Minister promised, transform our approach to meeting skills needs over the coming decades, or will it end up causing more problems than it solves?

My guests are Kirstie Donnelly MBE, Chief Executive at the City & Guilds Group, and Rob Nitsch, Chief Executive at the Federation of Awarding Bodies.

DOWNLOAD MY REPORT ON SKILLS ENGLAND HERE: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/03/31/skills-england-will-be-in-a-battle-for-relevance-from-day-one/

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Is the Curriculum and Assessment Review on the right track?

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 05:00:00 +0000

The Curriculum and Assessment Review, which is being chaired by Professor Becky Francis, was commissioned by the Department for Education last summer and will not conclude its work until this autumn.

Even so, the Review has attracted so much interest from schools, colleges, teachers, leaders and parents that the interim report from the Review, published at the end of March, was an important and high-profile milestone.

So what problems in primary and secondary education has the Review identified in its interim report? Which aspects of our curriculum and assessment system does the Review think are worth protecting, and which aspects need to be reformed? And how easy will it be for the Review to come up with solutions that are widely supported and improve outcomes for children and young people?

My guests are Mary Myatt, an education adviser, writer and speaker, and Dale Bassett, the director of assessment at United Learning, a group of over 100 schools.

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Are universities still worth it?

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Those who work in and around the Higher Education, or HE sector, have been having a rough time if recent media headlines are anything to go by.

Since the turn of the year, there has been what’s felt like a constant stream of stories about universities making redundancies, cutting costs and scaling back their operations in an attempt to make themselves more financially sustainable.

But despite all the gloom, one person is certainly not giving up on the HE sector. David Willetts was minister for Universities and Science from 2010 to 2014 and is now President of the Resolution Foundation and a member of the House of Lords.

David recently published a report for the Kings College London Policy Institute called ‘Are universities worth it’.

So, to hear his case for why supporting universities is a good thing, and why he disagrees with many of the criticisms aimed at universities, I’m delighted to be joined by David in this episode to discuss his new report.

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How easy will it be to get free breakfast clubs into all primary schools?

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Seeing as the government is clearly short of spare cash, you would have thought the Department for Education investing in a new national programme to improve pupils’ outcomes would be well received.

The Government recently announced over £30 million for a pilot of free breakfast clubs in 750 primary schools starting in April 2025 in advance of an expected national rollout of breakfast clubs in all primary schools next year.

But far from generating positive headlines, the breakfast club pilot scheme has been dogged by reports of schools pulling out or potentially being left worse off as a result of taking part in the pilot.

So why has this new scheme been met with such scepticism? What obstacles could primary schools face when setting up new breakfast clubs or expanding existing ones? And does everyone agree on what problems a national rollout of breakfast clubs is supposed to solve?

My guests are Rebecca Paddock, an Executive Headteacher at Hoyland Common Academy Trust, and Anna McShane, director of the New Britain Project – an independent progressive think tank.

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Do Ofsted's plans to reform inspections stand up to closer inspection?

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Given the endless debates and disagreements about Ofsted, the school and college inspectorate in England, Ofsted’s proposed new framework for conducting inspections was never going to go unnoticed when it launched in early February to kick off a 12-week consultation.

But far from splitting opinion, a poll by Teacher Tapp of more than 11,000 teachers found that 0% of respondents were ‘very positive’ about Ofsted’s plans, and a mere 6% were ‘somewhat positive’. Meanwhile, a survey by the National Association of Head Teachers found that 92% of school leaders disagreed with the main proposals put forward by Ofsted.

So what has Ofsted included in its new inspection framework? Have they learnt the right lessons from the current inspection system? And why does there seem to be such a large gap between the views of Ofsted and those working in the education sector?

My guests are Mark Enser, a writer and columnist and also a former teacher and Ofsted inspector, and Julie McCulloch, Senior Director of Strategy, Policy and Professional Development Services at the Association of School & College Leaders.

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Is the Schools Bill going to leave state schools in a better state?

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Shortly after the General Election in 2024, the newly elected Labour government announced a Children’s Wellbeing Bill – a new piece of legislation that set out a range of policies such as a register of children not in schools, restrictions on branded items in school uniforms and greater powers for Ofsted to tackle illegal schools.

However, just before Christmas, the Children’s Wellbeing Bill suddenly morphed into the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and included a whole host of measures intended to overhaul the way that state schools are managed and supported.

So what changes to our state school system have been put forward in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill? Is the Labour government right to question the previous government’s approach to overseeing state schools? And why has this Bill sparked accusations of ‘educational vandalism’ from its critics?

My guests are Freddie Whittaker, the Deputy editor at Schools Week, and Leora Cruddas, Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts.

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Will the debate over vocational and technical qualifications ever end?

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Just before the end of 2024, the Government announced the outcome of their review of Level 3 vocational and technical qualifications, which are offered to 16 to 19-year-olds along with A-levels, apprenticeships and the new T-levels.

The review confirmed that many vocational and technical qualifications that were going to have their funding removed will in fact continue to be funded. Well, at least until 2026. Or maybe 2027. It depends. And lots of qualifications will be defunded in any case.

Regardless, the conclusion of the review provided some welcome relief and certainty for schools and colleges. Well, maybe a bit of certainty, for a couple of years, possibly less.

So what exactly did this Review say about vocational and technical qualifications? Has the decision to fund many existing qualifications for just one or two years created a more stable or unstable system? And will we be back here in a couple of years’ time having the same conversation about qualification reform all over again?

My guests are Tom Middlehurst, Deputy Director of Policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, and James Kewin, Deputy Chief Executive at the Sixth Form Colleges' Association.

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What does President-elect Trump have in store for US (and UK) education?

Mon, 06 Jan 2025 05:00:00 +0000

Happy New Year and welcome back to Inside Your Ed.

Regular listeners will know that this podcast usually focuses on the latest education news in England, but for my first episode of 2025 we are taking a quick trip over the Atlantic because, as you may have noticed, Donald Trump will start his second term as President of the United States on January 20th.

So what plans does President-elect Trump have for K-12 education, from Kindergarten at age 5 up to 12th grade at age 18? Should colleges and universities in the US be worried about what may lie in store for them? And, most importantly for us on this side of the Atlantic, could Trump’s plans for education in the US have a knock-on effect on education debates and policies in England?

I’m delighted to be joined today by Dr Rick Hess, who is an American educator, political scientist, and author. He is currently a Senior Fellow and Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, and his work has been widely published in academic journals as well as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Education Week and Education Next.

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What exactly will the 'Youth Guarantee' guarantee for young people?

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 05:00:00 +0000

“Labour will establish a youth guarantee of access to training, an apprenticeship, or support to find work for all 18- to 21-year-olds, to bring down the number of young people who are not learning or earning.”

So said the Labour Party election manifesto in June 2024. Fast forward to the end of 2024, and the Labour Government confirmed in its Get Britain Working report that a Youth Guarantee is now up and running.

However, the same report admitted that at the moment, the Youth Guarantee is in fact just a collection of existing provision and entitlements for young people, and it does not offer any new national programmes or initiatives.

So is the Government’s Youth Guarantee for 18 to 21-year-olds on the right or wrong track? Would this sort of Guarantee actually reach the young people who need it the most? And what could a more ambitious Youth Guarantee look like in 2025 and beyond?

My guests are Barry Fletcher, Chief Executive at the Youth Futures Foundation, and Naomi Clayton, Director of Policy and Research at the Learning and Work Institute.

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Can a new education institute help politicians make better policies?

Wed, 04 Dec 2024 05:00:00 +0000

When it feels like every voter and politician has their own opinion on how to run the education system in England, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a credible, independent, evidence-led organisation that provided balanced information to politicians, government officials and the public on how to solve some of the biggest policy challenges.

Well, as luck would have it, a new institute called the Centre for Education Systems, or CES, was officially launched in November.

The CES has been set up by three leading lights in the world of education - Sam Freedman, Lucy Crehan and Loic Menzies – and it boasts an equally impressive advisory board and list of academic partners.

So what spurred Sam, Lucy and Loic to create the CES? In a busy and crowded policy landscape, what can the CES offer that other organisations cannot? And what challenges might the CES face as it tries to have a positive impact on education policymaking in the months and years ahead?

I’m delighted to be joined today by two of the CES’s co-founders. Lucy is an international education consultant and author, and will be the International Director at the CES, and Loic is an education researcher and policy specialist, and will be the CES’s Chief Research Officer.

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Will the Lifelong Learning Entitlement ever become a reality?

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Nuclear fusion offers the tantalising prospect of being a potentially limitless source of clean and self-sustaining energy, but, as the old joke goes, nuclear fusion is always 30 years away, and has been for decades.

I’m starting to get the same feeling about the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, or LLE, which was first floated back in 2019 as a new way of funding Further and Higher Education courses in England.

But the LLE took years to develop and it wasn’t until 2022 that the Conservative government launched a consultation on how the LLE should operate, and even then its planned introduction was not until September 2025.

In April this year the LLE was delayed until January 2026, and now in the Labour Government’s Budget on October 30th it was confirmed that the LLE’s first funded courses won’t start until January 2027 at the earliest.

So what do we know about the LLE and what it is trying to achieve? Could it be a big deal for students, colleges and universities, or is it just likely to be a distraction? And is there is a risk that the LLE goes down the same road as nuclear fusion by always being a few years away but never quite being made a reality?

My guests are Dr Kate Wicklow, Director of Policy & Strategy at GuildHE, a membership body in the Higher Education sector, and George Ryan, an Associate Director at the consultancy Public First.

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Do tuition fees and student loans need 'major reform'?

Thu, 07 Nov 2024 05:00:00 +0000

On November 4th, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson confirmed that, for the first time since 2017, university tuition fees in England will rise from £9,250 to £9,535 for full-time undergraduates.

The maximum maintenance loan available to students to cover their living costs will also increase by around 3%.

Although these changes will do little to allay concerns about the long-term financial health of both universities and students, Bridget Philipson also said that the government would announce further “major reform” to Higher Education funding in the coming months.

If the government is indeed hunting for some major reforms then a recent paper by Tim Leunig, published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) describes a whole package of reforms to tuition fees, student loans and university funding.

So, are Tim’s proposed reforms likely to appeal to students, universities and taxpayers? What trade offs does Tim put forward, and who might end up better or worse off as a result? And is the government even ready for big changes to Higher Education funding?

To talk through his proposals, I’m delighted to be joined by Tim himself. He is a Visiting Professor at the LSE who has, over the last 14 years, been an advisor to the Prime Minister, two Chancellors and the Education Secretary among other senior politicians.

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Do we need to overhaul how maths is taught and assessed?

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

If you were asked to pick out a success story from the last 14 years of education policy, I’m sure some people would point to England’s rise in the international rankings for global tests such as PISA. In 2022, England came 11th for maths, up from 27th in 2009.

That’s why I was intrigued to see recent reports claim that the way we teach and assess maths needs to be overhauled to make up for several perceived problems.

One of those reports came from the Royal Society’s Mathematical Futures project, with the Royal Society’s President, Sir Adrian Smith, claiming that not only is radical reform necessary, but “politicians who fail to grasp the nettle are failing our young people.”

So what are these apparent problems with maths in primary and secondary education? Does the maths curriculum need a few tweaks or a major rethink? And should we have more maths exams in schools and colleges, or fewer exams, or perhaps just different exams?

Both my guests are former maths teachers and former headteachers.

Lynne McClure OBE is a Trustee at National Numeracy and the Academy for Mathematical Sciences and was also a Board Member of the Royal Society’s recent project, and David Thomas OBE is the CEO at Axiom Maths and a former government advisor.

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Has the 'Growth and Skills Levy' set off in the right direction?

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 05:00:00 +0000

The most significant education policy launched at last month’s Labour Party conference was the release of new details about the Growth and Skills Levy, which is set to replace the existing apprenticeship levy as a way of funding apprenticeships and other forms of training.

The government claims they will boost opportunities for young people through what they describe as an “ambitious” set of reforms courtesy of their new Growth and Skills Levy.

But how ambitious are the government’s plans in reality? Who will be the winners and losers from their proposals? And will our apprenticeship system be better or worse off as a result of these upcoming reforms?

My guests are Holly Papworth, Head of Policy at the Edge Foundation, a vocational education charity, and Joanna Wake, Director of Public Affairs at Baltic Apprenticeships, an apprenticeship provider that focuses on tech and digital skills.

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GCSE resits: should we keep them, reform them or scrap them?

Thu, 26 Sep 2024 05:00:00 +0000

It is hard not to raise an eyebrow when a government policy is described by some as a ‘vital lifeline’ for students, while others describe the same policy as ‘demoralising’ and ‘soul destroying’.

The GCSE resits policy, which has been in place since 2014, continues to divide opinion among academics, researchers, school and college leaders and the frontline staff who support those students who must retake English and Maths GCSEs after not passing their exams first time around.

So what is the thinking behind GCSE resits? Is the current resits policy having a positive or negative impact? And are exam resits the best way to improve the English and maths skills of young people beyond age 16?

My guests are Sarah Waite, the founder and CEO of Get Further, a charity that supports students who are resitting their GCSEs, and Lee Elliot Major OBE, Professor of Social Mobility at the University of Exeter.

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Why are so many people talking about 'tertiary education'?

Thu, 12 Sep 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Although complaints from universities about a perceived lack of funding continue to attract plenty of media attention, some very interesting shifts in policy thinking that are potentially more significant than simple questions about money are already underway.

Several countries such as Australia, Wales, Scotland and Ireland have begun to talk less about universities and colleges in isolation and instead talk more about ‘tertiary education’, with the aim of bringing universities and colleges closer together in terms of how they are funded, regulated and managed.

So why have these nations started thinking about tertiary education as a whole? What benefits could a more integrated tertiary system offer than cannot be achieved when Higher Education and Further Education, or HE and FE, are dealt with separately? And could England follow suit by building a single tertiary system in the coming years, or would it face too many obstacles along the way?

My guests are Professor Ellen Hazelkorn, Professor Emeritus at Technological University Dublin and Joint Editor of Policy Reviews in Higher Education, and Professor Ewart Keep, an emeritus professor in Education, Training and Skills at the Department of Education at Oxford University.

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Can anyone or anything stop AI cheating in exams?

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Although this year’s exam season has largely passed without incident or drama, many exams and assessments throughout our education system are potentially facing their greatest ever threat in the form of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence, or AI tools.

When freely available websites and apps can write entire essays, projects, articles, poems and stories as well as produce art and music among other things, it presents a daunting challenge to the teachers, lecturers and institutions trying to award fair and trustworthy grades.

So what impact are ChatGPT and similar AI platforms having in schools, colleges, universities and elsewhere? Do we know how much cheating is already linked to these AI tools? And is anyone or anything ready and able to combat AI-powered cheating in future?

Our guests today are Dr Thomas Lancaster, a computer scientist at Imperial College London who has conducted research on academic integrity, cheating and plagiarism, and Jessica Hill, senior investigations and features reporter for Schools Week and FE Week.

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How do you solve a problem like international students?

Wed, 17 Jul 2024 05:00:00 +0000

“Read my lips — I will bring immigration numbers down” said Keir Starmer during the recent General Election campaign.

The Labour Party election manifesto also said that “Labour will act to create a secure future for higher education”.

In isolation, both these goals are legitimate aspirations, but when you put them together it raises an interesting policy question: how will the new government approach the issue of international students coming to the UK, as these students increase immigration numbers and also increase the income of UK universities?

Just before the election, the Social Market Foundation, or SMF – a centrist think tank – published two reports that set out their plans to address these competing priorities.

And here to discuss the analysis and recommendations in these reports, we are joined today by Jonathan Thomas, a senior fellow at the SMF.

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Who has the better manifesto for education: Conservatives or Labour?

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Sometimes a UK General Election can be a tense and nervy affair with little indication of which party will prevail. The upcoming election on July 4th is not one of those situations, with the Labour Party miles ahead in the polls and set to form the next government.

However, for today we are put the polls to one side and dive into what we’ve seen and heard over the past couple of weeks from the current Conservative government and the likely next Labour government.

Which manifesto has the boldest plans to reform our education system? Who ran towards controversial issues, and who ran away from them? And were there any great manifesto ideas that didn’t hit the headlines but could still transform the life chances of children, young people and adults?

Our guests today are John Dickens, the editor of Schools Week, and Shane Cowen, the editor of FE Week.

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What could be done to improve policymaking in education?

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 05:00:00 +0000

With a General Election just weeks away, people’s thoughts are quickly turning to which education policies the next government will try to implement.

I think it’s fair to say that decisions made over the last 14 years have not always gone down well with teachers and lecturers or the people running our schools, colleges and universities.

But would a new set of ministers, advisors and government officials really do any better, or would they end up facing the same barriers to designing and delivering good education policies?

A new book called Improving Education Policy Together investigates why policymaking in English education often fails to improve outcomes for children and young people, even when policies are driven by the very best of intentions.

Our guests today are the co-authors of this new book - Nansi Ellis, who is a freelance education policy consultant and a school governor, and Gareth Conyard, who is the co-CEO of the Teacher Development Trust and a former civil servant.

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What does the future hold for tutoring on a national scale?

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Since the National Tutoring Programme, or NTP, was launched in 2020 to help combat the effects of the pandemic on children’s academic progress, it has provided 5 million tutoring courses to pupils of various ages at a cost of over £1 billion.

However, these figures will not be increasing much further because the government has decided that after four years of operation, the NTP should have its funding removed and it will be closing down this August.

So why has the government turned away from providing funding for the NTP across the country when the effects of the pandemic are still visible? Did the NTP deliver what pupils and schools needed? And if a national tutoring programme was to continue in future, should it look different from its current iteration?

Our guests today are Susannah Hardyman, the founder and CEO of Action Tutoring, a tutoring provider, and Ben Gadsby, the Head of Policy and Research at Impetus.

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20 years on - is it time to revisit the '14-19 Diplomas'?

Wed, 22 May 2024 05:00:00 +0000

On the 16th of May, EDSK published a new report called ‘Evolution and revolution’, in which we set out a 10-year plan for reforming primary and secondary education in England.

Our plan included, among other things, a Baccalaureate for all 14 to 18-year-olds that would bring academic, applied and technical courses together under one roof as well as everyone studying Core English and Core maths, otherwise known as literacy and numeracy, up to age 18.

Bold as these proposals may sound, we do not pretend to be the first people to make such suggestions. In fact, two decades ago in 2004, Mike Tomlinson – now Sir Mike Tomlinson – chaired a working group for the then Labour government, which ended up proposing a Diploma for all 14 to 19-year-olds that contained many of the same ideas as EDSK’s new report.

Our guest today is Sir Mike himself, who is perfectly placed to tell us what the Diplomas were, what benefits they were supposed to offer, and also why his proposals were never fully implemented in the months and years after the working group’s final report was published.

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Do we all agree on what 'fairness' means in education?

Wed, 08 May 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Despite the endless debates and disagreements in education policy, there are some things that we can all agree on, such as the need for a fair education system.

However, a new report suggests that while we may agree on the need for a fair education system, we may well disagree on what fairness actually means in practice.

The report – titled Mapping the way to educational equity – offers a range of perspectives on how to define and use concepts such as equity, fairness and opportunity and it also describes a path to achieving a more equitable system in future.

Who better to talk us through this new report than its author Loic Menzies. Loic is a visiting fellow at the Sheffield Institute of Education and a former teacher and think tank director. We are also joined today by Jim Lauder, the Trust Assistant Principal at Dixons Academies Trust.

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Why are so many pupils still absent from school?

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 05:00:00 +0000

This time last year, we did a podcast episode about the growing problem of pupil absences in the aftermath of the pandemic, with record numbers of children and young people failing to attend school on a regular basis.

Since then, finding ways to reduce absences has become a priority for both main political parties in England, and numerous initiatives have been put in place by the current government to try and address the problem.

But despite all this extra attention, and in some cases extra funding, pupil absence rates have remained stubbornly high in the current academic year.

So what sits behind these high rates of absence? What does the research tell us about the factors behind pupil absences? And are we any closer to finding effective ways to reduce these absences both now and in future?

Our guests today are Dr Sally Burtonshaw, an Associate Director at the consultancy Public First, and Emily Hunt, an Associate Director at the Education Policy Institute.

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Should oracy play a greater role in primary and secondary education?

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 05:00:00 +0000

“It’s not just a skill for learning, it’s also a skill for life. Not just for the workplace, also for working out who you are – for overcoming shyness or disaffection, anxiety or doubt – or even just for opening up more to our friends and family. We don’t do enough of that as a society, and I’m as guilty as anyone, but wouldn’t that be something precious for our children to aim for? I think so.”

Those words from Keir Starmer in July last year were how he described the importance of oracy. In the same speech, he announced that the Labour Party wants to give every primary school new funding to “invest in world-class early language interventions, and help our children find their voice.”

Which is all well and good, but what exactly is oracy, why does it matter, how do you teach oracy, and is oracy as important as literacy and numeracy or is it something different altogether?

To help answer these questions we are joined today by Geoff Barton, who was until very recently the General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, or ASCL for short. Not only is Geoff a former English teacher and headteacher, he has also just been announced as the Chair of a new Commission on Oracy Education.

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Why adding VAT to private school fees is more complicated than it sounds

Tue, 26 Mar 2024 05:00:00 +0000

In the current education policy landscape, the debate over adding VAT to independent school fees is by far the most high-profile dividing line between Labour and the Conservatives.

That said, the question of what would actually happen in practice if Labour won the next election and tried to implement this policy has received remarkably little attention in political circles.

That is why at the beginning of March, EDSK published a new report that outlined the findings from our investigation into the obstacles that a future government may face if it tried to add VAT to school fees.

This podcast episode will not be offering, and does not intend to offer, any legal or financial advice, but what this episode is absolutely going to offer is an important and timely insight into what VAT is, how it works and the complexity that lies beneath the surface.

If you thought that adding 20% VAT to independent school fees would be a straightforward matter then you may well be having second thoughts by the end of this episode.

To help us unravel some of the complexities of VAT legislation and bust a few myths along the way, our guest today is Kieran Smith, a Partner in the VAT group at Crowe, which is an audit, tax and advisory firm. Kieran has over two decades of experience working on VAT, and yes, VAT is that complicated that people can spend their entire careers working on it!

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How and why have 'academy schools' evolved over the past quarter of a century?

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 05:00:00 +0000

On the 15th of March in the year 2000, then Education Secretary David Blunkett invited businesses, churches and voluntary groups to build and manage a network of "city academies", a new type of urban secondary school outside the control of local authorities.

Little did David Blunkett, now Lord Blunkett, know that a quarter of a century later, there would be over 10,000 academy schools in England educating over half of all school pupils.

In January this year, EDSK published a major new report called ’20 years of muddling through’, in which we argued that the government has ended up running two separate state school systems – one for academies, and one for local authority schools – which is causing all sorts of problems for headteachers, parents, academy bosses and local authorities as well as government ministers.

Rather than taking a detailed look at the present, as we did in our report, this podcast will instead look back into the past to understand the journey that the academies programme has been on since the first academy schools opened in 2002.

Our guests today are Sir David Carter, a former headteacher, Multi Academy Trust leader and National Schools Commissioner for England, and Laura McInerney, a former teacher and editor of Schools Week and now the co-founder of TeacherTapp.

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Are universities facing a 'financial crisis'?

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 04:00:00 +0000

Existential crisis - at risk of insolvency - looming financial crisis - ticking time bomb - bankruptcy.

Newspaper headline writers have certainly not been holding back in recent months as they try to describe the predicament that UK universities apparently find themselves in.

Then again, with a General Election on the way, universities and other higher education (or HE) providers are not going to be the only educational institutions hoping to secure more money from a future government.

So what do we know about the financial health of the HE sector? Who or what is responsible for the financial pressure that some, if not all, HE providers are experiencing? And who should be responsible for alleviating that pressure in future?

Our guests today are Professor Jane Harrington, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Greenwich, and Jess Lister, an Associate Director at the consultancy Public First.

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Should we rethink how we talk about (and measure) social mobility?

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 05:00:00 +0000

With a General Election on the way, all eyes and ears are trained on what our politicians are saying about the future of education and skills.

However, there are plenty of other important individuals who you won’t see in the political spotlight but are nevertheless thinking hard about how to improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged children, young people and adults.

One such individual is Alun Francis OBE, the Principal and Chief Executive of Blackpool and The Fylde College and also the Chair of the Social Mobility Commission.

The Commission is funded by government but acts as an independent body to promote social mobility in England, carry out research, publish annual reports on the progress being made with social mobility and provide advice to ministers on how to improve social mobility.

As Alun has just completed his first year in the hot seat at the Social Mobility Commission, I thought now was the perfect time to get his views on some fascinating policy issues. Where have we got to with social mobility? Do we actually know if social mobility is getting better or worse? And what would make for a really strong agenda on improving social mobility going forward?

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Is the switch from paper to digital exams finally underway?

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 05:00:00 +0000

“The arrival of on-screen and online high stakes assessment has been predicted for many years.”

Those are not my words, but the words of the exam regulator Ofqual back in 2020, in their report on the barriers to greater adoption of high stakes on-screen and online assessments, and how these barriers may be overcome.

Perhaps the wait for these digital assessments is finally over because in recent months all three main exam boards in England have announced plans to start digitising their exams – particularly GCSEs.

So what have been the experiences so far with high stakes digital assessments in this country and abroad? What barriers will digital exams face in England if they are to be delivered at scale every year? And are digital exams potentially fairer than assessments done on pen and paper?

Our guests today are Grainne Hallahan, senior analyst at the Times Educational Supplement, and Hayley White, the Vice President of Assessment, Standards and Services at Pearson who own the Edexcel exam board.

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Would the 'Advanced British Standard' improve 16-19 education?

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Almost exactly 12 months ago, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set out his plans for all students in England to study some form of maths to age 18.

Ten months later, the Prime Minister went much further by announcing plans for a single qualification – called “the Advanced British Standard” – to bring together A-levels and T-levels as well as making both maths and English compulsory to 18.

Just before Christmas, the government published a consultation on how they think the Advanced British Standard could work in practice – albeit at the end of a 10-year implementation period.

So what do we know so far about the Advanced British Standard? Does it look like a step in the right or wrong direction for educating 16 to 19-year-olds in England? And even if the Advanced British Standard is a good idea, is it an achievable idea?

Our guests today are Tom Sherrington, a former teacher and headteacher and now education consultant, author and blogger, and Tim Oates CBE, Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessment.

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Are 'challenger' institutions in HE challenging the status quo?

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to Inside Your Ed in 2024 and happy New Year to all our listeners.

Speaking of things that are new, this episode is all about the new institutions - often called Challenger institutions – that have been appearing in England’s Higher Education (or HE) sector in recent years.

So what is a challenger institution? What obstacles have these new HE providers faced? Have the challenger institutions been able to innovate in a way that other providers cannot? And what does the future hold for these small new institutions when the politics and funding of HE remain so uncertain?

Our guests today are Kat Emms, a senior researcher at the Edge Foundation, an education charity, and James Newby, president and chief executive of the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (or NMITE, for short) based in Hereford.

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Is there a trade-off between apprenticeship quantity and quality?

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 05:00:00 +0000

It seems as though the government are intent on continuing their crusade against what they call ‘low value’ Higher Education, with the Prime Minister declaring at the Conservative Party conference in October that he would be “cracking down on rip-off degrees and boosting apprenticeships”.

Fast forward a few weeks to the Kings Speech in November, and again, the government iterated its goal to “reduce the number of young people studying poor quality university degrees and increase the number undertaking high-quality apprenticeships”.

All of which raises an obvious question: if the government succeeds in reducing the number of supposedly poor quality degrees, are there enough apprenticeships for students to choose instead? And even if there are enough apprenticeships, are they good quality apprenticeships?

Our guests today are Alison Fuller, Professor of Vocational Education and Work at the UCL Institute of Education, and Olly Newton, executive director at the Edge Foundation, a charity that promotes vocational and technical education through a wide range of initiatives.

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Time to radically reform the way that we fund Higher Education?

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Ever since the Labour Party moved away from its plan to scrap university tuition fees, the debate over how to fund Higher Education, or HE, has gone rather quiet.

Step forward Dr Mark Corver, the Managing Director and co-founder of dataHE, who wrote an article for the Higher Education Policy Institute at the start of November that set out an entirely new vision for how we could fund our HE system: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2023/11/08/funding-undergraduate-higher-education/

So how does Mark want to reform HE funding? What trade offs and tensions do his proposals generate? And would students, universities and government be better or worse off if Mark’s plans were put into action?

I’m Tom Richmond, the director of the EDSK think tank.

And to hear more about a radical plan to reform our HE funding system, let’s go INSIDE YOUR ED….

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Is Labour's 'Early Years' review asking the right questions?

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Regular listeners will know that we recently dedicated a whole episode to the main education stories from this year’s Conservative and Labour Party conferences, but there was one story we didn’t get a chance to look at in that episode because it was announced on the last day of the last conference.

On the 11th of October, Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson outlined plans for a large-scale review of the early years sector, which essentially covers the period from birth up to the start of primary school. The review will be chaired by Sir David Bell, the former chief inspector of Ofsted, and the former top civil servant at the Department for Education.

So what issues will this review be investigating? Are they the right issues? And how much of a difference could a new government make in early years provision when extra funding will be very hard to come by?

Our guests today are June O'Sullivan MBE, Chief Executive of the London Early Years Foundation, and Dr Laura Outhwaite, Principal Research Fellow at UCL's Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO).

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Reducing teachers' workload - easier than it sounds?

Thu, 02 Nov 2023 05:00:00 +0000

If you’ve been following the recent headlines on teacher recruitment and retention, you’ll know that the government’s statistics paint a grim picture of missed targets and schools finding it increasingly hard to find enough teachers.

In September, the Government decided to set up a new Workload Reduction Taskforce because ministers seem to believe that if they can reduce teachers’ workload then perhaps more people will sign up to become teachers and then remain in the profession once they get there.

To help this new taskforce with their important work, I have devised three proposals to reduce teacher’s workload and I have two expert guests who are going to tell me whether my three proposals are useful or useless.

Our guests are Becky Allen, co-founder and Chief Analyst of the teacher survey tool Teacher Tapp and Professor of Education at the University of Brighton, and James Zuccollo, the Director for School Workforce at the Education Policy Institute.

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What was the best new policy to emerge from the Labour and Conservative Party conferences?

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 05:00:00 +0000

This year’s party conferences could be the last big gatherings before the next General Election, so it was the perfect opportunity for the Conservative Party and Labour Party to set out their respective plans.

That said, the challenges facing the two parties are very different. Can the Conservative Party convince voters that they are still the right people to oversee the education system after 13 years in power? And can the Labour Party convince voters that their ideas would improve the system that the Conservatives have overseen for so long?

To talk us through the education policy announcements from the last couple of weeks, we have brought together two education experts who have plenty of experience of working alongside senior politicians in both main parties.

My first guest is David Thomas, who was until recently an advisor at the Department for Education and is now the chief executive of Mathematics Education for Social Mobility and Excellence, and my second guest is Joe Moore, an Associate Director at Hanbury Strategy and a former Labour Party advisor.

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Pupil wellbeing: what is it, and can we actually measure it?

Wed, 27 Sep 2023 05:00:00 +0000

It has not been a great three and a half years to be a school pupil. The pandemic, repeated openings and closures of schools, illness and absences, exams disappearing then reappearing – it has clearly been a difficult time for many children and young people.

In response, there have been numerous calls to prioritise pupil wellbeing as much as academic progress in the aftermath of the pandemic, given the disruption over the last few years.

But do we all agree on what pupil wellbeing means? Can you actually measure wellbeing in a meaningful and consistent way? And even if we do find that many pupils are indeed struggling with their wellbeing, whose job is it to address that deficit?

Our guests today are Kirsten Colquhoun, a teacher, pastoral lead and writer on pupil wellbeing, and Ros McLellan, an Associate Professor and researcher at the University of Cambridge.

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Should we welcome rising state school admissions to Oxbridge?

Thu, 14 Sep 2023 05:00:00 +0000

The annual cycle of school and college students applying to university, sitting their summer exams and being awarded their grades in August finally returned to normal this year after the severe disruption to delivering and grading exams caused by the pandemic.

But a recent news story shows that some things in our university application system have evidently not returned to business as usual.

Earlier this year, it was announced that Lucy Cavendish College at Cambridge University had become the first college at the university to admit over 90% of its students from state schools, and it also received the most diverse intake in the history of the university.

So how did Lucy Cavendish College achieve this goal? Is their greater emphasis on state school pupils a welcome boost for social mobility, or just an example of social engineering? And should we focus so much on which students get into university rather than worrying about where students end up after university?

Our guests today are Professor Dame Madeleine Atkins, the President of Lucy Cavendish College at Cambridge University, and David Kernohan, the Deputy Editor of Wonkhe – a higher education news site.

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Is 'ed tech' heading in the right or wrong direction?

Thu, 31 Aug 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Welcome back to Inside Your Ed - I hope you all had a good summer.

Just as the summer break was getting underway in late July, you may have missed a new report published by UNESCO, an agency of the United Nations, which investigated the use of education technology, or ed tech, around the world.

The report’s findings were quite startling, as they discovered that “there is little robust evidence on digital technology’s added value in education [and] a lot of the evidence comes from those trying to sell it.”

When budgets are so tight across the education system in England, schools, colleges and universities will be keen to ensure that any investments in ed tech are well spent, but UNESCO’s report suggests that this may be easier said than done.

So why is there so little evidence on the impact of ed tech? Who should decide which ed tech products will have the greatest impact on learning – frontline educators, senior leaders, government ministers or the ed tech companies themselves? And does the hype around new innovations such as ChatGPT make it easier or harder to spot when something truly valuable does come along?

Our guests today are Jodie Lopez, an ed tech consultant and former primary school teacher, and Tony Parkin, a freelance speaker, lecturer and writer on all things ed tech.

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Is it boom or gloom for young people in the labour market?

Wed, 12 Jul 2023 05:00:00 +0000

The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread predictions of a catastrophic situation for young people in terms of unemployment and lost earnings.

However, although we did see a rise in youth unemployment by the middle of 2020, it never reached the scale of job losses that had been feared by many politicians and economists.

In the middle of 2023, it could hardly feel more different, with newspapers having spent most of this year running stories about record low levels of unemployment, firms running out of workers, wages rapidly increasing and high numbers of job vacancies.

So has the gloom of the pandemic given way to a boom in young people’s job prospects? Are there any lingering effects of the pandemic that should still worry us? And should young people be feeling optimistic or pessimistic at the moment about their chances of finding a good well-paid job?

Our guests today are Barry Fletcher, the Chief Executive at the Youth Futures Foundation, and Naomi Phillips, the Deputy Chief Executive at the Learning and Work Institute.

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Is behaviour in schools getting better or worse?

Thu, 29 Jun 2023 05:00:00 +0000

It has often been said that school teachers should be called superheroes for heading into classrooms every day across the country to try to improve the lives and prospects of children and young people.

But every superhero has a weakness, and a new book released at the start of June says that bad behaviour in the classroom can be like kryptonite to an unprepared teacher.

By coincidence, the Department for Education has just released their first ever national behaviour survey covering the 2021/22 academic year, which will now provide the government with regular updates on pupil behaviour in mainstream primary and secondary schools in England.

So what is the current state of behaviour in mainstream schools? Has the new survey given a positive or negative view on what’s happening in the classroom? And what can be done to better support both new and experienced teachers when it comes to spotting and addressing poor behaviour?

My guest today is Sam Strickland, who is the Principal of Duston School in Northamptonshire as well as a blogger, trainer, speaker and the author of this new book on managing behaviour in schools.

SAM'S NEW BOOK
'They Don’t Behave for Me: 50 classroom behaviour scenarios to support teachers'
https://www.johncattbookshop.com/products/they-don-t-behave-for-me-50-classroom-behaviour-scenarios-to-support-teachers

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Has England just become a 'reading superpower'?

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 05:00:00 +0000

With widespread strike action already underway across the education system and with so many institutions in need of more staff and more money, things can understandably feel a little gloomy. Even so, a story that hit the headlines last month provided a welcome bit of good news.

May 16th saw the release of the latest results from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study – known as PIRLS. It is conducted every five years and the 2021 data, which was delayed by the pandemic, showed that England was ranked 4th out of 43 participating countries when assessing the reading skills of 9 and 10-year-olds.

Such an impressive performance inevitably attracted plenty of praise, so what exactly was behind the rise in England’s ranking from 8th in 2016 to 4th in 2021? Are there any reasons to be slightly cautious about England’s level of performance? And what do the PIRLS rankings tell us, if anything, about best practice in the classroom?

Our guests today are Tarjinder Gill, the Associate Director of Research and Pedagogy for Primary at Outwood Grange Academies Trust, and Kathy Rastle, Professor of Cognitive Psychology at Royal Holloway, University of London.

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Labour will not scrap tuition fees, so what should they do instead?

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 04:00:00 +0000

In the world of education and politics more broadly, we are all used to seeing politicians making major announcements and getting plenty of media coverage as a result. That makes it even more noteworthy when a politician gets plenty of media coverage for announcing that they don’t actually have a policy at all.

And so it was that Keir Starmer, leader of the Labour Party, found himself hitting the headlines at the start of May for announcing that he had ditched their longstanding commitment to abolish university tuition fees in England, saying it was necessary to “move on” from the idea because of the economic situation facing the country.

So how did Labour end up here? Was Keir Starmer’s announcement a surprise or simply a political inevitability? Do current and future students actually want Labour to scrap tuition fees? And where should the Labour Party go next after abandoning their previous plans?

Our guests today are Debbie McVitty, the editor of Wonkhe – a higher education news site, and Gordon McKenzie, the CEO of GuildHE - which represents 60 smaller specialist universities and colleges.

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What is behind the recent rise in pupil absence rates?

Thu, 18 May 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Covid may no longer be forcing schools to close or requiring pupils to self-isolate at home but there are still a worrying number of empty desks in schools.

Both government datasets and independent sources have confirmed that there has been a dramatic increase in pupil absences over the past year. In fact, the situation has got so bad that it is being described as the ‘new epidemic for schools’.

So what exactly is happening here? Is COVID still causing widespread illness? Is something affecting pupils at home that could in turn be affecting their attendance at school? Why have pupil absences risen in some schools but not others? And what can schools, parents and government do to reduce the rates of pupil absence in the near future?

Our guests today are Margaret Mulholland, the Special Needs & Inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, and Ellie Costello, the director of Square Peg, a parent-led group that focuses on the barriers to school attendance.

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Has the time come to say 'time is up' to written exams?

Thu, 04 May 2023 05:00:00 +0000

As always, the month of May signals the beginning of exam season, with students around the country facing various challenges such as GCSEs and A-levels.

Given the high-profile nature of these tests, EDSK has just published a brand new report called ‘Examining exams’, in which we looked in detail at why written exams have come to dominate the assessment landscape and also, perhaps more importantly, whether any other form of assessment such as coursework could and should be given a greater role in future.

To delve into the upsides and downsides of the use of written exams, we have brought together two guests who can offer very different perspectives on the future of assessment in England.

Dr David James is a Deputy Headteacher and regular writer on education issues, and Dr Amelia Peterson is Head of Learning and Teaching at The London Interdisciplinary School.

You can read a summary of 'Examining Exams' or download a copy here:
https://www.edsk.org/publications/examining-exams/

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Two reports raise questions about the future of Ofsted

Wed, 19 Apr 2023 05:00:00 +0000

In March this year, the news that headteacher Ruth Perry had taken her own life caused a huge storm both within and outside the teaching profession after Ruth’s family claimed that a recent Ofsted inspection had contributed to her death.

In the weeks since this news emerged, a row has erupted between government and unions about whether Ofsted inspections should be paused, or possibly scrapped altogether, in the wake of this tragic incident.

However, the pressure on Ofsted was in fact growing well before we hit March because in February two new reports were published that both raised serious questions about whether we can trust the judgements made by Ofsted inspectors when they visit schools.

Our guests today are the authors of those two reports. First, Dr Sam Sims from the Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities at UCL will be taking us through the new research paper that he and his two co-authors have published on the impact of Ofsted inspectors on the outcome of an Ofsted inspection. And second, Steve Rollett, the Deputy Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, will be outlining the main conclusions from their new discussion papers about the future of Ofsted.

Paper from Sam Sims and colleagues: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/473908/1/WP_Inspector_Effects_FINAL_020223.pdf

Paper from Steve Rollett: https://cstuk.org.uk/knowledge/guidance-and-policy/cst-discussion-paper-reforming-inspection-10-proposals/

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Is it time to replace the apprenticeship levy with a 'Growth and Skills Levy'?

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 05:00:00 +0000

On April 6th 2023, the apprenticeship levy celebrates its sixth birthday. The question now is whether the levy will get the chance to celebrate many more birthdays in future.

The levy is essentially a payroll tax of 0.5 per cent for any UK employer with an annual wage bill of over £3 million, with the total pot of levy contributions funding the entire apprenticeship system for both large and small organisations.

Last year, the Labour Party decided that it was time to change course and proposed replacing the current apprenticeship levy with a Growth and Skills Levy.

So what do we know about the Growth and Skills Levy? How might employers react to a new levy system? And when the current levy has become a major source of frustration for many employers, what would a Growth and Skills Levy have to do to avoid the same fate?

Our guests today are Kate Shoesmith, Deputy CEO at the Recruitment & Employment Confederation, or REC, and Kevin Rowan, the Head of Organisation, Services and Learning at the TUC, the umbrella body for almost 50 trade unions.

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Why did teachers go on strike, and are there more strikes to come?

Wed, 22 Mar 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Doctors, nurses, train drivers, ambulance drivers, postal workers, university academics – the list of professions that have gone on strike since the start of 2023 is as broad as it is deep.

On that basis, the recent strike action by teachers has certainly not come as a surprise. Even before the end of last year, teacher and headteacher unions were warning of huge discontent among their members.

Across February and March, six days of strike action took place at a regional and national level, which inevitably caused some disruption for schools and their pupils.

So, looking back at this spring term, what do we know about why the strikes took place and whether they could have been avoided? What have parents and the wider public made of the teacher strikes? And are we still heading for more strike action after the Easter holidays?

Our guests today are Niamh Sweeney, the Deputy General Secretary of the National Education Union (or NEU) - the largest education union in the UK - and Ed Dorrell, a director at the consultancy Public First and former journalist.

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Should we bring back work experience for school pupils?

Thu, 09 Mar 2023 05:00:00 +0000

The decision in 2012 to remove the duty on schools to arrange a work experience placement for all 14 to 16-year-olds was perhaps not one of the most high-profile changes made by then Education Secretary Michael Gove.

Even so, it generated plenty of grumbling at the time, with the British Chambers of Commerce later describing the decision as ‘careless’.

Over a decade later, the Social Market Foundation – a centrist think tank – has just published a new report calling for the introduction, or perhaps the reintroduction, of universal work experience for secondary school pupils.

So would bringing back compulsory work experience be a good idea for pupils and schools? Would employers be willing to offer schools enough placements to deliver this proposal? And when schools are battling on so many other fronts, have teachers and headteachers got the time and energy to take on this challenge?

We are joined today by Dr Aveek Bhattacharya, the Research Director at the Social Market Foundation and co-author of their new report, and Dr Elnaz Kashef, the Head of Research and Policy at Speakers 4 Schools, a social mobility charity that links young people to leading speakers and employers.

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Is 'compulsory maths to age 18' a sensible and achievable goal?

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 05:00:00 +0000

In a cost of living crisis and with widespread strike action taking place across the education sector, it is always going to be difficult for the government to build momentum behind any new policy ideas.

That said, there is one proposal that the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appears particularly keen on: an ambition for all pupils to study maths until the age of 18.

As it stands, around half of 16 to 19-year-olds in England study some form of maths after age 16, yet the Prime Minister’s desire to increase this proportion seemed to generate more questions than answers.

Did he mean maths or numeracy? Would it only apply to school pupils, but not those in college or on anapprenticeship? How much will it cost, and who will teach the extra maths lessons needed to realise his ambition?

To delve into these tricky policy questions, we are joined today by Sarah Waite, the chief executive of Get Further – a charity that provides tutors for students retaking GCSE English or maths in further education - and Jack Worth, an education economist at the National Foundation for Educational Research.

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The Schools Bill is dead - what happened, and what now?

Thu, 09 Feb 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Almost exactly a year ago, EDSK released an episode of this podcast about what the Department for Education should put into their upcoming Schools White Paper – which would set out the government’s plans to reform the state school system in England.

The White Paper was then published in March 2022, and in May some of the plans in the White Paper were converted into the Schools Bill – which was essentially the new legislation required to implement a number of the government’s reforms.

Just seven months later in December, the Schools Bill was dead, having encountered fierce opposition from representatives of both main political parties.

So where did it go wrong for the Schools Bill? Did the critics of the government’s plans have a point, or was the government on the right track all along? And what could and should happen next after the Bill’s demise?

Our guests today are Leora Cruddas, the Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts (or CST), and Joe Hallgarten, the Chief Executive of the Centre for Education and Youth.

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Has the 2021 FE White Paper made a difference to the FE sector?

Wed, 25 Jan 2023 06:00:00 +0000

Despite all the turmoil in our education system since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been occasional glimpses of long-term policymaking at the Department for Education.

One of the best examples of this is the White Paper in January 2021 that set out a large package of reforms to Further Education, or FE, in England.

Like schools, colleges are used to being buffeted around by seemingly endless announcements from politicians, but the FE White Paper tried to bring about change on a significant scale – with the then Education Secretary Gavin Williamson describing the White Paper as a “blueprint for the future”.

So has the FE White Paper delivered much in the two years since its publication? Did it have the right ideas to start with? And have the challenges facing the FE sector changed since 2021?

Our guests today are Jo Maher, the Principal & CEO of Loughborough College, and Darren Hankey, the Principal of Hartlepool College of Further Education,

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Two think tanks try to fix our childcare system

Fri, 13 Jan 2023 07:00:00 +0000

At the start of 2023, the cost of living crisis is still dominating the news. In recent months, the government has chosen to spend billions of pounds on reducing energy bills to ease the financial pressures on households.

However, ministers have paid much less attention to another significant strain on many families’ budgets: the cost of childcare.

In the UK, over a quarter of parents’ joint income is now spent on childcare – around three times higher than the average across developed countries. This is largely caused by the government investing much less in childcare than in other countries, leaving parents to make up the difference.

One survey found that almost two thirds of families are paying at least as much, if not more, on their childcare than they do their rent or mortgage. Worse still, childcare costs are rising fast at a time when few families can afford to spend more.

Unsurprisingly, this concerning picture has attracted a lot of political attention in recent months, and just before Christmas not one but two think tanks published reports on how they would tackle concerns over the affordability and availability of childcare.

And who better to talk us through these two new reports than the authors themselves.

Rachel Statham is the associate director for work and the welfare state at IPPR, a centre-left think tank.

And Bel Guillaume is a Research Associate at Onward, a centre-right think tank.

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Is the government still interested in reforming Higher Education?

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 08:00:00 +0000

Thanks to a turbulent few months in British politics, it is easy to forget that earlier this year the government announced a sweeping set of reforms to the Higher Education system in England that could have a significant impact on both students and institutions.

However, two Prime Ministers later at the end of 2022, the policy environment has changed dramatically.

In the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement in November, universities were barely mentioned. What’s more, those sweeping reforms from the start of 2022 appear to have slipped off the radar, and the government doesn’t even have a dedicated Minister for Universities anymore.

In the meantime, the financial and political challenges facing the Higher Education sector have begun to pile up at a rapid rate.

So where have all the government’s proposed reforms from earlier this year ended up? Is the current government a fan or sceptic of the role of Higher Education? And do universities and other Higher Education providers want more attention or less attention from government in the coming months?

Our two guests can offer plenty of insights on all these questions from a policy and leadership perspective.

Professor Dave Phoenix is the Vice Chancellor of London South Bank University,

And Jess Lister is a Senior Policy Manager at the consultancy Public First.

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Why are so many apprentices dropping out of their training?

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 06:00:00 +0000

On the 27th of November 2012, the then Coalition Government published a major review of the apprenticeship system in England, which had been led by the entrepreneur Doug Richard – hence the title ‘the Richard Review’.

The Review put forward a wide range of reforms to the design, delivery and funding of apprenticeships – all of which were intended to raise the quality, and eventually the quantity, of apprenticeships.

On the 28th of November 2022, almost exactly ten years after the Richard Review was published, EDSK released a new report that investigated whether the quality of apprenticeships has indeed improved over the last decade.

The main findings in our EDSK report do not make for comfortable reading. 47% of apprentices are dropping out of their course before completing their training, and of those who drop out, 70% report problems with the quality of their apprenticeship.

Just a few weeks before our report was released, the Learning and Work Institute published their analysis of apprenticeship outcomes that looked into, among other things, the reasons why some apprentices are not completing their training course.

So, what have these two separate investigations concluded about the factors behind the alarmingly high drop out rates for apprentices in England? What role should employers and training providers play in delivering high-quality apprenticeships? And what could potentially be done to keep more apprentices engaged in their training?

Who better to talk us through these reports from EDSK and the Learning and Work Institute than my EDSK colleague and co-author Eleanor Regan and Stephen Evans, the Chief Executive of the Learning and Work Institute.

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What does the future hold for private schools in England?

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 08:00:00 +0000

“We shall withdraw charitable status from private schools and all their other public subsidies and tax privileges. We will also charge VAT on the fees paid to such schools” said the Labour Party manifesto. In 1983.

Here we are 40 years and many changes of government later with the Labour Party yet again calling for major changes to the way that private schools are treated.

Government-funded schools are certainly under immense financial strain, as we discussed in our previous podcast episode, but surely private schools cannot be blamed for the difficulties faced by teachers and headteachers working in state schools.

So why have private schools suddenly found themselves back in the spotlight after several decades of relative calm in the policy landscape? Are politicians right or wrong to question the value and role of private schools? And if a current or future Prime Minister does indeed change the way that private schools operate in England, will it lead to better outcomes for pupils across the country?

We are joined today by two guests who come at these questions from very different perspectives.

Barnaby Lenon is chairman of the Independent Schools Council and a former teacher and headteacher in the private school sector, and Melissa Benn is a writer, campaigner and co-founder of Private Education Policy Forum, which platforms research and debate on private schools.

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Why are teachers and headteachers on the verge of strike action?

Thu, 03 Nov 2022 08:00:00 +0000

As you have probably noticed, the Government has been going through Education Secretaries at quite a rate – with five people having held the post since July of this year.

Given the chaotic political landscape in recent months, it is easy to forget that back in July, an important announcement was made about teacher pay.

In effect, teachers and school leaders were offered a pay rise of between 5 and 9 per cent. Far from being welcomed, the pay offer was widely criticised by those in the profession.

And the situation has got considerably worse since July, with major teaching unions now balloting their members on possible strike action over the coming months.

So what has happened to teacher pay in recent years? What impact has this had on schools and their staff? And with the prospect of more cuts being announced to the education budget this month, what could and should the government do next on teacher salaries?

To discuss this high-profile topic, we are joined today by Dr Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union,

And Richard Sheriff, the CEO of Red Kite Learning Trust, which includes 13 primary and secondary schools.

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Is enough progress being made with mental health support in schools?

Wed, 19 Oct 2022 06:00:00 +0000

“I want children and young people to have access to mental health support in schools.” said Liz Truss during her campaign for the Conservative Party leadership this summer.

Unfortunately the Prime Minister is having to deal with a few other matters at the moment, but that does not detract from how serious the issue of mental health has become.

Approximately one in seven young people aged 11 to 19 in England experience at least one diagnosed disorder, with the most common being emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression along with behavioural disorders.

In 2017, the Government outlined plans to transform mental health provision for children and young people, yet five years after those plans were announced there are still regular reports of mental health services not being able to cope with the number of referrals as well as long waiting lists to access treatment.

There is little doubt that the pandemic has made life even harder for some young people, but that only makes tackling this important issue even more urgent.

So what plans did the Government outline in 2017, were they the right plans, what progress has been made in implementing them, and are mental health services for children and young people in a better place now than they were five years ago?

To help us explore these questions, we are joined today by Dean Johnstone, the CEO of Minds Ahead, and Tom Young, theMental Health and Wellbeing Coordinator at the Bay Education Trust.

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How many education policies emerged from this year's party conferences?

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 06:00:00 +0000

In some years, the political party conference season from mid September to early October can pass largely without incident. This year, party conference season was a bit of a rollercoaster.

To kick things off, the Liberal Democrat conference didn’t happen at all, as it would have clashed with the Queen’s funeral.

Then came the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, which had a spring in its step as it began to flesh out what a future Labour government may offer.

And finally we had the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, which was overshadowed by heated arguments about taxing high-earners and economic uncertainty as well as numerous internal scuffles.

So where did education policy fit into all this? What announcements were made by Labour and the Conservatives, and were they sensible ones? And what have we learned about the main parties’ respective agendas and priorities for the months ahead?

To help us digest the last couple of weeks, we are joined by two people who know all about the hustle and bustle of party conferences.

Mark Lehain was previously an advisor to former Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi, and Joe Moore was an advisor to former Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner.

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What is sitting in the new Education Secretary's in-tray?

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 06:00:00 +0000

The “education prime minister” was how Liz Truss described herself during her leadership campaign this summer, and she offered plenty of proposals for how she would change things from primary schools up to universities.

To help deliver her education reforms, Kit Malthouse has been appointed as Education Secretary – the fourth person to take on this role in the last 12 months.

Although I’m sure everyone is now hoping for greater stability at the Department for Education, the rapidly changing political and economic landscape is unlikely to make the new ministers’ lives any easier.

The new Education Secretary’s in-tray will be piled high with policy problems, financial problems and implementation problems, so he will have little time to gather his thoughts before having to make some important and potentially significant decisions.

So how will Kit Malthouse navigate these stormy waters? What could and should he prioritise across schools, colleges and universities? And how easy will it be to deliver any new policies in such a difficult environment?

To try to answer these questions, we brought together two policy experts just before Kit Malthouse was appointed so that they could give us their verdict on what awaits our new Education Secretary.

Our two experts were Jonathan Simons, the Head of Education at Public First, a consultancy, and Andy Westwood, Professor of Government Practice at the University of Manchester.

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What were the major headlines from the 2022 exam season?

Fri, 26 Aug 2022 07:00:00 +0000

To say that the last two years of public examination results have been controversial would be an understatement.

In 2020, many students’ final grades were set by an algorithm, only for the government to change its mind and hand out the grades that teachers had awarded their students in the first place.

In 2021, the government walked away from the process altogether and allowed schools and colleges to determine what grades each student should receive, leading to some dramatic grade inflation.

In 2022, the plan was simple: get back to normal exams with a normal marking procedure to decide a student’s final grade.

So how has it played out this year? Has everything returned to normal, and if not, why not? And were there any notable winners and losers from summer examinations in 2022?

To help us understand what has happened with this year’s exams, I’m joined by Samantha Booth, a senior reporter at Schools Week, and Julie McCulloch, the director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders.

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Is the government's COVID recovery plan having the desired effect?

Fri, 05 Aug 2022 06:00:00 +0000

“After schools shut their gates on Friday afternoon they will remain closed until further notice. This will be for all children, except for those of key workers and for children who are the most vulnerable.”

So said former Education Secretary Gavin Williamson on Wednesday 18th March 2020.

Most pupils eventually returned to school in September of that year after six months out of the classroom, only for more closures to follow in January 2021.

Even though many pupils have now been at school since March last year, absence rates have remained higher than usual and the research studies outlining the scale of ‘learning loss’ have continued to pile up.

As we’ve reached the end of another challenging academic year, we thought now was a good time to reflect on the various plans and initiatives that have tried to counter the effects of the pandemic.

Do we know what impact two and a half years of disruption has had on children and young people? What measures has the government put in place during the pandemic to prevent pupils from falling behind, and were they the right measures? And what needs to happen in the next academic year starting in September to make sure that the COVID recovery effort stays on track?

To discuss these important questions, I’m joined today by Professor Becky Francis, the Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation,

And Professor Simon Burgess from the University of Bristol.

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Should teaching be less art and more science?

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Perhaps one of the most enduring debates in the world of teaching is the question of whether teaching is an art or science.

In recent weeks, not one but two new books have made a strong case for placing a greater emphasis on the science of teaching.

At the beginning of June, Ross McGill – the founder of Teacher Toolkit and probably the most followed teacher on Twitter – published a book called ‘The Teacher Toolkit Guide to Memory’.

Then later in June, Paul Kirschner, Emeritus Professor of Educational Psychology at the Open University of the Netherlands, published a book called ‘How Teaching Happens’ along with his co-authors Carl Hendrick and Jim Heal.

So what was the thinking behind these two books, what topics do they cover, how do they cover them, and could these new publications convince new and experienced teachers to think about teaching and learning in a more scientific way?

To find out the answers to these questions and much more besides, I’m joined today by both Ross McGill and Paul Kirschner.

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Is the government right to reform qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds?

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 05:00:00 +0000

You don’t often see teaching unions, schools, colleges, universities and education charities publicly join forces to resist a new government policy, but the debate over the future of qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds in England has done just that.

In 2016 when the government published their plans for T-levels, the new technical qualification for 16 to 19-year-olds, it raised an obvious question: what would happen to all the vocational and technical courses that were already in place?

It wasn’t long before it emerged that the government’s vision was for young people to only have three options after age 16: A-levels, T-levels and apprenticeships. This meant that many popular courses such as BTECs would have to be cut to make room for T-levels.

But the story is far from over. Over the last 12 months the government has re-confirmed their plans, then stated that they were in fact not going to get rid of BTECs, then delayed their plans, then said they would only get rid of a few BTECS, and now they’ve confirmed that 160 qualifications including 38 BTECs will indeed be removed.

So where has this back-and-forth left the qualification landscape for 16 to 19-year-olds? Are there good reasons to reform the system, as the government has repeatedly claimed? And why have so many organisations lined up against the government’s plans to scrap many existing qualifications?

To share their thoughts on this contentious issue, we are joined today by Ian Pryce CBE, the Chief Executive of the Bedford College Group, and LJ Rawlings, the Chief Executive of Youth Employment UK.

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Will the government's SEND proposals improve the lives of pupils and families?

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 06:00:00 +0000

At the end of March, the government published two significant documents in the space of two days. First came the government’s plans for the future of the state school system in England, which grabbed plenty of media attention.

Next came their new consultation on how to improve the support available to children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (or SEND for short), which may not have hit as many national headlines but it could end up being far more consequential for pupils and families.

The consultation document claimed to “outline a vision for a more inclusive, consistent, transparent and accountable SEND system”. As the consultation is still ongoing, we thought now was an excellent time to find out whether the government’s proposals really can deliver such grand and broad objectives.

So what changes does the consultation propose? Has the government correctly identified the problems in the current system, and will their plans deliver the scale of change that so many parents, pupils, teachers and school leaders want to see?

To help answer these questions, we brought together two special needs experts to hear their thoughts and insights. First, I spoke to Annamarie Hassall, the Chief Executive of the National Association for Special Educational Needs, about the potential benefits and drawbacks of the government’s proposals.

And second, I spoke to Tania Tirraoro, the founder and CEO of the Special Needs Jungle website, to understand what parents and carers need from a future SEND system.

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Do we need to overhaul careers education in schools and colleges?

Mon, 06 Jun 2022 06:00:00 +0000

A Greek philosopher once said that “change is the only constant in life.” I’m sure that rings true for anyone working in careers education in England over the past decade.

In many respects, it seems obvious that we need to provide young people with careers information, advice and guidance because they need help to find out what jobs are available, and which qualifications and courses they need to get into those jobs.

Even so, the careers landscape has seen many schemes, initiatives and government agencies come and go over the years, while schools and colleges have been asked – sometimes told - by government to change how they approach careers advice and guidance on numerous occasions.

So after all this upheaval, can we be sure that careers education in England has actually got better? Is the information, advice and guidance available to young people becoming easier or harder for them to navigate? And is it perhaps time to rethink how we deliver careers advice altogether?

To share their ideas and insights on the past, present and future of careers education, we are joined by Tristram Hooley, a Professor in Career Education at the University of Derby, and Dr Rebecca Montacute, a Senior Research and Policy Manager at the Sutton Trust.

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How can we prevent young people from falling out of our education system?

Thu, 19 May 2022 07:00:00 +0000

As the UK economy slowly emerges from the pandemic, the government has already begun withdrawing many of the schemes that it introduced to support young people over the last two years.

This includes the demise of the Kickstart programme, which subsidised jobs for young people who were unemployed, as well as the incentive payments for employers who recruited apprentices during the pandemic.

But the truth is that for some young people, their difficulties are far from over. Even a return to life before the pandemic will not be enough to improve their chances of making a successful transition from education into employment.

On May 17th, EDSK launched a major new report that begins with a simple yet troubling fact: on current trends it will take over 150 years before there are no longer any young people who end up ‘not in education, employment or training’, otherwise known as NEET.

So why is it that despite endless initiatives and policies from successive governments, the proportion of young people in England who become NEET after leaving school or college has barely changed over the last two decades?

And what could we do differently in future to reduce the number of young people who fall through the cracks in our education system?

To help us unpack this seemingly intractable policy problem, we are joined today by my EDSK colleague Eleanor Regan, who co-authored our new report, and Becci Newton, who is the Director of Public Policy and Research at the Institute for Employment Studies

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Will future students win or lose from the government's plans for Higher Education?

Thu, 05 May 2022 21:00:00 +0000

Who would have thought - you wait three years for a government response to an independent review of the Higher Education system, and then two responses come along at once.

Unsurprisingly, when ministers recently published their plans for the Higher Education, or HE sector, the headlines were dominated by the decision to freeze tuition fees at £9,250 for the next three years as well as some controversial changes to student loans.

However, alongside those eye-catching decisions, the government opened a consultation on a separate set of proposals that they claim will “improve outcomes, access and value for money of investment in higher education by students and taxpayers.”

As the government’s consultation closes on Friday 6th May – the day that this episode is published – we thought it was a good opportunity to take a closer look.

So what changes has the government proposed in their consultation? What justifications have ministers provided for these changes? And how easy will it be to balance the interests of students and taxpayers as the government tries to simultaneously improve outcomes, access and value for money?

To give us their views on whether the government’s proposed reforms are the right or wrong solutions, we are joined by two senior figures from the HE sector.

Diana Beech is the Chief Executive of London Higher, the umbrella organisation representing 40 universities and higher education colleges across London

And Alistair Jarvis CBE is the Chief Executive of Universities UK, which represents 140 universities across the UK.

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Is the National Tutoring Programme delivering what pupils and schools need?

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 21:00:00 +0000

“Failing children and taxpayers”, “a bureaucratic nightmare”, a “spaghetti junction of funding”, “baking in deepening inequalities”, “pouring taxpayers’ money down the drain”.....

Judging by these reviews, it is hard to conclude that the National Tutoring Programme in England has been a resounding success thus far.

Having been announced in June 2020 as part of the government’s COVID recovery efforts, the National Tutoring Programme, or NTP, began operating in November of that same year.

The aim was simple enough: provide primary and secondary state-funded schools with access to high-quality subsidised tutoring for 5 to 16-year-olds.

So why is it that just 18 months into the programme, the NTP has been widely criticised despite starting with the very best of intentions? Why has the government felt the need to keep changing the way that the NTP works, and have these changes made things better or worse? And is the NTP managing to reach those pupils who are most in need of extra help?

To share their thoughts on the ups and downs of the NTP so far, we are joined today by James Turner, the chief executive of the Sutton Trust, and Laura McInerney, the co-founder of Teacher Tapp and former editor of Schools Week.

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What have we learned after five years of the apprenticeship levy?

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 06:00:00 +0000

One of the most common criticisms of politicians and policymakers is that they keep chopping and changing between different policies, making it hard for any idea or approach to build momentum and recognition among those it is trying to reach.

On that basis, perhaps we should be glad that the apprenticeship levy – which was introduced in 2017 – is still very much alive and kicking as it celebrates its fifth birthday on April 6th 2022.

The levy is, in effect, a payroll tax of 0.5 per cent for any UK employer with an annual wage bill of over £3 million. Simple as this sounds, the apprenticeship levy has been a source of heated debate and discussion ever since it was devised.

So what have we learned from the first five years of the apprenticeship levy? Who seems to have benefitted from the levy, and did anyone lose out? And how easy is it to separate out the impact of the levy from other major changes to apprenticeships in recent years – particularly the decision to replace apprenticeship frameworks, which were essentially a bundle of separate qualifications, with apprenticeship standards in which employers set out the skills, knowledge and behaviours that apprentices will learn during their training.

To give us their take on whether or not the apprenticeship levy has been a success, we are joined today by Neil Carberry, the chief executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, and Dr Anna Morrison CBE who is the founder and director of Amazing Apprenticeships.

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Did 'Kickstart' actually kickstart new jobs for young people?

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 22:00:00 +0000

As the Chancellor Rishi Sunak set out his ‘Plan For Jobs’ in July 2020, he recognised that the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic were hitting young people particularly hard.

In response, the Government wanted to generate new jobs and opportunities for them, and so the £2 billion ‘Kickstart’ programme was born.

Through Kickstart, employers were asked to create new jobs for any 16 to 24-year-old who was claiming Universal Credit and at risk of long-term unemployment.

In return, employers would receive a government grant of £6,500 to pay the young person’s wages for six months and cover any overheads.

Having been operating since September 2020, the Kickstart programme finally comes to an end in March 2022, so now is an important time to ask some important questions.

Did Kickstart actually kickstart new jobs for 16 to 24-year-olds? Did the programme reach those young people who needed it the most during the pandemic? And did spending £6,500 of government money on every new job represent good value for taxpayers?

To give us their views on these questions and much more besides, we are joined today by two guests who have followed Kickstart from the beginning.

Kathleen Henehan is a Senior Research and Policy Analyst at the Resolution Foundation, and Tracy Fishwick OBE is managing director of the Transform Lives Company in Liverpool.

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What role do wealth and privilege play in university admissions?

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 22:00:00 +0000

The ‘Varsity Blues’ cheating scandal in the United States, which began almost exactly two years ago to the day, is one of the most astonishing education stories in living memory.

The rich and famous, including Hollywood actresses, hedge fund managers and a number of chief executives, paid vast sums, sometimes over a million dollars, to fraudulently boost their children’s prospects of getting into the most prestigious US universities.

Mercifully, we are unlikely to witness a scandal of this scale and brazenness in this country. However, that does not mean all is well with our university admissions system.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, otherwise known as UCAS, was created in 1993, and the application system – which includes predicted grades, personal statements and academic references – has remained largely unchanged ever since.

Yet there have been increasing concerns in recent years that applicants from poorer households may struggle to compete with other students for university places, particularly at the most popular and selective universities.

At EDSK, we published a report in 2020 called ‘Admitting Mistakes’, which called for major changes to the admissions system because the evidence showed that wealth and privilege can indeed help you get into your preferred degree course.

So, to give us their verdict on whether or not we should be worried about the role that money can play in our university admissions system, we are joined today by Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, or HEPI, and Dr Lee Elliott Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter.

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How could you 'level up' our education system?

Thu, 24 Feb 2022 07:00:00 +0000

In his foreword to the Government’s new ‘levelling up’ plans, the Prime Minister declared that “From day one, the defining mission of this government has been to level up this country” - which raises the question of why it has taken over two years to find out what ‘levelling up’ actually means. But at long last, the government has revealed all – or so they claimed.

The Prime Minister accepted that we live in – and I quote – “a country in which the place of your birth is one of the clearest determining factors in how you’ll get on, what opportunities will be open to you, even the number of years for which you can expect to live.”

This is clearly unacceptable – so what plans does the government now have to ‘level up’ the education system to help address these longstanding issues? Are their plans likely to prove sufficient when tackling such deep-rooted problems, and if not, what should ministers be doing instead?

To help us understand how, when and where the government is likely to succeed or fail in their quest to ‘level up’ education in England, our two guests are experts in the economics of education and what it means for learners of all ages.

Luke Sibieta runs his own education economics consultancy and is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

And Dr Claire Crawford is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities at the Institute of Education.

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To Baccalaureate or not to Baccalaureate? That is the question

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 07:00:00 +0000

It is not just Prime Minister Boris Johnson who has been imploring us to BUILD BACK BETTER. Even US President Joe Biden has used this same phrase to describe his own plans to reshape America in response to the pandemic.

So what would BUILDING BACK BETTER look like in the context of our education system? Plenty of attention and debate has focused on the question of what exams in England should look like in future, or indeed whether exams should exist at all.

But within those same debates about the future of assessment, an interesting policy question has emerged: if we want to build back better, should we build a Baccalaureate in the final years of secondary education?

Would a Baccalaureate offer some advantages over the current mix of academic and technical qualifications? And even if a Baccalaureate is indeed a good idea in principle, could it realistically be delivered in the coming years?

To give us their views on the potential upsides and downsides of introducing a Baccalaureate in England, our two guests today offer a wealth of experience stretching from the classroom all the way up to advising government ministers.

Tom Sherrington is a former teacher and headteacher and is now an education consultant, author and blogger.

And Tim Oates CBE is Group Director of Assessment Research and Development at Cambridge Assessment.

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What could and should go into the 2022 schools 'White Paper'?

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 08:00:00 +0000

A new Education Secretary was appointed a few months ago, and the government feels that now is the time to reshape the schools system by publishing a White Paper, which describes their proposals for future policies and the legal changes needed to deliver them.

The year, of course, is 2010 and recently appointed Education Secretary Michael Gove is about to launch his ambitious plans that would reshape state schools in England for years to come.

Fast forward six years and another White Paper emerged when Nicky Morgan was Education Secretary in 2016, and here we are another six years on in 2022 awaiting a new White Paper on the schools system – this time courtesy of Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi.

So why does the government think that a new approach is needed to running state schools? What problems is the White Paper going to attempt to solve? And what can be learned from the previous two White Papers that may guide ministers towards a better set of proposals and away from potential pitfalls?

To give us their verdict on what has happened in the past when trying to reform state schools as well as what should happen in future, we are lucky enough to have two guests who have worked on education policy at senior levels inside and outside government.

Natalie Perera is the CEO of the Education Policy Institute, an independent research institute which she co-founded in 2016.

And Sam Freedman is a senior advisor at Ark Schools and a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government.

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What problems does the government's upcoming SEND review need to solve?

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 07:00:00 +0000

Special educational needs and disabilities, or SEND for short, covers a wide range of difficulties that can affect a child or young person’s ability to learn. This could relate to their behaviour, reading and writing skills, physical abilities, social skills and much more besides.

Well before COVID-19 emerged, and perhaps even more so since the pandemic began, almost every major news story about SEND has used the same word to describe the current situation: ‘crisis’.

So what has caused so many parents, teachers, headteachers and policy experts to talk about a crisis in special needs provision? What is happening, or not happening, to generate such widespread concerns? And what problems does the government now need to solve in their long-awaited review of SEND, due to be published in the coming weeks?

To help us understand the current challenges facing schools and families, and what could potentially be done about it, we are joined by two guests who have years of experience working in and around the special needs system.

Marijke Miles is a headteacher at a special school and is chair of the SEND Council at the National Association of Headteachers

And Barney Angliss is a special needs and disability consultant and a former Special Needs coordinator and local authority Special Needs manager.

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Has the government done enough to support young people during the pandemic?

Tue, 21 Dec 2021 09:00:00 +0000

Looking for your first ever job can be a daunting experience at the best of times. Looking for your first ever job in the middle of a global pandemic will only make things harder.

In recessions, unemployment among young people is normally one of the most visible casualties. In the economic downturn that followed the financial crisis in 2008, the proportion of 16 to 24 year olds who were out of work and outside of education reached 20%.

As COVID-19 began to spread last year, the government was understandably keen to avoid a repeat of this situation, not least because young people spending time not in education, employment or training – often known as NEET – can have long-term scarring effects on their ability to find a sustainable job.

Now that we have a full set of statistics for what has happened in our labour market over the first 18 months of the pandemic, it is a good time to ask whether young people have received enough support during this period of unprecedented change.

Has the government invested enough in young people? Did ministers roll out the right support at the right time? And if a young person enters the labour market now, what are their chances of finding a good job?

To help us look back over the last 18 months and what it has meant for young people, our two guests are from organisations who work tirelessly to understand and improve young people’s prospects: Harriet McCann is the Head of Policy at the Youth Futures Foundation, and Tony Wilson is director of the Institute for Employment Studies.

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Are T-levels the right answer, and if so, what was the question?

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 14:00:00 +0000

In terms of name recognition in our education system, two brands are hard to beat: A-levels, which were created back in 1951, and apprenticeships, which have been around for quite literally hundreds of years.

However, the question of what should sit between A-levels and apprenticeships has been debated and contested for a long time, and not in a good way. The two most recent attempts to fill the gap between A-levels and apprenticeships – first, GNVQs and NVQs in the early 1990s; and then ‘Diplomas’ in 2007 – both failed despite considerable political and financial investment. If one were to add Applied A-levels, Vocational A-levels, AVCEs, the TVEI, YTS and CPVEs to the list of failures then the history of vocational and technical qualifications quickly turns into an acronym graveyard.

Now, the Government appears to be insisting that in future 16-year-olds in England should only really have three options: A-levels for those who want to attend university, apprenticeships for those who want to move into employment, or a new ‘T-level’ if a student wants to train towards a specific occupation.

So are T-levels the right answer, and if so, what was the question? Will T-levels succeed where so many others have failed? And why is the government so keen to remove huge swathes of existing qualifications as they roll out these new T-levels across the country?

To share their views on the introduction of T-levels and what it means for the rest of the qualification landscape, we are joined by two guests who have been following T-levels from the very beginning: Dr Fiona Aldridge is Head of Skills Insight at the West Midlands Combined Authority, and Neil Thomas is the Chief Executive & Principal of Dudley College of Technology.

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Why are the government's plans to reform teacher training so controversial?

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 07:00:00 +0000

The government does not often find itself in a war of words with the likes of Oxford University and Cambridge University, yet that is precisely what has transpired over the past few months.

But their public disagreements have nothing to do with tuition fees, student loans or university funding. Instead, it is the government’s proposed reforms to the way teachers are trained that has generated a considerable amount of friction.

Anyone who wants to become a teacher in England has several options available to them in terms of how they train. For example, you can train at a university through a 1-year post graduate certificate in education, or PGCE.

Alternatively, you could train on the job in a group of neighbouring schools or colleges. Both these options are known as Initial Teacher Training (or ITT for short).

So why has the government decided to reform the way that teachers are trained? What are the potential benefits and risks of what they are proposing? And why is it that the government’s plans have met such vocal opposition?

To give us their perspective on the government’s proposed changes to Initial Teacher Training in England, we are joined by two guests who take a very keen interest in how we train teachers and how that training is delivered.

John Blake is the Head of Public Affairs and Engagement and the former Curriculum Research and Design Lead at Ark Schools, a large multi-academy trust.

And James Noble-Rogers is Executive Director of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, a membership organisation for universities involved in teacher education and education research.

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How will the Augar Review affect the future of Higher Education?

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 16:00:00 +0000

It is often said that a week is a long time in politics, and yet it is now almost four years since the former Prime Minister Theresa May announced a review of Post-18 Education and Funding to be led by Philip Augar.

The Review, which was completed in May 2019, provided a detailed analysis of the whole post-18 education sector in England including universities, colleges and apprenticeships. In fact, it was so detailed that it offered 53 separate recommendations on the future structure and funding of post-18 education.

But two and a half years after the Review was published, we are still waiting for the government to decide how they are going to respond to some of the biggest questions raised by the Augar Review. Will university tuition fees be cut, will student loans be reformed, and will money be taken away from universities and given to colleges instead? These questions and many more remain unanswered.

To help us understand what has happened with the Augar Review and why it is taking so long for the government to make up their mind, we are joined by two guests who have been following the Augar Review ever since it was announced.

Rachel Hewitt is Chief Executive of MillionPlus, the Association for Modern Universities and previously worked at the Higher Education Policy Institute and the Higher Education Statistics Agency

And Dr Gavan Conlon is a partner at London Economics and a specialist education and labour market economist who has written extensively about higher education fees and funding.

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What did the 2021 Spending Review mean for education?

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 16:00:00 +0000

On Wednesday this week, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak unveiled the government’s Autumn Budget and the outcome of their 2021 Spending Review. The Budget described the upcoming changes to taxation while the Spending Review set out how much money each government department will get over the next three years.

There were certainly some eye-catching announcements including big increases in government spending and investment, tax cuts for businesses and an increase in the national living wage. But what did the Budget and Spending Review mean for our education system from primary schools all the way up to universities and beyond? Which education institutions are the winners and losers from the Chancellor’s decisions? And should headteachers, college principals and university vice-chancellors be feeling optimistic or pessimistic about the months ahead?

To help us unravel the contents of the Spending Review in this inaugural episode of the EDSK think tank’s new podcast, we are joined by two guests who know all about Spending Reviews from their own careers in and around government. Jonathan Simons is a Partner and Head of the Education Practice at Public First, a specialist public policy consultancy, and Andy Westwood is Professor of Government Practice at the University of Manchester and a Director of the Productivity Institute.

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