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There is no clear link between performance pay for teachers and raising standards in schools, says an international survey. The OECD has examined data from its Pisa tests to find whether targeting pay improves pupil achievement. Previous studies have identified the importance of high-quality teaching. But the OECD’s Andreas Schleicher says the international evidence reveals [...]

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For those of you actively job seeking at the moment don’t forget that finding and applying for a new role couldn’t be simpler with our help. Firstly take a look at the thousands of jobs on offer at Schools Jobs and then skip to our lovely new careers page here where you will find top [...]

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On Thursday, the education secretary, Michael Gove, eloquently described how much of this nation’s talents and capabilities are strangled at birth by the power of the old school tie. “Those who were born poor are more likely to stay poor and those who inherit privilege are more likely to pass on privilege in England more [...]

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It started with a music teacher’s request for two of her pupils to sing at her wedding. Ginette Brown chose the song, The Prayer, and teenagers Jonathan Antoine and Charlotte Jaconelli performed it at her church ceremony. When the pair sang the same duet to audition for Britain’s Got Talent, their performance earned acclaim from the [...]

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Morale among state school teachers is at “rock bottom”, according to a former chief inspector of schools, who speaks out as unions warn that a “perfect storm” of government meddling threatens an exodus of talent from the profession. Christine Gilbert, who resigned as head of Ofsted last year, said there was evidence of widespread disillusionment [...]

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When Sir Michael Wilshaw took up his role as the head of Ofsted in January, he made it clear he had no intention of softening the combative style that marked his spell as head of the high-achieving Mossbourne Academy in Haringey. “If anyone says to you that ‘staff morale is at an all-time low’, you [...]

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When they came to power, David Cameron and Nick Clegg said they were determined to raise the status of teaching because “the most successful countries, from the Far East to Scandinavia, are those where teaching has the highest status as a profession”. These are places where only the top graduates enter teaching, and where training [...]

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Glynis Bates, who teaches at Priory School, Whippingham, Isle of Wight, tampered with two A-level physics papers sat by student Jacob Phillips in January. She made alterations and re-wrote answers on papers submitted by Phillips, the son of a family friend. The former examinations officer, who won an award from the Good Schools Guide in 2009, [...]

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Reading Michael Gove’s mischievous speech on the disproportionate grip that private schools still have on the upper slopes of British life, I was reminded of the day I fired off a breakfast email to a colleague, saying that his latest article had been so unhinged that I had gone straight to Who’s Who to see [...]

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Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, has pledged his support for the expansion of grammar schools, it was claimed yesterday. People who attended a reception at the Commons last month held by Friends of Grammar Schools said Mr Gove had expressed support for the example set in Kent, where a new “satellite” grammar school – an [...]

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Parents were told today to demand more of grammar schools that are “coasting”. Some are not being held to account for failing to stretch bright children, as might a comprehensive, because admission is so competitive that parents are only too pleased that their child has won a place, says the Good Schools Guide. Figures from [...]

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Sir Michael Wilshaw criticised head teachers “whose first recourse is to blame someone else” for chronic underperformance in schools. He said difficult pupils, unsupportive families and the stress of the job was “too often” used an excuse by staff facing the biggest challenges.   The chief inspector – appointed as the head of Ofsted in January [...]

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Teachers are being told not to  correct more than three spelling errors at a time to avoid damaging pupils’ self-confidence, an MP revealed yesterday. Andrew Selous highlighted the practice at a secondary school in his South West Bedfordshire constituency but fears it is widespread across the country. The Tory MP condemned not correcting all errors [...]

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Teachers don’t understand the real meaning of the word stress, the new Ofsted head, Sir Michael Wilshaw, said today. In a scathing attack which will raise the stakes in his increasingly confrontational relationship with the profession, Sir Michael took aim at teachers who “make excuses for poor performance,” claiming their jobs are “far too stressful”. [...]

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Richard Cairns, the headmaster of Brighton College, said school leaders should be given greater incentive to control the worst teachers to stop them being “palmed off” to other schools. He said society would be shocked if hospitals tuned a “blind eye to incompetent doctors or nurses” but poor teachers were routinely tolerated in the education system. [...]

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Sir Michael Wilshaw, chief inspector of the education watchdog, said disruption during lesson times was often down to the use of mobiles and that the issue had to be stamped out.   In an interview yesterday, the former headmaster revealed a tough new inspection regime would be introduced in schools from next term. Under the [...]

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Pupils face a ban on mobile phones in school as part of a new Ofsted crackdown on classroom discipline. Schools will be penalised for failing to tackle persistent low-level disruption in lessons under a tough new inspection regime being introduced next term. This could force teachers to forbid mobile phone use by pupils – including [...]

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My daughters are both exceptional at art; my son has always been a mathematical genius. My girls have won prizes for art; my boy has won an academic prize every year of his life, including university scholarships. Are my kids gifted and talented? What do we mean when by “gifted”? Françoys Gagné (2003) says: “Gifted [...]

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A young teacher says abuse on Twitter and Facebook by her students left her physically ill and on medication. It follows a report by a teachers’ union which found social media is increasingly being used to attack teachers. Twenty-eight-year-old Rebecca left her first teaching job after being abused online “I felt physically sick and couldn’t [...]

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More than three-quarters of school staff are in favour of linking salaries to performance in the classroom, figures show, despite widespread opposition to the move from unions. Almost half of teachers questioned said pay rises should be determined by pupils’ results, it was revealed.   The disclosure – in a survey from the Sutton Trust charity [...]

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More than six-in-10 state secondaries in England were found to be not good enough under the new regime established to provide a more accurate picture of school performance. Around one-in-eight schools were given the lowest possible rating – more than four times higher than previous figures. Since January, Ofsted has placed a greater focus on [...]

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Police in Bangladesh are looking for a teacher from a Muslim religious school who allegedly placed burning hot iron rods on the legs of her students for failing to offer prayers regularly. They say 14 girls, aged between eight and 12, received burn injuries. The school has been temporarily closed following the incident, while the [...]

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Payment by results and performance-related pay differ structurally but amount to the same thing: the belief that everybody works harder when there’s a bonus in it. It’s very prevalent in – but not limited to – this government, and it certainly didn’t start with either this one or the last. It’s based on a 1960s [...]

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Graham Stuart, chairman of the Commons education select committee, said the worst staff should be “removed from the profession” to prevent long-term damage to pupils’ progress. He also criticised opposition to the changes from unions, saying it “doesn’t make sense” to pay lazy staff working in leafy suburbs as much as inspirational teachers in tough inner-city [...]

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The National Union of Teachers warned that the proposed introduction of performance-related pay would result in staff attempting to exaggerate pupils’ progress to secure lucrative bonuses.   It warned that the move was likely to cause major rifts in schools as individual teachers “over-claim” the effect they are having on children’s grades. The union also [...]

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Sixth-formers should be encouraged to host lessons in front of other pupils to see whether they are suited to teaching, MPs claim today. In a report, the Commons Education Select Committee says such a scheme could help to cut drop-out rates on teaching courses by weeding out those who do not take to the career. [...]

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Ministers are considering plans to create a clearer link between pay and classroom performance as part of a new drive to boost results and attract the best graduates into the profession. The disclosure came as a cross-party group of MPs warned that a new system of performance-related pay was needed to stop the worst teachers hiding [...]

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Growing up with a surgeon as a father has its downsides. When he was home, we were often treated to rather gory dinner-time conversations, and loud telephone calls detailing surgical procedures that I really didn’t want to hear about over my shepherd’s pie.   But, years before I thought I might land up in Parliament, [...]

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Ministers want to link pay to performance in the classroom as part of a new drive to improve results and attract the best graduates into the profession. A cross-party group of MPs today says that a new payment by results system is needed to stop the worst teachers hiding behind a “rigid and unfair” national [...]

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Neil Carr, 25 – who is heterosexual but celibate – was placed under investigation after a colleague overheard two young boys say to each other: ”Mr Carr is gay” during a conversation in a corridor. When asked about their comment both boys claimed they had been molested by the teacher during classes and news filtered out [...]

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Teachers claim they have been reprimanded by Ofsted inspectors for having pupils who are ‘too well behaved and polite’ and for marking work with ‘back to front’ left-handed ticks. A list of bizarre complaints has been revealed, including one about a teacher who was eight months pregnant but told she was being downgraded because she [...]

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Exam boards are to be banned from holding face-to-face seminars with teachers in a bid to stop tips about forthcoming A-level and GCSE questions being passed on. The ban is announced today by Ofqual, the exams regulator, in the wake of an exposé by a national newspaper which claimed “inappropriate information” was being routinely passed [...]

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More than half of state school teachers are failing to encourage their brightest pupils to apply to Oxford and Cambridge, according to a survey out today. They ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ advise their most gifted pupils to apply to the elite institutions, prompting fears that hundreds of youngsters are being held back. The survey results suggest [...]

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Almost six-in-10 teachers are failing to push their most academically-gifted teenagers towards Oxford or Cambridge, it was revealed. The study suggests that opposition towards the ancient universities – regularly ranked among the world’s top five institutions – is rising among the teaching profession.   When the research was last carried out five years ago, only [...]

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The number of teachers in England’s state school system fell by 10,000 in the year to November, new figures show. Government data on the school workforce shows teacher numbers have dropped for the first time in years. Ministers say three quarters of the reduction is among teachers employed directly by local councils – for example as [...]

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Some 56 per cent of teachers in English state schools were signed off with illness in 2010/11 – up from 52 per cent a year earlier. Of those taking sick leave, average staff members missed eight school days in the academic year, it was revealed.   The disclosure – in figures from the Department for Education [...]

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History, geography and  modern foreign language lessons are enjoying a comeback on the secondary school curriculum, according to figures released today. Overall, though, the number of teachers has fallen for the first time in years – by 10,000 – as councils prune staffing in the wake of schools opting to quit their control and become academies. [...]

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So many column inches are wasted on pupils applying to Oxford and Cambridge. I wish there were a silver bullet to the problem of accessibility to narrowly academic universities, but we’re embedded so much into our own institutions it’s difficult to have a clearer strategy or more co-ordinated approach. For the moment, different institutions are working [...]

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Labour demanded urgent action to ensure proper oversight of Britain’s growing number of academies yesterday as it emerged that the Government has issued warning notices to eight of the schools that they are under-performing. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, told MPs that his department has has sent “pre-warning” letters to the academies, stating that they [...]

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Eight academy schools have been put on notice that they must boost their standards or face action, it was revealed today. Education Secretary Michael Gove said the schools have been issued with pre-warning notices because they are severely under-performing. It comes as MPs raised concerns that a government quango responsible for investigating complaints against academies is [...]

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It was 3.45 on a Friday afternoon. The tears came almost as soon as the bell sounded and quickly became those choking sobs that prevent words from coming out, let alone making sense. She sat at one of the desks where the PSHE lesson on bullying had just taken place and allowed the emotions to [...]

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High-school welding classes always carry a high risk of injury but last week one lesson took a bizarrely dangerous turn. In an apparent attempt to get his students’ attention one welding teacher lined up his class against a wall, pulled a gun from his waistband and fired multiple rounds of blanks. The twelve students allegedly [...]

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The five-person Oxnard school board voted unanimously on Wednesday night in favour of the dismissal of Stacie Halas, who had been a teacher at the Richard   B. Haydock Intermediate School for almost three years. Superintendent Jeff Chancer said that, as a result of Halas’ role as a porn actress, the district found she had [...]

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During 20 years as an investigative reporter I’ve been shot at, beaten, abused on the streets in front of my children and forced to move house more than 50 times because of death threats. I’ve often asked myself why I have followed this dangerous road. On any single day I could meet gangsters who openly [...]

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A headmistress of a prestigious girls’ school ‘singled out’ a member of staff and bullied her because of her ‘inappropriate’ dress sense, a tribunal was told yesterday. Nicky Walsh, 57, was repeatedly reduced to tears by the ‘belligerent’ attitude of Elizabeth Robinson while she was employed at the £13,000-a-year Brigidine School. The sprawling school, which [...]

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No one pretends educating today’s children and young people is easy – that’s why it’s a job for the top performing graduates of today. It’s a profession that will test you to the limit, draw on all your resources and challenge you to the hilt – but you are supported every step of the way. [...]

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As educators, we have a genuine wish to contribute to a happier society. And yet, we sometimes wonder how we can keep this intention alive and make it a reality. Do you remember this letter written by a Holocaust survivor? It said: “My eyes saw what no person should witness: gas chambers built by learned [...]

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Teachers yesterday threatened strikes on a new front – in defence of ‘essential’ six-week  summer holidays. They vowed to resist attempts to introduce four-week holidays, insisting longer breaks were needed to counter ‘excessive’ workloads. Both Prime Minister David Cameron and Education Secretary Michael Gove have signalled support for a shorter summer holiday and longer school [...]

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Pupils should be routinely reported to the police after making unfounded claims simply to get their own back on teachers, it was claimed. The NASUWT union said lying schoolchildren “must understand there is a consequence” to making allegations that are “unjust and malicious”. The comments came as new figures showed the vast majority of claims [...]

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Pupils are being ‘actively recruited’ by schools to spy on their teachers in the classroom, a union has warned. They are being used as ‘management tools’ to carry out covert – and even open – surveillance of members of staff, it was claimed. Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of [...]

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