Highlights of the week ending 5 November
Education has featured prominently in this week’s parliamentary business. The new ministerial team at DfE faced MPs at education questions for the first time. Topics covered included the level 3 review, the National Tutoring Programme and when the response to Augar will be published.
This was followed by the Secretary of State’s appearance in front of the Education Committee. This was a wide-ranging session covering the length of the school day (DfE published findings on this), the cost of the National Insurance rise on schools, and delays to the SEND review. Although it is still early days of Nadhim Zahawi’s tenure, he revealed some of his priorities - he is not sold on longer school day for all and wants all mainstream schools to be SEN schools. And at the end of the week, Mr Zahawi set out plans to puts climate change at the heart of education.
Robert Halfon introduced a Bill aimed at redefining schools as ‘essential infrastructure’ and introducing a “triple lock” of protections to ensure that any possible school closures would have to be approved by Parliament. Teaching unions believe the Bill “misses the point”.
We’ve also seen a flurry of consultations with Ofqual consulting accessible assessments and QAA on subject benchmark statements.