Highlights of the week ending 11 February
Apprenticeships took centre-stage as England, Wales and Northern Ireland celebrated National Apprenticeships Week (NAW). This gave policy makers the opportunity to make apprenticeship related announcements – in England, prisoners will soon be able to undertake apprenticeships for the first time, and in Wales £366m was pledged to deliver 125,000 all age apprenticeships over three years. Read the Pearson blog on NAW here.
Exam boards published information to support GCSE, AS, and A level students ahead of the summer exams series. This is part of Ofqual’s work to mitigate the impact of learning disruption encountered over the past two years. Measures include advanced sight of content. It was also announced that grading will be more generous as part of the move away from teacher assessed grades used in 2021.
DfE’s State of the Nation report, published on Tuesday, shown some recovery in children and young people’s wellbeing last year – but that the last two years continue to take a toll. While two reports have highlighted the need for government to tackle to disadvantage gap. Research by Teach First found teachers wanting an expansion of the pupil premium, while EPI’s annual report on the gap shows that it remains large across the country.