Kristina Murkett is an English teacher, private tutor and journalist
A new report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, has recommended that the six-week school summer holiday should be reduced to four weeks, and the two weeks redistributed so that schools have a two-week half-term in October and February. Lee Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said that spreading out the holidays more equally
Having just watched the overwhelmingly underwhelming Bob Marley: One Love, I have decided that Hollywood’s obsession with biopics must be stopped. Biopics have become so ubiquitous, so pervasive, so unoriginal, that Kingsley Ben-Adir, who plays Marley in the film, has already starred in two other biopics: The Comey Rule as Barack Obama and One Night in Miami as Malcolm X.
Breaking news: schools have finally been given guidance on stopping kids from using mobile phones during the school day, three years after the government first called for a ban on phones in schools. The guidance is about as groundbreaking as announcing that loudspeakers should be banned in libraries. Less than 1 per cent of schools currently allow unrestricted phone
As an English teacher and sixth form tutor, I spend a lot of my time at the moment celebrating and comforting students as they hear about their UCAS offers. I try to reassure them when they are disappointed – which many of them were last week in particular, when Cambridge offers came out – that
Is school optional nowadays? In summer 2022, 140,000 children were classed as ‘severely absent’ from the classroom, a rise of 134 per cent on before the pandemic. Some 1.5 million pupils – one in five children – are ‘persistently absent’, which means they miss more than 10 per cent of lessons. The problem is getting
Teaching in the UK is in trouble. Less than half the number of secondary school teachers required this year, a record low, have been recruited, according to government figures released last week. STEM (science, engineering, technology and maths) subjects are particularly struggling: we only have 17 per cent of our target number of physics teachers
Despite only being 30, the students at the school at which I work often make me feel old. They love nothing more than testing my knowledge of their Gen-Z slang: no, I don’t know what you mean when you say Romeo is a ‘simp’ or whether Macbeth’s behaviour is ‘sus’. My average 12-year-old student is
Dream Scenario is a film about modern celebrity culture and the terror of losing yourself to the internet’s virtual mob. It’s the story of evolutionary biology professor Paul Matthews, a balding, befuddled, bespectacled everyman who is the walking embodiment of anonymity – played by Nicholas Cage, the face that launched a thousand memes. At the start
When it comes to Ofsted, people often like to trot out the old adage that ‘you don’t grow a pig by weighing it.’ Others might rebuttal that you grow the pig by measuring its progress and making necessary adjustments to its diet, hence the need for inspections. However, a new report by Beyond Ofsted, an
Dear the parents/guardians of Andrea Jenkyns (age 49 years and 5 months), I am concerned that Andrea’s most recent piece – her no-confidence letter to the Prime Minister – does not reflect her true abilities, and given her experience as both Secretary of State for Skills and Secretary of State for Education, I suspect Andrea
If there’s one thing this government is addicted to, it’s crackdowns. Rishi Sunak loves to talk tough on how he is going to ‘crack down’ on small boats, climate protestors, Mickey Mouse degrees, banks blacklisting, anti-social behaviour. Just last week Home Secretary Suella Braverman vowed to crack down on homeless people living in tents as
This weekend became The One Where We All Lost A Friend: Matthew Perry, Friends actor, addiction spokesperson and rehabilitation advocate, who died aged 54. He played the sweetly acerbic, chronically insecure Chandler Bing. Perry’s comic genius and impeccable timing meant he created a particular style of delivery and physicality that was uniquely his but endlessly imitable, epitomised
After 13 years in power, the Conservatives have decided to rebrand themselves as the ‘party of change’. Today, Rishi Sunak announced that the Tories will ban smoking for the next generation, scrap a significant portion of HS2, and abolish A-levels and T-levels in favour of new ‘Advanced British Standards’. Rishi Sunak is no longer ‘Inaction Man’,
Today Labour have confirmed that they will impose VAT on private schools in its first year of power if it wins the next general election, rather than phasing in new charges over several academic years. In order to improve state education, Labour needs to raise money from somewhere, and private schools are an easy ideological
Teacher recruitment levels are in crisis, and have been for some time. Only half the number of secondary teachers needed for this academic year have actually been recruited, according to figures obtained by the National Education Union (NEU) and the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT). Teacher vacancies have doubled since the start of the pandemic, while one in
Pupils are due to head back to school over the coming days, but now it seems that some of them might not. Yesterday, the government told schools to prepare evacuation plans for buildings made with RAAC concrete. This morning, schools were instructed to close these buildings altogether. This has caused immense disruption to at least
August always means an anxious wait for results days, but this year pupils will be feeling particularly apprehensive. England’s exams regulator, Ofqual, has said that national results will be lower than last year’s and are expected to be similar to those before Covid. Some reports estimate that around 50,000 A-level students will therefore miss out on getting the A*
Rishi Sunak is a big fan of a ‘crack down’. He has previously vowed to crack down on migration, anti-social behaviour and climate protests. ‘Rip off’ university courses that ‘don’t offer the prospect of a decent job at the end of it’ are the PM’s latest target. But Sunak’s tough talk and aggressive rhetoric smacks of over-compensating for any lack
Bridget Phillipson was appointed Labour’s shadow education secretary in November 2021. After 18 months in the role, she has now finally unveiled Labour’s ambitious new idea to help tackle the teacher retention and recruitment crisis: use the tax raid on private school fees to fund a £2,400 welcome bonus to every teacher who has completed their two
One of the most wonderful things about walking around Oxford at this time of year is seeing hordes of young people celebrating the end of exams: finals, A-levels. GCSEs. Hundreds of miles north in Scotland, younger students may soon have another reason to celebrate altogether: the end of National 5 qualifications. An imminent review of
