It’s a busy time at the Department for Education at the moment. Beleaguered civil servants have been tasked with pushing through the successful introduction of T levels by 2020, after education secretary Damian Hinds overruled concerns raised by his own permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater. Then there's the ongoing review of post-18 education, which still seems to be bogged down in establishing what it will actually be reviewing.

And now it has emerged that staff at the Department are so desperate for a break, one of them has upped sticks and headed for Love Island. 

Zara McDermott has worked at the DfE since October 2017, according to her LinkedIn profile. But, for the foreseeable future at least, Ms McDermott has swapped Sanctuary Buildings for the TV show’s villa in Majorca.

On the chase

According to publicity interviews before her arrival in the villa, Ms McDermott has her eyes on romance – although she admits to being attracted to men who are "emotionally unavailable" and like to "give her a chase". This should stand her in good stead for the flagging push to find 3 million apprenticeships when she gets back, then.

And it's not just FErret who's excited about FE making it on to prime time TV.

Inexplicably, Ms McDermott doesn't seem to have used her exposure on the telly (no, not like that) to make a case for ending GCSE resits or championing institutes of technology. Maybe that's in tonight's show.