General

‘Pay to play’ culture around music education condemned by Scotland’s biggest teaching union, amid prospect of cuts to instrumental tuition

Sheena Devlin, who will take over from Michael Wood in January, brings many years of experience and has ‘huge respect’ among colleagues

Watchdog’s school inspection trials are set to run for several weeks in volunteer schools but the findings will not be published

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Families are seeking to take the government to the High Court over 20 per cent tax on private school fees, supported by the Independent Schools Council

Union demands reversal of teacher job cuts by end of the year as it points to extra funding for local authorities in this month’s Scottish Budget

Mary Bousted and Anne Longfield become Labour peers, while free speech campaigner and free-school founder Toby Young is made a peer by the Conservatives

Prime minister is warned that councils’ SEND spending deficits could result in ‘an avalanche’ of local authorities declaring effective bankruptcy

Primary school is taking legal advice in an attempt to stop the DfE pushing ahead with its forced academisation under a policy that the government is dropping in the new year

Expert observers assessing the same lesson can produce different ratings on teacher quality, new research warns

Teachers are ‘powerless’ to tackle the rise in disruptive behaviour in schools – they need to be given greater authority, says Tony Blair’s think tank

Watchdog to visit volunteer schools to trial its new inspection approach before launching a formal consultation on its plans for new report cards