Weekly round-up: Labour’s big plans and school closures

Catch up on all your must-read Tes stories from the past seven days right here:

• Primary school nurseries to expand under Labour plan 
  Former chief inspector of schools Sir David Bell will lead a Labour review of early years, the shadow education secretary announced at the party’s conference this week.
   
• Labour plans ‘real world’ maths teaching in primary
  Labour has unveiled plans to upskill primary school teachers to teach “real world” maths, with the aim of delivering ”stronger lifelong numeracy”.
   
• ‘Dreaded’ Ofsted inspections ‘ineffective’, says Labour
  Ofsted inspections are not just “dreaded” by schools but also fail to provide useful information to parents, Labour’s shadow schools minister has said.
   
• Labour won’t fix ‘broken’ teacher recruitment, ex-DfE adviser warns
  A former Department for Education senior policy adviser has said he does not expect that a Labour government would be able to “fix” teacher recruitment and has predicted that teaching will become a “visa profession”, similar to healthcare.
   
• Unions demand DfE restores £370 million per pupil funding
  Unions have called on the government to restore school funding allocations to the levels previously announced before a mistake in calculations was discovered.
   
• DfE school funding mistake: all you need to know
  What does the government’s error in school funding calculations for 2024-25 mean for schools and trusts? Tes reporter Jasmine Norden explains.
   
• How my school became a victim of the birth rate drop
  The head of a primary school facing closure because of a falling roll talks about the heartache and what needs to change to give better support to pupils and families at other schools in the same situation.
   
• Demand for maximum 35-hour week for teachers
  The NASUWT teachers’ union has launched a manifesto calling for government action on pay, “spiralling” workloads and long working hours.
   
• Governors call for long-term school staff pay plan
  School governors have called for a long-term plan for pay and incentives for all staff to address a decline in salaries.
   
• DfE announces £196m to recruit more teachers 
  The government will spend £196 million this academic year on scholarships, bursaries and salary grants for teacher trainees, with the aim of recruiting more people into the profession.
   
• Highest ever attainment gap for five-year-olds with SEN support
  The attainment gap between children receiving SEN support and their peers at the age of 5 was the highest on record last year, new research shows.
   
• SEND: One in five primary teachers have ‘nowhere near’ enough support
  One in five primary school teachers say they have “nowhere near the help they need” to support pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, according to new research that has sparked calls for an increase in high-needs funding.