Weekly round-up: Teacher strikes and Sats ‘debacle’

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

• Sats 2023: Call for full probe into reading paper ‘debacle’
  Union leaders have called for a “proper review” of this year’s key stage 2 Sats reading paper, with schools minister Nick Gibb remaining tight-lipped over the “debacle”.
   
• Sats 2023: Reading paper not more difficult, Gibb told 
  The schools minister, Nick Gibb, has been told that the key stage 2 Sats reading paper that reportedly left pupils in tears was not more difficult than previous years’ assessments.
   
• Heads’ union announces dates for first-ever strike ballot 
  The Association of School and College Leaders will hold the first strike ballot in its 150-year history later this month. The announcement raises the prospect of all four major teachers’ and heads’ unions coordinating strike action in the autumn term.
   
• Rise in teachers quitting pension shows ‘need for pay rise’ 
  A huge jump in the number of teachers opting out of paying into their pension shows why teachers “need a pay rise”, the biggest teaching union has said.
   
• Teacher shortage: Schools face ‘worst’ recruitment deadline 
  School leaders are warning that this term’s teacher transfer window deadline has been the “worst ever” and is causing “major anxiety”, as the recruitment crisis bites.
   
• Keegan meets Ruth Perry’s sister to discuss improving Ofsted 
  Education secretary Gillian Keegan has said she is serious about improving Ofsted inspection after a meeting with Julia Waters, the sister of headteacher Ruth Perry.
   
• Ofsted: Campaign hires leading barrister for legal bid
  A legal campaign to launch a judicial review into Ofsted’s inspection framework for schools following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry has reached its first landmark.
   
• GCSEs: Which subjects have seen fewer entries?
  New Department for Education figures reveal the GCSE subjects that have seen the number of entries rise and fall this year.
   
• Poorer schools get smaller share of funding, IFS warns
  Years of progressive funding policies targeting schools with the most deprived pupils are being wound back, according to a new report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
   
• Alastair Campbell: Labour should make oracy a priority
  The former official spokesperson for Tony Blair tells Tes why he’s urging Labour Party leadership to make oracy an education manifesto pledge.
   
• RSE: DfE names experts advising on ‘age-appropriate’ lessons 
  The Department for Education has appointed an expert panel to review the relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education curriculum and erase “disturbing and inappropriate content”.
   
• School attendance crisis ‘becoming normalised’, warns de Souza
  Dame Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, has warned that the “crisis of attendance” is the “biggest problem” facing education policymakers and schools, but it is “becoming normalised”.
   
• Ministers want schools to be part of vaping crackdown
  The government wants schools to focus on the risks of vaping in health education lessons as part of a new crackdown.
   
• How the DfE has forgotten about children and families 
  We won’t create a world-class education system without a single government department taking overall responsibility for the success, safety and wellbeing of all our children, writes Anne Longfield, chair of the Commission on Young Lives and a former children’s commissioner.