Education News

Aug
2010

Friday 20th August, 2010

The hard truth about soft subjects

Head of Education James Groves writes on Conservative Home that too many schools are offering soft A-level subjects, and universities are not being transparent by informing applicants of their preferences, citing Policy Exchange report The Hard Truth About 'Soft' Subjects.

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Thursday 19th August, 2010

The return of traditional subjects

James Groves, Head of Education at Policy Exchange, comments on the Spectator's blog about the greater number of students having studied more traditional subjects at A-level, citing findings from report The Hard Truth About 'Soft' Subjects that universities were more likely to admit students who had studied these more traditional subjects.

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Saturday 7th August, 2010

There are no excuses for the state of our education system

Policy Exchange Director Neil O'Brien writes for the Daily Telegraph on the state of the education system in Britain.

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Wednesday 4th August, 2010

Special schools struggle to find trained teachers

Ralph Hartley speaks to teachers.tv about Policy Exchange's latest report Teacher Expertise for Special Education Needs, which finds that only 5% of schools find it easy to recruit teachers with the right special needs training.

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Jul
2010

Saturday 31st July, 2010

Charity director slams quango for bullying

An article on ConservativeHome discusses comments made in Policy Exchange report Building Blocks regarding Partnerships for Schools (PFS).

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Saturday 31st July, 2010

Special schools 'lack SEN teachers'

A Press Association article provides coverage of the findings from the latest Policy Exchange report Teacher Expertise for Special Educational Needs.

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Friday 30th July, 2010

Teacher Expertise for Special Educational Needs

This research note shows that special schools are suffering from a desperate shortage of teachers trained to deal with pupils with special needs, i.e. those with conditions ranging from dyslexia through deafness to behaviour problems.

A Policy Exchange survey revealed that just 5 per cent of special schools found it easy to recruit teachers with the right training. Almost three-quarters – 73.2 per cent – said they found it hard or very hard to recruit properly trained staff.

Twenty-six per cent of the schools surveyed reported that less than a quarter of their staff had any sort of training. On average, just 39 per cent of teachers and support staff had any qualification in Special Educational Needs (SEN). An even smaller number – 30 per cent – had a qualification directly relevant to the particular needs of the children they were teaching.

Friday 30th July, 2010

Lack of specialist staff hampers SEN pupils

An article on the TES website features the findings of the latest Policy Exchange report Teacher Expertise for Special Educational Needs, which identified a shortage of trained special educational needs (SEN) teachers in schools.

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