Steve Besley's Education Eye: week ending 10 October 2025

What's happened this week?

Important stories across the board:

Teacher bursaries, white working-class education, the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy and the latest World University Rankings.

All have hit the education headlines this week in varying degrees.

And talking of degrees, switching funding from ‘rip off’ degrees to apprenticeships, scrapping the VAT levy on private schools and luring young people with a first job/house bonus, all formed part of the Conservative’s pitch for education as it held its Annual Conference this week.

Something old, something new perhaps.

Let’s look at the some the details behind these stories.

In schools, the latest news on teaching bursaries and incentives saw, in the words of Schools Week, ‘the government swing the axe.’  

No increase in total funding for the coming year, sharp cuts for subjects such as geography and biology, and scrapped altogether for subjects such as English and RE.

The NFER reckoned that “these cuts, on their own, could lead to around 2,400 fewer trainees next year, which seems counterproductive for the Government's 6,500 teacher target.”

‘There’s more we need to do to attract talented people,’ the Education Secretary added perhaps ruefully.

Interestingly the NFER has just announced a new 3-year funded research project looking longer term at education workforce trends and pressures.

In other news, Ofsted Chief Inspector Sir Martyn Oliver acknowledged that “change is never easy” in an open letter to school and college leaders thanking them for their work and support for young people.

Debate about the new inspection framework, however, continues.

Former Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman voiced her concerns at a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference this week. “The residual bit of subject inspection is going to be essentially one quick look, at the timetable and chat to the senior team. It’s not real,” she reportedly told her audience.

Debate has also continued about the impact of the VAT charge on private schools.

The i-newspaper published stats this week from the Independent Schools Council showing that North East of the country and notably the Education Secretary’s patch, had seen the biggest fall in private school numbers and the East Midland the smallest.

The suggestion was that the effects were being felt unevenly across regions and schools.

Elsewhere, Public First highlighted the depth of issues facing the Independent Inquiry into White Working-Class Educational Outcomes as it published survey evidence showing both young people and families largely turned off by education.

As the Education Secretary summarised it, “these findings paint a sorry picture of disengagement.” She promised to confront the issue in the government’s forthcoming Schools White Paper.

Much of the media reported comments this week from MAT leader Sir John Coles at the start of this second week of hearings on the impact of Covid on young people.

Responding to earlier evidence from the then Education Secretary Gavin Williamson that the government hadn’t done any preparation planning into likely school closures, he said “I almost fell of my chair when I read that.”

It was one of a number of stark messages in a session that also covered the grading of exams during the lockdown and school inspections. The full transcript is on the Inquiry’s site here.

A new research report this week saw the Royal Society raise concerns about computing education.

“The number of students taking computing qualifications at secondary level is low, and disproportionately so for females, representing a lost opportunity and exacerbating the UK’s skills gap.”

They called for ‘a broadening of topics’ included in computing GCSE, more specialist teachers and funding restoration.

And with the report from the Curriculum and Assessment due to be published shortly, the ever-helpful FFT Education Datalab looked at how subject take-up at KS4 had changed, or not, in recent years.

Their conclusion? “The last few years has seen a slight decline in the number of qualifications for which pupils are entered at the end of Key Stage 4. While over 90% of pupils are entered for at least 8 GCSEs or equivalent, the proportion entered for 10 or more has fallen from 59% in 2016 to 26% in 2024.”

The odds have lengthened against radical changes this time round.

In FE, the government said it was “proceeding at pace” as it published the first Quarterly Update of its Modern Industrial Strategy pointing to a list of activities undertaken in each of the eight high growth sectors.

Many will be interested to see listed among the things to look out for in the coming Quarter: “plans to upskill industries and train up new workers set out in the Post-16 Education and Skills White Paper.”

In late news, the AoC and Universities UK published proposals for a more joined up post -16 system with local partnerships already setting the pace.

In other news, “it would need ten years of effort” but it would be worth it.

That was the powerful message from the Learning and Work Institute’s final report from its Ambition Skills programme.

Supported by City and Guilds and NOCN, it called for increased investment through new Learner Accounts, a return to 2010 adult skill attainment levels and ‘lifelong learning to become a golden thread across all public services.’

And it would be worth it because the economy, society and people’s lives generally would all benefit.

The Education and Training Foundation welcomed new guidance from the Education Endowment Foundation on supporting professional development (PD) in 16-19 provision.

Research evidence had suggested that a third of practitioners had felt that recent PD hadn’t met their needs. The guidance sets out a KEEP approach of Knowledge, Engagement, Execute, Practice.

And, London and South East Colleges Elevare Group published a fascinating and timely piece of research into the views, thoughts, aspirations and wellbeing of young people growing up in their part of South East London.

‘Three Thousand Voices’ offers a valuable window into the lives of a core group of young people and what they look for from the education and support systems.

In HE, the PM included a number of university leaders as part of his so-called ‘sprawling’ trade delegation to India this week. It seems to have paid dividends.

Two new university campuses approved and lots of collaborative nods and handshakes all round.

According to the publicity press briefings, “thanks to the new campuses announced today, the UK is set to become the country with the biggest higher education footprint in India.”

No visa deals but a £50m boost to the economy apparently.

And Oxford once again topped the Times Higher’s World University Rankings for research-intensive universities, joined in the top ten by Cambridge and Imperial.

But overall, “of the 105 UK institutions to have been ranked in the past two years, 27 per cent slid down the table and just 12 per cent improved.”

Links to most of these stories below, starting with the week’s headlines.

The top headlines of the week:

• ‘DfE not planning for school closures was ‘a dereliction of duty’ (Monday)
• ‘DfE cuts teacher training bursaries in 8 subjects’ (Tuesday)
• ‘Phillipson: Generational reset for white working class pupils’ (Wednesday)
• ‘Universities risk ‘creeping death’ from unsupervised mergers’ (Thursday)
• ‘Thousands more university jobs cut as financial crisis deepens’ (Friday)

General:

• Kemi Badenoch’s Conference address. Opposition Leader Kemi Badenoch set out a number of headline measures in her address to the Conservative Party Conference, promising to reverse the government’s Employment Rights proposals, scrap the VAT levy on private schools, shut down ‘rip off’ university degrees, and most significantly scrap Stamp Duty and implement a new Golden Economic Rule that would see savings put into tax cuts and paying off the deficit.
• Shadow Chancellor’s Conference address. Mel Stride, the Shadow Chancellor, addressed the Conservative Party Conference where he set out £47bn of government savings from items like welfare and overseas aid, promising instead a £5000 First Job Bonus for young people.
• Education Secretary’s Conference address. Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott praised the education reforms of her predecessors notably the Gove/Gibb era when she addressed the Conservative Party Conference, promising as far as she was concerned to prioritise tackling pupil behaviour, develop more alternative provision and scrap smartphones in schools.
• Local R/D. The government invited local leaders to apply through UKRI for a potential £20m funding each to help build regional strengths and expertise in science and innovation as part of latest Local Innovation Partnership Funding.
• Wealth gap. The Resolution Foundation published its latest audit of household wealth indicating that as this grew during the pandemic, it left the overall wealth gap let alone the generational wealth gap significantly widened with little evidence of upward movement for many.

HE:

• Indian expansion. The Prime Minister announced that two more universities (Lancaster and Surrey) had gained approval to open campuses in India and a number of other links discussed as the PM completed his trade mission to the country helping to strengthen UKHE’s leading footprint there.
• New rankings. The Times Higher reported that Oxford remained at the top of the 2026 World University Rankings for research-intensive universities based on a range of metrics covering teaching reputation, research quality and international outlook, with Cambridge third and Imperial eighth all also in the top ten.
• Freedom of speech. The House of Commons Library Service published a briefing paper on the current position around freedom of speech in English HE, running through the context, key issues, the 2023 Act and the role of the OfS, following the updated implementation of the Act by the present government at the start of this year and a further guidance paper this summer.
• R/D partnerships. The Russell Group called for new funding and a new strategic grouping to help strengthen UK/US R/D, pointing to the importance of global academic partnerships as the research landscape develops and new opportunities emerge that could benefit both countries.

Tweets and posts of note:

• “Some of those coffee cups in the staff room have their own eco-system” -@LibbySquires96.
• “Staggering how many class teachers you speak to who are trying to get out. Such a shame because they are generally the sort of ppl you would love to find in schools/classrooms. Also staggering how those that are 'out' seem to have a bigger sway on convo than those still in. Part of the problem right there” -@RogersHistory.
• “I think 6 week half terms are the limit for me. Anything after I start to get ill, stressed, the children are struggling and I find myself crawling through the weeks. The first 6 weeks are typically okay” -@UhmitsMissB.
• “I'm worried the next big education 'fad' may be whole-school coaching. It is an extremely powerful method of staff PD, yet it isn't suitable for all contexts (as is true of most things in education). Yet it seems to be being shoe-horned into a range of contexts, and unsurprisingly, falling flat in some” -@MrMetacognition.
• “Husband got to work, realised he’d forgotten his laptop, came back home to get it … and then went out the door without it again” -@Sally_writes.

A selection of quotes that merit attention:

• “Our Industrial Strategy has hit the ground running” – the Business Secretary publishes the first Quarterly Update of the government’s Modern Industrial Strategy.
• “This is a Party fizzing with ideas” – Kemi Badenoch unleashes the corks in her Conference speech.
• “So to younger people I say: ‘We will get debt off your back!’ We can and we will” – the Shadow Chancellor promises in his Conference speech to help young people with their first job/house.
• “If you assault a teacher, then you are out” – the Shadow Education Secretary sets out Conservative policy on behaviour in schools.
• “We’ve not seen price competition and my own view, for what it’s worth, is that the almost excessive belief in quasi-market forces did go too far, that we built a system which continues to cost us about £8 billion a year in taxpayer write-offs” – Shadow minister Neil O’Brien reflects on his Party’s HE policy at the Conservative Party Conference in a speech reported by the Times Higher.
• “It remains very competitive to gain a place at a Russell Group university, allowing admissions teams to be selective about the students they admit and assess each application individually” – the Chief Exec of the Russell Group responds to increases in undergraduate numbers at member institutions.
• “Apprenticeships have been part of my story for 25 years and apprentices will remain at the heart of everything AoA does as we embark on this exciting next phase” - Lindsay Conroy, the incoming Chief Exec of the Association of Apprentices.
• “Thank you too for your constructive and challenging feedback, which played a crucial role in improving our reforms” – Ofsted’s Chief Inspector seeks to get on the front foot.
• “There will no longer be any real subject inspection, which is a worrying place for us to be”– former Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, raises questions about the new inspection framework.
• “It has proved incredibly hard to move the dial on this issue” – the co-chair of the Inquiry into white working-class educational outcomes says tackling the attainment gap isn’t easy.
• “His crusade was a serious business, so it will hardly be surprising that I could only find one joke in the book (when he uses a fronted adverbial to introduce a sentence explaining its meaning)” – HMC Chief Exec Simon Hyde reflects on Nick Gibb’s recent book.

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Steve Besley

Disclaimer: Education Eye is intended to help colleagues keep up to date with national developments in the education sector. Information is correct at the time of writing and is offered in good faith. No liability is accepted by Steve Besley or EdCentral for decisions made on the basis of any information provided.