Steve Besley's Education Eye: week ending 25 April 2025

What's happened this week?

Important stories across the board:

Back to the grind for most people this week with inspection reforms, teacher recruitment, breakfast clubs and HE funding, let alone online protection for children and a downgraded economic outlook, among the top headlines.

Here’s a rundown on some of the details.

In schools, consultation on Ofsted’s proposed inspection reforms draws to a close on Monday with the five-point grading scale a clear bone of contention.

The Confederation of School Trusts said the scale was “too complex” and put forward a number of solutions for simplifying it. It was one of six so-called ‘pragmatic’ recommendations put forward in its response this week.

The Alternative Big Listen, a parallel consultation taking a wider and potentially more radical look at the inspection model, also collared the proposed five-point scale. It reported that 90% of respondents to its consultation reckoned that the proposed scale was “largely unfit or unfit for purpose.”

Overall the Alternative Big Listen (ABL) which had been put together by a couple of senior HMIs was pretty scathing about Ofsted’s proposed inspection reforms.

The view was that Ofsted was “tinkering with, rather than radically changing its policies and practices.” The NAHT agreed, adding that the proposals are “nothing more than a repackaging of the current approach to school inspection.” It called on Ofsted to think again.

Many of the ABL respondents favoured a peer-group model with safeguarding undertaken by a separate agency and open access to ‘a fully independent complaints process.’

Some difficult discussions may lie ahead.

Also in the difficult box is teacher recruitment and retention.

This year’s important annual assessment of the teacher market by Teacher Tapp and School Dash points to what the Gatsby Foundation called ‘a cooling market,’ particularly at secondary level.

As we move into the high season for recruitment, this summation from the analysts School Dash is worth noting.

“Following three years of higher-than-usual teacher recruitment across secondary schools and colleges in England, activity in the current academic year has so far been very subdued, with overall changes of -31% compared to last year and -22% compared to the most recent pre-pandemic year.”

Things vary by region and subject of course but coupled with a fall in projected retention rates, it’s a worrying picture not just for schools and families but also for a government committed to increasing teacher numbers.

In other school news, the government heralded the launch of the first phase of its ‘free’ breakfast programme in schools across England promising what it called “30 minutes of free childcare, a healthy start for kids and a little more breathing room before the school bell rings” for stretched families.

It all sounded good and the PM described it as ‘a game changing moment for families’ but concerns remain about the costs for some schools.

The dept will be monitoring developments carefully ahead of a planned national rollout.

And in more hopeful news, the consultancy Public First reported that the mental health of young people had improved considerably since the dark days of the pandemic.

Girls and many of those from poorer backgrounds were often still struggling but as one of the leaders of the Coalition for Youth Mental Health in Schools said, “we’re beginning to see progress.”

Over in FE, former minister David Willetts voiced concerns on the conservativehome page this week about the growing number of NEETs and the lack of action in this area. “Neither employment policy nor education policy are doing enough to help young people into work,” he argued.

He pointed to a number of government policies such as the increase in employer NICs and the Employment Rights Bill that really weren’t helping but also singled out GCSE resits and T levels as offering little in the way of positive alternatives for young people.

A more positive approach to helping young people may be emerging in Greater Manchester where a new ‘life skills’ programme, aimed at equipping young people with the essential ‘soft skills’ needed to help them in life, has been launched.

“Building essential life skills like empathy, active listening, conflict resolution and problem solving,” according to Higher Health UK, the not-for-profit body behind the programme.

It’s a first for the UK and the mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, is looking to extend the programme later this year if the current pilot goes well.

Back in Westminster, parliamentary Select Committees took evidence this week on Skills England and on T levels respectively.

In the former, the Education Committee questioned the bosses of Skills England about their future funding, their priorities and potential likely impact as an executive agency but faced a straight bat in response. In fairness, the Agency has yet to get going.

In the latter, the Public Accounts Committee returned to some of its earlier concerns over the implementation and take-up of T levels as it questioned senior departmental officials.

They argued in response that early wrinkles had been been resolved and that numbers were now forecast to grow. It’s likely to lead to careful scrutiny of take-up in the coming months.

On to HE where the Education Secretary confirmed to MPs the action being taken against Oxford Business College in the light or recent franchising revelation. “It is clear to me that the management of recruitment and attendance at the College has fallen well short of the standards I am entitled to expect.”

She also pledged to report back in due course on the recent consultation on strengthening oversight of partnership delivery.

In other news, HE funding and the buildup to the government’s promised summer review continues to create headlines.

There’ve been three funding contributions this week, two from the NUS.

In the first, it called on the consultancy London Economics to examine an alternative funding model that would allow for the re-introduction of maintenance grants.

According to its calculations, a more ‘progressive’ repayment system, essentially transitioning repayments from higher-earning graduates, would allow for a £4k+ maintenance grant to be crafted at no additional cost to the Treasury. ‘A no-brainer,’ according to the NUS.

In the other, the NUS launched a Commission on Students in HE in an effort to get the ‘authentic voice of students heard’ on matters such as teaching standards, maintenance funding and student outcomes, ahead of the government’s review

“At NUS, we firmly believe the way to cut through the noise is by focusing on the real-life, current experience of students– and that the best way to do that is to bring them into the rooms where decisions are made.

And in the third intervention on funding this week, South Bank’s Professor David Phoenix argued in a paper for the HE Policy Institute (HEPI) that since employers often benefit the most from graduate skills, they should contribute more to their costs. Match funding graduate tuition fee repayments would, he argued, raise some £3.6bn pa for HE.

And finally, Universities UK launched a new action plan to improve access to HE in England for disadvantaged students with a focus initially on joint work with UCAS and the Sutton Trust on ‘improving the consistency and transparency of contextual admissions.’

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

General:

• Global economy. The IMF published its latest World Economic Outlook pointing to global growth down and inflation up including for the UK as the ‘rules are reset’ in light of tariff announcements and other economic challenges this year, but with global growth remaining ‘well above recession levels’ albeit with marked regional variations.
• Online protections. Ofcom outlined the various‘child safety’ measures such as effective age checks, safe feeds and having a named person responsible in their organisation for children’s safety, that tech companies should adopt when they are introduced in July to meet requirements under the Online Safety Act.
• Child poverty. Leading charitable and other organisations signed up to an open letter to the PM calling on him to commit the government to scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap and the setting of poverty reduction targets.

HE:

• Franchising. The Education Secretary confirmed to MPs that following investigations about issues over franchising, she was taking action against Oxford Business College which would see current ‘genuine’ students transferred to new courses and loan support withdrawn from incoming new students.
• Employer contributions. Professor David Phoenix argued in a new report for HEPI for employers to contribute more to the cost of higher-level skills through matched graduate contributions and tax credits for work placements, given the fact that employers tend to be the prime beneficiaries of such skills.
• Maintenance grants. The consultancy London Economics examined the potential for reintroducing maintenance grants in a report commissioned by the NUS, concluding that rebalancing the repayment system to make it more progressive could provide for means-tested maintenance grants worth £4,224 to be re-introduced at no great extra cost to the Treasury.
• Call for Evidence. The NUS launched a rapid call for evidence as it sought the views of students on such key issues as funding, teaching standards and outcomes as part of its Commission feeding into the government’s HE Review.
• Opening up access. Universities UK, UCAS and the Sutton Trust committed to working together on strengthening the use of contextual admissions in England, issuing a call for evidence in the first instance as part of a wider plan for improving access to HE for the most disadvantaged.

Tweets and posts of note:

• “What are some phrases school leaders should definitely avoid using? I’ll start. Please copy me on everything” -@Headteacherchat.
• “Just heard someone refer to an academic paper “dropping,” rather than “publishing” -@DTWillingham.
• “More than one-third of primary schools and four in 10 secondaries are expecting to reduce staff numbers next year, amid falling pupil numbers and tightening budgets” -@ SchoolsWeek.
• “T Levels need 60,000 to 70,000 students enrolled on courses each year to be viable – and officials are confident of meeting that number by 2029, top education civil servants told MPs today” -@FEWeek.
• “Teach climate change throughout the curriculum, reform school accountability and cut assessment burden, argues England’s largest exam board. Submission by the AQA board to the DfE’s curriculum and assessment review makes for fascinating reading” -@warwickmansell.
• “Is the 3.2% support staff pay rise funded or is it a straight tax on inclusive schools?” -@vicgoddard.

A selection of quotes that merit attention:

• “The landscape has changed as governments around the world reorder policy priorities and uncertainties have climbed to new highs” – the IMF sets the scene for its latest World Economic Outlook.
• “Employers also benefit from the higher-level skills possessed by their employees. Is it so unreasonable, then, to ask that they make a similar contribution if they access these skills?” – Professor David Phoenix considers the case for an employer graduate levy.
• “There are not many advanced Western countries which write off almost a third of their young people at age 16” – David Willetts reflects on the growing problem of NEETs.
• “We’ve published the national funding rates for T Levels. We updated these rates on 23 April to include a 5% uplift to T Levels for the academic year 2025 to 2026” – the government confirms a funding uplift for T levels.
• “Scrapping the two-child limit is by far the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty” – leading charitable organisations call on the PM to scrap the two-child limit as part of the forthcoming child poverty strategy.
• “I hope that to be the case by the end of the Parliament' – the Education Secretary on breakfast clubs.
• “The overall picture so far this year is of very muted recruitment activity, at least among secondary schools, with teacher and technician vacancy adverts much lower than last year” – School Dash and Teacher Tapp report on teacher recruitment activity.
• “It is clear from our report that very many respondents reject Ofsted’s current proposals” – the Alternative Big Listen reports on the findings from its alternative consultation on inspection reforms.
• “Thank you for making the first Festival of Childhood unforgettable. I cannot wait to see what we achieve together next” – the children’s commissioner reflects on the recent inaugural Festival of Childhood.
• “ I think that once you get a critical mass of parents who are outraged by EdTech, as well as all the other issues, the phones, etc, that is when politicians listen because they’re scared of that” – Hugh Grant joins the campaign to ban laptops in school.
• “But more fundamentally we would ask MPs which future they would want to see: one where our world-renowned creative industries are incentivised to grow and transform with technology, or one where we fold to the teenage demands of a tech sector who want content for free” – the Publishers Association ahead of this week’s Westminster Hall debate on AI and IP.

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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.