Inside Your Ed EDSK

Since the National Tutoring Programme, or NTP, was launched in 2020 to help combat the effects of the pandemic on children’s academic progress, it has provided 5 million tutoring courses to pupils of various ages at a cost of over £1 billion. However, these figures will not be increasing much further because the government has decided that after four years of operation, the NTP should have its funding removed and it will be closing down this August. So why has the government turned ...

On the 16th of May, EDSK published a new report called ‘Evolution and revolution’, in which we set out a 10-year plan for reforming primary and secondary education in England. Our plan included, among other things, a Baccalaureate for all 14 to 18-year-olds that would bring academic, applied and technical courses together under one roof as well as everyone studying Core English and Core maths, otherwise known as literacy and numeracy, up to age 18. Bold as these proposals may sound, we d...

Despite the endless debates and disagreements in education policy, there are some things that we can all agree on, such as the need for a fair education system. However, a new report suggests that while we may agree on the need for a fair education system, we may well disagree on what fairness actually means in practice. The report – titled Mapping the way to educational equity – offers a range of perspectives on how to define and use concepts such as equity, fairness and opportunity an...

This time last year, we did a podcast episode about the growing problem of pupil absences in the aftermath of the pandemic, with record numbers of children and young people failing to attend school on a regular basis. Since then, finding ways to reduce absences has become a priority for both main political parties in England, and numerous initiatives have been put in place by the current government to try and address the problem. But despite all this extra attention, and in some cas...

“It’s not just a skill for learning, it’s also a skill for life. Not just for the workplace, also for working out who you are – for overcoming shyness or disaffection, anxiety or doubt – or even just for opening up more to our friends and family. We don’t do enough of that as a society, and I’m as guilty as anyone, but wouldn’t that be something precious for our children to aim for? I think so.” Those words from Keir Starmer in July last year were how he described the importance of oracy...

In the current education policy landscape, the debate over adding VAT to independent school fees is by far the most high-profile dividing line between Labour and the Conservatives. That said, the question of what would actually happen in practice if Labour won the next election and tried to implement this policy has received remarkably little attention in political circles. That is why at the beginning of March, EDSK published a new report that outlined the findings from our investigation int...