Two of the government's flagship academy schools are facing legal challenges over their refusal to admit children with statements of special needs.One of the cases involves Mossbourne academy in Hackney, east London, which has become one of the most celebrated schools in the country for its academic record.The school has refused to admit an 11-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, arguing that it would compromise other children's education and that it already has a higher than average number of pupils with special needs.The case has highlighted the fact that academies may not have the same legal obligations to children with special needs as maintained schools. While parents of children with special needs have the right to appeal against a decision at any other school, lawyers are ... Continue reading →

Tony Parkin gets the lowdown on Finland's PISA success – and pedagogy really does trump technologyA focus on equity in education, not on achievement , is the key policy driver that has taken Finland to the heights of the OECD PISA tables. And, ironically, in the land of Nokia and innovation, the use of classroom technology may not have been of particular value in helping the shift to equity. This was the key message from Dr Pasi Salhberg as he delivered "Finnish Lessons" to a largely receptive audience at the Houses of Parliament. As Nick Clegg MP and others seek to address the weaknesses in social mobility in education, and the zeitgeist shifts towards equity, could the key to the problem require a fundamental shift ... Continue reading →

Have you ever wanted to write for The Economist Group? Here’s your opportunity. Leave a comment on a Lean Back 2.0 article and you may earn the chance to contribute a guest post to the blog. For the next month, the Lean Back 2.0 editors will be closely following all of the comments, and we’ll invite those who submit the most interesting, thought-provoking or original comments to contribute a guest post to the blog. If selected, you can write a guest post on a wide range of topics, including digital media, tablets, advertising, publishing and journalism. We don’t think of the Lean Back 2.0 blog as merely a way to supply our readers with information; Lean Back 2.0 is also a platform to hear from ... Continue reading →

There has been a curious outbreak of maths in education policy discussion this week. This all started a fortnight ago when Kevan Collins, chief executive of the Education Endowment Fund put together a really interesting set of numbers in the TES. He identified 446 schools where poor children, defined as those eligible for free school meals (FSM), were beating the national average for all children. This is a real core of excellent schools who are market-beaters. The total excludes grammar schools. Here’s how that population of children within those 440 schools look like, alongside the whole school system graph, on what one civil servant affectionately calls my “Graph of Doom“ for 2010-11: These are average GCSE points attained by each child – 8 points for ... Continue reading →

Seventy thousand primary school leavers will take part in intensive two-week summer schools this year to keep them from falling behind during the six-week break. Nick Clegg will announce tomorrow that the "top-up" lessons will be provided to children from poor backgrounds by two-thirds of secondary schools, as part of a drive to highlight the coalition's family and children's policies.Also this week, ministers will announce plans to offer extra help to students with disabilities or learning difficulties who are leaving full-time education, to prepare them for work. The Independent on Sunday revealed last month that Mr Clegg had taken charge of family policy as part of his efforts to stop bright, disadvantaged children from being routinely overtaken by those from well-off families.He is determined to ... Continue reading →