SecEd

Exams are expected to provide fair, accurate and trustworthy results and yet Dennis Sherwood’s latest analysis of Ofqual’s own data suggests that few GCSE grades may actually be ‘first‑time‑right’… Analysis by Dennis Sherwood of Ofqual’s 2025 exams data suggests that only around 22% of grades were ‘first-time-right’, meaning they had neither marking nor grading errors - Adobe Stock A question – and perhaps a surprising answer: In the summer 2025 exams in England, 189,535 students sat nine...

How can teachers delivering GCSE courses help prepare their students for the transition to further study at A level? Neil Smith offers six practical approaches While a considerable amount has been written about what effective transition from key stage 2 to 3 looks like, comparatively few words have been expounded on how teachers delivering GCSE courses can best prepare students for sixth form study.

A core part of safeguarding work is keeping children safe from radicalisation. Mubina Asaria looks at how schools can plan and deliver different elements of this work, including online safety and education Keeping students safe from radicalisation is part of our wider safeguarding role – just as we help protect them from child sexual exploitation, gangs, and other types of harm. To do this effectively, we need a consistent and joined-up approach across the whole school.

Ofsted’s rushed new framework is clearly flawed, poses clear risks to the wellbeing of school leaders and teachers, and will not offer parents reliable assessments of schools, says Paul Whiteman As you will know, in just two months’ time, a new inspection framework is set to be introduced in schools in England. This should be positive news.

Are you looking to take on your first middle leadership role? What do you need to consider? And how can you make the transition effectively? Leadership expert Dr Jill Berry advises I remember clearly my motivation for joining the teaching profession at the outset of my career. I loved my subject, English, and wanted to have the opportunity to share my enthusiasm with others.

Maths Hubs have been operating for more than 10 years now.

Teaching is tough, yet incredibly rewarding. If you are to survive and thrive as an early career teacher and set yourself up for a long and happy career then you must build healthy habits from day one.

Controversy is never far away in education. Inspection reform, VAT on private school fees, rows about funding, and legislation on academy freedoms, have been among the hot topics since Labour came to power. But all of these may end up being overshadowed by a much bigger issue on the horizon – one that has the potential to be so incendiary that it could dominate not just education policy but the wider government agenda too. That issue is the planned reform of the SEND system.

Teaching changes children’s lives. The best teachers can enrich students’ learning and inspire their future ambitions – surely a hugely rewarding prospective career for young adults, offering immense job satisfaction. It seems incongruous, then, that school leaders across all phases are struggling to staff their classrooms.

Through subject-focused talk, students learn discipline-specific ways of thinking and knowing, acquire distinctive uses of vocabulary or expression, and engage in differing types of dialogue and interactions, such as: Creating opportunities for structured talk provides students with a bridge between their “everyday” ways of making sense of the world, and the deeper, fuller understanding required for academic success.