We obtained documents that show councils planned to create chains of up to 25 schools and cash in on trust 'economies of scale' the last time the policy was pursued They offer a glimpse of what could be in store when ministers roll out plans for councils to launch their own MATs later this year...

🤔 Rule changes made after the requirement for all new schools to be academies was binned don’t make sense, trust leaders have said schoolsweek.co.uk/new-school-p...

This is the latest update to a story we've been tracking from the start We revealed last year how the trust had racked up seven-figure losses after purchasing iPads as part of an initiative to provide 11,000 devices to all pupils and staff schoolsweek.co.uk/big-academy-...

A 13-school trust has been issued an improvement notice over safeguarding failings after a pupil was murdered at one of its academies https://schoolsweek.co.uk/trust-issued-with-improvement-notice-after-pupil-stabbed-to-death/

Last week, we took an in-depth look at the government's 'missions' to boost outcomes in the north east and on the coast But as questions continue to hang over central elements of the scheme, ministers have been warned the flagship policy risks 'sounding bold but changing nothing'...

🔎 It was on Valentine’s Day in 2022 that a routine inspection found the school could collapse 🧱 But four years on, it has a new state-of-the-art home – the first to be rebuilt following the RAAC crisis schoolsweek.co.uk/the-valentin...

Verdicts for 18 teachers over the past 12 months have been changed following teacher misconduct hearings, data obtained by Schools Week shows The figure is a record high and double the number of the previous year Full story ⬇️

🆕 Ministers’ efforts to boost outcomes in left-behind seaside towns will be focused on Scarborough and Hastings https://schoolsweek.co.uk/focus-of-labours-coastal-mission-revealed/

As heads head to Belfast for @naht.org.uk conf where funding will be a big discussion point, this piece from @jackydys.bsky.social is essential reading While some trust finances are improving, the fortunes of many of those already in trouble are getting worse schoolsweek.co.uk/a-tale-of-tw...

Government officials had asked the church to pilot the inspections over three years, with six trusts assessed every 12 months But concerns had been raised that this could be 'another administrative burden on trusts that’s not applied to others'...

💸 Exclusive: The number of trusts over £1 million in the red has almost doubled in a year as leaders warn it is 'tougher than ever' to keep pace with increased costs schoolsweek.co.uk/a-tale-of-tw...

📝 School adjudicators are prolific. Most days the team of part-time experts publishes rulings on the latest admissions rows Here, one former chief adjudicator sheds light on the body’s inner workings and has her say on Labour’s shake-up of the school system 🔽 schoolsweek.co.uk/shan-scott-f...

Almost 4 in 10 leaders expect their school will make cuts to SEND support next year, sparking concerns over a 'worrying gap' between government reform ambitions and frontline realities https://schoolsweek.co.uk/almost-four-in-10-leaders-expect-school-to-cut-send-support-next-year/

In accounts, the trust said it felt 'some time ago that holding high levels of reserves was inappropriate' as it 'still had much school improvement to do' This helped all its schools secure ‘good’ or better Ofsted judgments - but also 'depleted' reserves Read our story ⬇️

👀 Our investigation – which analysed almost 1,100 trusts – also found 90 per cent of those above the £200,000 threshold were given rises and that six trust chiefs were paid more than £300,000 last year 💷 Only a quarter of the top earners were women

❗More schools face axing staff or closure amid falling rolls, ministers have been warned, after a nationwide trust announced that redundancies are on the way across many of its academies https://schoolsweek.co.uk/more-difficult-decisions-ahead-due-to-falling-rolls/

📝 An academy trust broke rules after using a confidentiality clause while cutting ties with an employee 🔢 This is the first known case of a trust falling foul of the new rules https://schoolsweek.co.uk/first-academy-trust-rapped-for-confidentiality-clause/

❗Schools and trusts have been urged to ignore 'fraudulent' letters with 'a ministerial signature' purporting to be about a data breach https://schoolsweek.co.uk/leaders-urged-to-ignore-fake-dfe-letter-about-data-breach/

❌ Exclusive: More top-up teacher training programmes have been cut at short notice following a ministerial budget squeeze https://schoolsweek.co.uk/anger-as-another-teacher-training-top-up-course-axed/

Exclusive: One of England’s biggest trusts is sending a team of teachers thousands of miles to a remote tropical island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean https://schoolsweek.co.uk/the-teachers-with-a-24-hour-commute/

Trust bosses are lobbying council chiefs to cut 'unfair' support staff pension contributions, as leaders eye new savings to help weather the expected financial storm https://schoolsweek.co.uk/academies-lobby-pension-fund-chiefs-over-unfair-extra-payments/

Exclusive: A third of schools in a high-profile academy trust are set to make 'staffing changes' as they wrestle with the falling rolls crisis https://schoolsweek.co.uk/david-ross-trust-braced-for-redundancies-amid-falling-rolls/

Exclusive: Plans to run more than 100 academies could leave the country’s biggest trust 'spread thin', a former academies minister has warned https://schoolsweek.co.uk/109-schools-leaves-united-learning-spread-thin-says-former-academies-minister/

Exclusive: Merger plans that would create England’s first 100-school academy trust have been revealed – four months after the trusts started sharing the same CEO schoolsweek.co.uk/revealed-fir...

Exclusive: Most behind-closed-doors meetings that analysed plans for the future of schools have already been canned, Schools Week can reveal, as ministers prepare to scrap the controversial gatherings https://schoolsweek.co.uk/end-of-advisory-boards-leaves-civil-servants-with-monopoly-on-wisdom/

💸 A prominent academy trust that issued six of its central team with Teslas will make huge cuts after plunging almost £500,000 into the red https://schoolsweek.co.uk/academy-trust-to-make-big-cuts-after-falling-500k-into-the-red/

Investigation: Dozens of struggling schools enrolled in a £20 million turnaround scheme have been paired with experts based up to 269 miles away schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-advisers...

📈 Missions to boost outcomes in left-behind regions risk being ineffective with questions over the schemes’ funding and leadership unanswered, the government has been warned https://schoolsweek.co.uk/funding-and-leadership-questions-over-new-area-missions/

❌ Labour’s off-rolling crackdown could finally 'shed light on a practice that is currently invisible' but must be supported by councils and trusts to work, experts have said https://schoolsweek.co.uk/off-rolling-curbs-welcomed-but-warnings-over-gaps-in-data/

💸 Academy bosses are urging ministers to give them 'clarity' over whether recently dumped trust growth funds will come back from the dead https://schoolsweek.co.uk/clarity-sought-as-trust-growth-funding-absent-from-white-paper/

‼️ A crackdown on off-rolling pupils, a call for standalone schools to join or form MATs and changes to the admissions code are among major plans unveiled in today's schools white paper https://schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-white-paper-the-key-schools-policies/

💸 An academy trust loaded with a £9 million deficit has been ordered to slash costs, as it banks on government bailouts to keep it afloat https://schoolsweek.co.uk/job-cuts-loom-at-trust-with-9m-deficit/

📝 One of England's biggest academy trusts fell foul of a 'historic fraud' over a number of years Read more 🔽

📝 Bosses of under-performing schools given targeted support through the government’s RISE improvement scheme have felt 'on trial' and ignored during the first few months of the programme

Exclusive: One of England’s first PFI schools struck a secret deal for taxpayers to cover a £1m 'bullet payment' to break free of its contract Analysis also suggests PFI owners of English schools could have made as much as £85.7m in profits in one year schoolsweek.co.uk/secret-1m-ba...

The prominent boss of a troubled academy trust saddled with a multi-million-pound deficit has resigned following a leave of absence schoolsweek.co.uk/ceo-of-arthu...

💸 Almost £440,000 was spent supporting a merger that created one of England’s biggest MATs schoolsweek.co.uk/coast-and-va...

📊 Changes rolled out across 32 local authorities as part of a Tory-era SEND pilot have cut exclusions and kept more children in mainstream education, a report has found schoolsweek.co.uk/piloted-in-s...

📝 An under-pressure academy trust broke rules over a £15,000 payment to a former school leader schoolsweek.co.uk/struggling-t...

❗️Exclusive: More than a thousand schools with poor outcomes slipped through the net of the government’s RISE low-attainment crackdown, exposing a 'significant gap' in its latest bid to boost results schoolsweek.co.uk/schoolboy-er...

💸 Exclusive: England’s best-paid academy boss has been given another pay rise, taking his salary to at least £530,000 schoolsweek.co.uk/best-paid-ac...

Exclusive: Ministers urged to recognise role played by governors as 'core component' of accountability framework for schools It comes as a study found schools with effective boards were better prepared for Ofsted visits and 'more likely to sustain improvement' schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-with...

Investigation: Dozens of academy trusts have bolstered their reserves by up to 900 per cent, as leaders tighten their belts ahead of the coming financial storm schoolsweek.co.uk/trusts-finan...

Two trust bosses have teamed up to develop their own artificial intelligence (AI) platform to solve the 'challenge of data fragmentation' in schools schoolsweek.co.uk/new-ai-platf...

📉 Exclusive: Classrooms in schools rocked by falling rolls could be used by the NHS as 'community health hubs', the boss of the Department for Education’s property arm has said schoolsweek.co.uk/community-he...

🏫 When Dr Jenny Blunden took charge at her Cornish trust, its three schools were 'broken' But in a fight against low aspirations, the CEO has added successful schools and continues to battle for them as budgets remain squeezed Read our profile of her here 🔽 schoolsweek.co.uk/dr-jenny-blu...

Exclusive: A 'turnaround' trust once criticised for controversial behaviour policies has revealed plans to boost its academies’ 'emotional intelligence' schoolsweek.co.uk/suspensions-...

📝 Exclusive: A government consultation on the broadening of its RISE school improvement teams’ remit has been delayed into this term schoolsweek.co.uk/rise-consult...

🔢 Exclusive: The government wants school management information systems (MIS) providers to help it 'harness the potential' of the real-time data they collect to inform policy decisions schoolsweek.co.uk/dfe-wants-to...

England’s biggest exam board has scrubbed the names of two photographers from one of its GCSE assessments over concerns their websites contain images that 'may not be appropriate' for students schoolsweek.co.uk/photographer...