The ‘youngest head’ who A digital newspaper determined to get rejected MAT machismo past the bluster and explain the facts. P22-24 ‘Every positive Political impartiality? Where Wales leads test is reinforcing Not for DfE director and England must exams injustice’ follow P25 P14 P26 SCHOOLSWEEK.CO.UK | @SCHOOLSWEEK FRIDAY, NOV 13 2020 | EDITION 230 Mass testing PA ‘game changer’ • Pilot heads say rapid tests can ‘radically reduce’ school disruption • Army helps test children in 12 Liverpool schools under city-wide trial • 600k tests sent to councils for wider roll-out following vaccine boost Pages 6-7 Find out more Support your students to bridge Email [email protected] the learning gap with a flexible Call 03300573186 and ask about Peer Tutor and affordable solution. catch up @SCHOOLSWEEK EDITION 230 | FRIDAY, NOV 13, 2020 Meet the news team John Dickens Laura McInerney JL Dutaut EDITOR CONTRIBUTING EDITOR COMMISSIONING EDITOR @JOHNDICKENSSW @MISS_MCINERNEY @DUTAUT [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Jess Staufenberg Freddie Whittaker Samantha Booth COMMISSIONING CHIEF REPORTER SENIOR REPORTER EDITOR @STAUFENBERGJ @FCDWHITTAKER @SAMANTHAJBOOTH [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]@SCHOOLSWEEK.CO.UK James Carr Nicky Phillips Shane Mann SENIOR REPORTER HEAD DESIGNER MANAGING DIRECTOR @JAMESCARR_93 @SHANERMANN@GELVETICA @SHANERMANN [email protected] [email protected]@FEWEEK.CO.UK [email protected] THE TEAM Designer: Simon Kay | Sales team leader: Bridget Stockdale | Sales executive: Clare Halliday | PA to managing director: Victoria Boyle DRB IGNITE - HEADTEACHER POSTS - LEADERSHIP GROUP PAY SCALE: L15 TO L21 SUBJECT TO EXPERIENCE AND NEGOTIATION HTTPS://HTTPSLINK.COM/6S6K HOLLYGIRT SCHOOL - HEADTEACHER - £65,000 - £75,000 HTTPS://HTTPSLINK.COM/T9MP QUEST TRUST – PRINCIPAL - £70,000-£80,000 NEGOTIABLE SUBJECT TO EXPERIENCE HTTPS://HTTPSLINK.COM/2H0I TO ADVERTISE YOUR VACANCY WITH EDUCATION WEEK JOBS AND 2 PLEASE CALL 020 81234 778 OR EMAIL [email protected] @SCHOOLSWEEK EDITION 230 | FRIDAY, NOV 13, 2020 Contents EDITION 230 Supersize me? This Covid patch is not a system fix Holiday hunger scheme roll-out: what schools need to know Page 31 Page 9 Has Ofsted misunderstood cultural capital? Page 29 University admissions overhaul: what’s on the table Page 15 Disclaimer: If you wish to reproduce an article from Schools Week is owned and published either the digital paper or the website, both by Lsect Ltd. The views expressed within the article’s author and Schools Week must the publication are those of the authors be referenced (to not do so, would be an ADVERTISE WITH US named, and are not necessarily those infringement on copyright). SCHOOLS WEEK IS PROUD If you are interested in placing a TO BE A MEMBER OF of Schools Week, Lsect Ltd or any of its Lsect Ltd is not responsible for the content product or job advert in a future edition employees. 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SUBSCRIBE For an annual subscription to Schools Week for just £50 visit www.schoolsweek.co.uk and click on ‘subscribe’ at the top of the page. 3 schoolsweek.co.uk or call 020 8123 4778 to subscribe or click here. @SCHOOLSWEEK EDITION 230 | FRIDAY, NOV 13, 2020 DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] Pupils in hard-hit regions face exams ‘covid penalty’ default route”. JOHN DICKENS & FREDDIE WHITTAKER Instead the regulator is coming up with plans @SCHOOLSWEEK EXCLUSIVE to mitigate any unfairness. Spielman said exams Pupils face a “covid penalty” unless Ofqual takes only in core subjects was “the kind of option that geographical differences into account when is under consideration”. awarding grades next year, a leading academy Robert Halfon, the chair of the education trust boss with schools in hard-hit coronavirus select committee, has written to the education regions has said. secretary to propose exams are run in at least The intervention by Hamid Patel (pictured), blighted by Covid and those where there has English, maths and the sciences should any the chief executive of Star Academies, comes been little disruption”. disruption make a full schedule unviable. as pressure on the government to ditch exams He sugested pupils’ exam marks could be However, Spielman noted that “every option ramped up this week after Wales followed compared only with peers “within similarly creates some unfairnesses”. It was “very clear Scotland in cancelling exams next year. affected parts of the country”. that those coming through for exams this year But ministers and Ofqual again insisted they He also put forward a system in which all have actually had a tougher time than last year’s would go ahead next year, with proposals to run pupils got the better of two grades: their raw year 11s and 13s”. tests in core subjects alone. exam grade or one moderated to guarantee Sir Jon Coles, the head of United Learning, However, Patel, whose trust run 29 schools their school’s results next year had the some the country’s largest academy trust, has been in areas that include Lancashire and Greater proportion of 9, 7 and 5 grades as in their best appointed as the DfE’s nominated member on Manchester, said: “We can’t allow young people, year between 2017 and 2019. to the recovery committee, which is tasked with already disadvantaged by the educational gap This would avoid using teacher predictions. drawing up exam proposals for ministers. caused by deprivation, to have their prospects “Hundreds of thousands of young people risk Scotland announced last month that National further limited by a ‘Covid penalty’.” having their results decided by the relative 5 exams would be replaced next year by teacher Secondary school attendance rates vary hugely fortunes of their postcode and the willingness assessments and coursework, while Higher from as low as 61 per cent in Knowsley to 94 of their communities to adhere to government exams would take place later than usual. per cent in Bath and London’s Kensington and guidelines. Teacher assessments that are more “generous” Chelsea. “Doing nothing will herald another summer than exam grades could impact English pupils While backing plans to run exams, of huge upset, with long-term consequences who may be competing with their Scottish and Patel said: “We need to recognise for their life chances. That is simply not an Welsh counterparts for university places. that they will not be completed on option.” A spokesperson for the Department for an equal footing.” Writing for Schools Amanda Spielman, Ofsted’s chief inspector Education said exams were the “fairest way of Week, he added Ofqual must take who is chairing Ofqual’s recovery committee, judging a student’s performance”. Plans for 2021 “bold steps” to ensure there was “no told MPs this week she had “not yet seen would be set out in the coming weeks. difference in the proportion of good anything that suggests that pulling exams grades awarded in areas that are as we did last year is the sensible Opinion, page 25 MPs question Ofqual’s independence The education select committee has year’s fiasco “could have been avoided ploughed ahead instead of raising issues questioned Ofqual’s independence, claiming had Ofqual not buried its head in the sand at the time. “They simply followed the the regulator ignored warnings about and ignored repeated warnings, including ministerial direction and hoped for the this year’s exams and instead followed from our committee, about the flaws in the best. orders from ministers and “hoped for the system for awarding grades”. “The whole episode calls into question best”. He wrote that although Ofqual was “clearly Ofqual’s independence” from government.” Robert Halfon, the committee’s chair, also aware” that its controversial algorithm A DfE spokesperson said it had “full questioned the Department for Education’s would cause problems for high-achieving confidence” in Ofqual’s independence, and failure to produce papers detailing the pupils in historically low-attaining schools, it was responding to the request to release decision-making behind scrapping exams. “believed the number would be statistically further information. He demanded they were produced by small and could be addressed through an An Ofqual spokesperson said it was “doing Monday, November 23. appeals process”. a great deal to learn lessons from summer The harm caused to pupils during this Halfon said it was “revealing” that Ofqual 2020”. 4 @SCHOOLSWEEK EDITION 230 | FRIDAY, NOV 13, 2020 DO YOU HAVE A STORY? News CONTACT US [email protected] Technical woes hinder Oxbridge entry tests JAMES CARR @JAMESCARR_93 EXCLUSIVE Pupils’ hopes of studying at Oxford and Cambridge may be in jeopardy as admission exams, switched to an online format in the wake of Covid, have been beset with technical difficulties. Last week, year 13 pupils across England sat a variety of admission exams for the two universities, such as the BioMedical Admissions Test (BMAT) for medicine, biomedical science or dentistry.