Special educational needs: how an EHCP actually happens
An education, health and care plan is a legally enforceable document a council must finalise within 20 weeks of a request, yet roughly half…
Priya Anand
377 reading now
Education
Learning, skills, schooling and the future of work.
72 stories
University clearing: how it works and who it really serves
Clearing matches unplaced applicants to unfilled courses each August, but since the 2015 removal of student number caps it has become a…
Priya Anand
431 reading now
What academies are and how they changed English schools
Academies are state-funded schools run by charitable trusts under contract with the Education Secretary rather than by councils, a model…
Priya Anand
385 reading now
How A-levels are marked and why grade boundaries move
A-level grade boundaries are set after marking finishes, using comparable outcomes to anchor grades to the cohort's prior attainment rather…
Priya Anand
395 reading now
Home schooling in the UK: what the law actually requires
Section 7 of the Education Act 1996 obliges parents to educate their children but not to send them to school, and the resulting light-touch…
Priya Anand
370 reading now
School admissions appeals: how the panel actually decides
Admissions appeals are decided by a two-stage legal test balancing the school's case about capacity against the family's case about the…
Amelia Hart
363 reading now
Progress 8 and the EBacc: how schools are actually judged
Since 2016 England's secondary league tables have ranked schools on Progress 8, which measures pupil progress from Key Stage 2 rather than…
Priya Anand
366 reading now
Student loan repayments explained: why it works more like a tax
English student loans behave like a time-limited graduate tax on earnings above a threshold, which changes how borrowers should think about…
Amelia Hart
420 reading now
How school catchment areas really work
A catchment area is not a fixed boundary but the annual output of oversubscription criteria, sibling priority and distance measurement…
Priya Anand
419 reading now