ISC Daily News Summary

Kemi Badenoch and senior Labour ministers clashed yesterday after the Conservative leader criticised the government’s education reforms at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs). Ms Badenoch described education secretary Bridget Phillipson as a "spiteful class warrior", adding that she "taxed private schools to pay for more teachers but the number of teachers has gone down". Technology secretary Liz Kendall is understood to have told Ms Badenoch that what she said was outrageous, as the trio later met in the division lobby. A Conservative source said Ms Badenoch responded by telling the education secretary: "I’ll fight you all the way. You’re destroying children’s lives," which was a reference to the VAT on fees policy. Tes. Also reported by Geraldine Scott for The Times. 

The latest episode of Inside Your Ed features an interview with Julie Robinson, chief executive of the Independent Schools Council (ISC), and Maxwell Marlow, head of public affairs at the Adam Smith Institute, who discuss the government's VAT on fees policy. During the discussion, Ms Robinson talks about the impact of the new tax, and says "most parents are not finding it easy to afford the fees". Looking to the future, she explains why it is so important to track pupil numbers rather than just the number of schools, in light of mergers and new school groupings. Ms Robinson says the sector "will adapt", adding that the policy, unwelcome though it has been, has increased awareness of the diversity of independent schools. "I think we will increasingly see an appreciation of the true nature of the independent sector," she says. The podcast is hosted by Tom Richmond, an education policy analyst.

In a letter to The Times, Timothy Straker KC says the government's VAT on fees policy is harming both independent schools and the wider economy by deterring overseas pupils, arguing that the resulting fall in foreign students means less spending and investment in the UK. Rejecting ministers' justification for the policy, he says: "It is intellectually incoherent to claim a tax break for education from a tax that has never been imposed," adding: "In most other countries, tax on learning or education is generally barred."

On a separate issue, Mark Steed, former principal of Berkhamsted School, writes to the paper arguing that the best way to combine the advantages of coeducation and single-sex schooling is the diamond model. Featuring mixed primary education, single-sex teaching from 11 to 16, and a coeducational sixth form, he says this approach "allows for different approaches to classroom management at the height of adolescence" while preparing pupils for university and adult life.

The letters appear just above halfway.

Writing in Tes, Federico Verri, a teacher at the British International School of Timisoara, Romania, says the strongest international schools in the coming years "will not be those shouting loudest about achievements but those delivering on what they promise". Outlining some of the key ways this can be done, he explains: "Schools can do this by teaching local language and culture seriously, partnering beyond the campus and showing families that global education can strengthen, not replace, local identity." 

In an article for Tes, author and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) expert Dr Julian Grenier CBE says changes to the SEND system will improve inclusion in early years settings only if accompanied by key reforms in practice. "The SEND reforms give us the opportunity to create an early years system that can welcome a wide range of children and promote their happy and successful development, from their first day in the EYFS," he writes.