Natasha Porter
Deputy Head of Education, 2014-15
Writing in The Guardian, education journalist Fiona Millar cites a Policy Exchange blog post by Jonathan Simons and Natasha Porter which highlighted evidence against the social mobility case made in favour of grammar schools.
Higher, Further, Faster, More calls for BIS to redirect up to £532m of the Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) grant to improve the quality of Further Education. Whilst acknowledging the importance of our Higher Education sector, the report points out that universities are sitting on reserves of £12.3bn at a time when 1 in 4 FE colleges could effectively go bankrupt within a year.
Ahead of a speech by American education academic E. D. Hirsch, Policy Exchange has drawn together a collection from a diverse range of education policy experts discussing the impact that Hirsch's thinking has had on the curriculum.
Free Schools are raising standards for other pupils across the local community, especially in some of the poorest performing schools, as well for the pupils who attend them. A Rising Tide sets out for the first time detailed analysis on the performance of local schools where a Free School has opened.
The Education Manifesto offers a suite of education policy proposals, including ideas on compulsory maths for all 16-18 year olds, a student debt forgiveness scheme for teachers in state schools, incentives to attract teachers to work and stay in regions and a publicly funded retraining scheme linked to growth sectors in the UK’s new industrial strategy.
Natasha Porter, Policy Exchange's Deputy Head of Education, summarises the debate at our recent education conference on the future of the teaching workforce. Among the many issues the conference threw up, the need to be more innovative in both the recruitment and retention of teachers was a common theme.
Natasha Porter, Policy Exchange's Deputy Head of Education, writes about how schools should have to pay a 'resit levy' for every pupil that fails to gain at least a C grade in GCSE English and Maths, first discussed in her new report Crossing the Line.
Natasha Porter, Policy Exchange's Deputy Head of Education, writes about how schools should have to pay a 'resit levy' for every pupil that fails to gain at least a C grade in GCSE English and Maths, first discussed in her new reportCrossing the Line.
Natasha Porter, Policy Exchange's Deputy Head of Education, criticises the social acceptance of poor numeracy as innate - that one can naturally be "bad at maths". She reiterates the call from our Education Manifesto for all students to be made to study maths to age 18.
Natasha Porter, Policy Exchange's Deputy Head of Education, welcomes Labour’s ongoing commitment to new schools as part of overall school improvement in coastal and former mining areas, but urges Labour to allow new parent schools to be set up there even if there isn’t a shortage of places.
Natasha Porter, Deputy Head of Education at Policy Exchange, shows how our recent report A Rising Tide has proven Free Schools naysayers wrong. Natasha shows that claims that Free Schools would lead to the collapse of nearby schools and drive down results are shown to be unfounded.
Natasha Porter, Policy Exchange's Deputy Head of Education, argues that linear A-levels allow for time to teach skills that are no longer examined, giving pupils the space to explore subject areas that they’re interested in.
Natasha Porter and Jonathan Simons, Policy Exchange's Deputy Head and Head of Education, argue that – contrary to what the backers of more grammar schools say – selective education was actually bad for social mobility. They show that grammar schools left behind those who did not attend them in terms of both grades and pay, that grammar schools take fewer poor students and that they did not necessarily provide a good education.
Natasha Porter, Policy Exchange's Deputy Head of Education, covers our inaugural Annual Education Lecture, which was delivered by US education reform expert Doug Lemov. Doug called for greater opportunities for teachers to learn from one another, highlighting that there is no achievement gap that some teacher hasn't already crossed.
Policy Exchange's newly appointed Deputy Head of Education, Natasha Porter, sets out what needs to be done to ensure that the Technical Baccalaureate carries as much weight as the A-Level. The Technical Baccalaureate must have tougher entrance criteria, be sufficiently difficult to stretch the most able students, and allow access to some of the best higher education institutions. Only then will it offer a genuine alternative to A-Levels for young people.
