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Education & Arts Blogs

Schools policy challenges after the election
In a blog based on a speech he made earlier today, Policy Exchange’s Head of Education Jonathan Simons discusses the policy challenges facing schools after the election. Jonathan argues that the closeness of the election will make it difficult to enact significant education reforms.

“I can’t do maths”
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.

New Schools under Labour
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.

Why the free school doom-mongers have been proven completely wrong
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.

Now we have new evidence about Free Schools. And it shows that they’re working.
Jonathan Simons, Head of Education at Policy Exchange, sets out the findings from A Rising Tide, our new report that takes the first detailed look at the impact of Free Schools. The report shows that Free Schools have a positive influence on the results of underperforming local schools.

There is no evidence cutting tuition fees will increase university applications
Jonathan Simons, Policy Exchange’s Head of Education, looks at the Labour claim that £9,000 a year tuition fees are putting prospective students off going to university. Jonathan argues that cutting tuition fees would have no appreciable effect on entrance rates, serving only to benefit mostly male higher earners decades from now.

Academies after 2015
Jonathan Simons, Policy Exchange’s Head of Education, sets out the three questions the government will need to answer in order to effectively implement today’s announcement from the Prime Minister that “coasting” schools will be forced to accept new leadership.

Premier League
Jonathan Simons, Policy Exchange’s Head of Education, examines three questions raised by the recent debate on the new format school league tables: does it matter if well known public schools reside at the bottom of the table; does it matter if we can’t truly compare 2013 and 2014 results; and does it matter if league tables only give a partial picture of performance?

Why linear A-levels will work best
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.

5 reasons why a return to grammar schools is a bad idea
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.