Labour’s plan to fund higher school spending through increases in corporation tax could boost educational performance but would risk damaging the economy’s long-term growth prospects, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said. The thinktank's analysis of one of Jeremy Corbyn’s flagship policies shows that reversing the government’s planned cuts to schools’ budgets would be comfortably paid for by the extra revenue raised by increasing the main rate of corporation tax to 26%. Under current ...

The 11-plus can “never be tutor-proof”, a major grammar school exam board has admitted, as one of the last remaining selective counties announced it was abandoning its five-year experiment with tests designed to be immune from coaching. All 13 of Buckinghamshire County Council’s grammar schools are to re-instate GL Assessment as their 11-plus provider, despite axing it five years ago amid concern that its questions were predictable and therefore favoured wealthy parents who could pay for extr...

The odds are loaded against children from disadvantaged backgrounds who apply for grammar schools in Kent, suggests a study. Entrance tests for the county's grammars "understate the true academic abilities" of poorer children, says the Education Datalab report. The "heavily" selective county will be a useful case study if grammars are rolled out nationally, says the study. Kent County Council said it was working to boost social mobility in grammars. Ministers have announced plans for a ne...

MPs have questioned "how much of a grip" the Department for Education has on providing school places where they are needed in England. The system is "increasingly incoherent and too often poor value for money," says the Public Accounts Committee. And the government is spending "well over the odds" on free schools while other schools are in poor condition, says the cross-party committee. Ministers say free schools are key to meeting demand for school places. The government has pledged to open 50...

The Department for Education (DfE) has set out plans for measuring the education needs of students from "ordinary working families" - which it says makes up a third of all children. The DfE published a consultation paper earlier this week which aims to find ways to provide "a clearer analysis of educational outcomes for ordinary working families". It comes in the wake of Prime Minister Theresa May's repeated calls for the UK to address social mobility and help those who are "just about man...

The number of poor children going hungry during the school holidays is increasing to “heart-breaking” levels, teachers across the country have warned. As many as four in five staff (80 per cent) reported a rise in “holiday hunger” over the past two years, with parents of children who qualify for free school meals (FSM) during term-time struggling to find the money to fund extra meals during school holidays. In a survey led by the National Union of Teachers (NUT), 78 per cent of the 600 tea...

Children from poorer homes in England are nearly half as likely to attend an outstanding primary school as richer children, research finds. Only 15% of children from the poorest 30% of families currently go to outstanding primary schools, a study by education charity Teach First suggests. This compares to 27% of children from the richest 30% of families who attend a school rated highly by inspectors. The government says it is making more good school places available. The research is publi...

Parents are paying more than £50,000 in order to move to catchment areas with outstanding schools, raising fears that the country’s top state schools are becoming selective according to family wealth. A survey of more than one million homes across England has revealed that parents are paying vast property premiums to move home, with the average house in outstanding school catchment area costing £52,000 more on average than those near schools which require improvement. In London, where comp...

Lower-achieving pupils from rich families earn more than talented poorer children, the Education Secretary has admitted. Justine Greening was speaking at a conference on social mobility, which she described as a “cold, hard, economic imperative” for the country. Ms Greening drew on her experience growing up in Rotherham as she outlined the challenges faced by poorer families. “Children from high-income backgrounds who show signs of low academic ability at age five are 35 per cent more l...