Kristina Murkett

There’s an obvious reason pre-school children are falling behind

16 April 2025 9:47 pm

Something is rotten in the state of British schools. According to primary school teachers, one in four Reception students are…

Fixing free childcare would be an easy win for Labour

15 March 2025 12:06 am

Parents of young children should be happy: since September 2024, those with an income of less than £100,000 a year…

Strict schools are sapping the joy out of learning

12 February 2025 7:46 pm

When it comes to behaviour policies, schools have fallen into two extremes. Across the border in Scotland, schools practise ‘restorative…

The problem with ‘diversifying’ the curriculum

1 January 2025 4:35 pm

As an English teacher, one of my favourite poems to teach, to pupils of almost all ages, is Chinua Achebe’s…

Labour’s axing of Latin lessons is an act of cultural vandalism

21 December 2024 4:14 pm

The Labour government seems determined to undermine excellence in schools. The Department for Education has announced that from February it…

The hypocrisy of Labour’s plan to solve youth unemployment

27 November 2024 2:26 am

The government has today announced a £45 million work drive, with proposed changes to the welfare and out-of-work support systems,…

Labour’s exam reforms make some sense

11 November 2024 10:57 pm

In an address to 1,500 school and academy trust leaders, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson last week asked schools to stop…

Labour’s term-time holiday crackdown won’t work

6 September 2024 4:00 pm

In the bestselling book Freakonomics, the authors Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt outline an experiment which involved fining parents…

The problem with compulsory GCSE resits

22 August 2024 4:00 pm

This morning, students up and down across the country will anxiously open up their GCSE results, with local papers publishing…

Male violence does not take place in a vacuum

17 August 2024 4:00 pm

There have been lots of reasons to be optimistic this summer: the glorious spectacle of the Olympics; the (relatively) good…

Can we really teach children to spot fake news?

13 August 2024 9:50 pm

As part of the ongoing review into the primary and secondary school curriculum, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced that…

Labour’s private school VAT raid will stunt social mobility

31 July 2024 2:02 am

Following the announcement of Rachel Reeves’ spending cuts on Monday, the Treasury confirmed that VAT will be applied to private…

There’s a reason Eton is cracking down on smartphones

9 July 2024 10:50 pm

Eton College has just announced that it will ban new pupils from bringing smartphones to school from September, and will give them…

The truth about the ‘ban’ on sex education

17 May 2024 3:00 am

Increasingly, it feels like the Tories want to distract from their looming defeat by doing everything they can to keep…

We know smartphones are harming girls – so why don’t we act?

6 May 2024 4:00 pm

This week a report by the Policy Exchange think tank found that children at secondary schools with a full phone ban in…

Britain is being too slow to ban smartphones

11 April 2024 3:38 am

A few years ago, calling for a ban on smartphones for under-16s would have seemed alarmist – a minority viewpoint…

Why shortening the school summer holidays helps no one

27 February 2024 7:28 pm

A new report, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, has recommended that the six-week school summer holiday should be reduced to four weeks,…

Why banning phones in schools won’t work

20 February 2024 2:06 am

Breaking news: schools have finally been given guidance on stopping kids from using mobile phones during the school day, three years after…

Can we blame universities for cashing in on foreign students?

30 January 2024 1:49 am

As an English teacher and sixth form tutor, I spend a lot of my time at the moment celebrating and…

Parents should share blame for plummeting school attendance

9 January 2024 1:28 am

Is school optional nowadays? Last year, 140,000 children were classed as ‘severely absent’ from the classroom, a rise of 134…

Teenage teachers won’t fix Britain’s classroom troubles

11 December 2023 11:04 am

Teaching in the UK is in trouble. Less than half the number of secondary school teachers required this year, a…

In defence of Ofsted

21 November 2023 4:03 am

When it comes to Ofsted, people often like to trot out the old adage that ‘you don’t grow a pig…

The Tory crackdown addiction

9 November 2023 6:31 pm

If there’s one thing this government is addicted to, it’s crackdowns. Rishi Sunak loves to talk tough on how he…

Rishi Sunak’s exam shake-up doesn’t add up

5 October 2023 3:34 am

After 13 years in power, the Conservatives have decided to rebrand themselves as the ‘party of change’. Today, Rishi Sunak…

Starmer’s private school tax is a terrible, vote-losing idea

27 September 2023 2:50 am

Today Labour have confirmed that they will impose VAT on private schools in its first year of power if it…