Professor of sociology Sam Friedman charts the enduring influence of private schools in the making of the British elite and asks whether the Labour government is looking finally to curtail it

The current Labour cabinet has been described as the most state-educated in British history: it’s not just Keir Starmer who went to a grammar school, all four holders of the great offices of state were...

Rising costs likely to outstrip funding in coming year, despite recent injections of additional money

Schools in England are facing “death by a thousand cuts”, headteachers have said, after a leading economics thinktank said rising costs are likely to outstrip funding in the coming year, despite recent injections of additional money.

Without more ambitious government investment in education,...

Government plans to limit branded student kit to three articles, plus a tie, from September 2026 in England

Plans to cap the number of branded uniform items schools in England can require to three, plus a tie, could save families more than £50 a child, with additional annual savings of £450 from free breakfast clubs in all primaries, the government has said.

The cost-saving measures are laid...

Ofsted’s chief inspector says a new inspection system should reward more inclusive mainstream schools.

Some 8,000 students across the county are expected to be impacted by the industrial action.

Renowned drama school says ‘unprecedented funding challenges’ make degrees unviable from September 2025

One of the UK’s most celebrated drama schools, which counts the Oscar-winners Olivia Colman, Daniel Day-Lewis and Jeremy Irons among its alumni, is to scrap its undergraduate degrees due to a range of financial challenges.

Bristol Old Vic theatre school, founded in 1946, said its...

A total of 19 schools and nurseries in Aberdeenshire and a further six in Moray will remain shut, while dozens of others will open late.

A number of schools are closed in Northern Ireland due to adverse weather.

With half of all languages predicted to die out in decades, activists are turning to online tools to preserve them

Every year, the world loses some of its 7,000 languages. Parents stop speaking them to their children, words are forgotten and communities lose the ability to read their own scripts. The rate of loss is quickening, from one every three months a decade ago to one every 40 days in...

Parents of children turning five in the next academic year are asked to enrol them by 31 January.

The former assistant head sent messages of a “sexual nature”, the Teaching Regulation Agency says.

The impact on children should be at the centre of policy decisions, says a Cambridge professor.

Despite the doom-mongers, the outlook for the economy, the NHS and vital services is good. Coming months should bear that out

Look up, despite the bleak midwinter, the flu crisis and this dismal mood of political cynicism. Despite, too, the daily doom that pumps out of the most hostile media any new government ever faced, savaging whatever Labour does in extravagant language borrowed from Elon...

The solutions to today’s puzzles

Earlier today I set you three puzzles that were interview questions at Paypal, the online payments company ran by a group of billionaire tech bros – Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and David Sacks – now better known for their right wing politics. Here they are again with solutions.

1. Divide and conquer

Continue reading…

Downwardly mobile graduates are arguably becoming the UK’s electoral kingmakers – and could spur a political revolution

Some groups loom larger in the national imagination than others. It has become a shibboleth that economically left, socially conservative ex-Labour voters in the “red wall” are the UK’s political kingmakers and therefore must be wooed. Yet there is little mention of the...

Several schools in County Durham and one in Northumberland are closed after heavy snow.

Mind-manglers from the Musk mafia

The book The Founders by Jimmy Soni tells the story of the Paypal Mafia – the tech bros who founded and ran the online payments company.

The most famous of this troupe – Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and David Sacks – are now as well known for their Trumpist politics as their entrepreneurial ingenuity. Back in the day, however, what really got their blood pumping...