Laura McInerney

New. What those who find learning easiest can learn from those who find it hardest. I worked hard on this. bennewmark.wordpress.com/2026/10/15/w...

If Ofsted is judging school standards, context is irrelevant. If it is judging school effectiveness, context is everything. The problem comes when they do the former but it is interpreted as the latter.

Can wearing PE kit all day boost participation, especially among girls? Research suggests it might — so how common is the policy? 🟢 Primary: 77% of teachers say yes, students can wear PE kit all day 🟢 Secondary: just 17% say the same

Someone recently said a thing that’s really made me think: Why should everyone pay so that some people can inherit more? It’s a fair and challenging question.

What do we think would happen if we screened all children for all SEND conditions at, say, age 8?

Biggest applause in Labour conference fringe by education unions today was when @pepediiasio.bsky.social suggested bringing back Every Child Matters so we could go full circle!

It would be interesting to compare the breadth of the English national GCSE curriculum to those of other countries. Eg, Mark Enser wrote an interesting piece recently about the dearth of Geography in other countries’ secondary-tier curricula. 2/2

Interesting question from someone musing re school refusal. Well-meaning answers would be appreciated, I think.

Some interesting shifts in teacher tech over the years 💻 🟢 72% of teachers now have a school-issued laptop, up from 55% in 2018. 🟠 Phones have barely moved: 2% in 2026 vs 2% in 2019. 🔴 Tablets are down — 18%, compared to 28% in 2018. How does this compare to your school?

Sad to hear of Bonnie Greer’s passing. In thirty years of religiously watching Question Time she was always a stand out contributor. Graceful under pressure but willing to call nonsense. She’ll be missed.

I have wondered if this needs an ad campaign like the TFL ones about intervening to help against harassment. Instead of just ‘turn your phone off’ at the start cinemas could add ‘and if anyone reminds you of these rules, respect them, they’re the hero’.

Another consequence of banging on about devolution is that, very reasonably, the nations go ‘yup, we’d like more of that thanks’.

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What a graph.

This is a really pertinent Q because adults DO make the choice to trade results (income) for chill (personal stability) and we don't question that. But should that choice be imposed on children by adults? The harm vs benefit of testing is the most well-explored yet unresolved question.

Well gdp is the sum of labour and capital income and if you lower human capital you lower productivity and therefore wages. So you'd very much expect a direct impact on Welsh GDP. But you'd also predict impacts on life-expectancy, poor health, addictive behaviours and many forms of crime.

New PISA data out England is now top ten in all three areas (reading, maths, science) and the second highest performing country outside of east Asia (after Estonia). This is a huge public policy success.

One reason England does so well is our second generation immigrants outperform their peers which is not true in most OECD countries. We are also very good at integration. And it's v sad that this is never acknowledge in debates on immigration.

“I was given £1M to run my project over 5 years; Anthropic took only 11 days” When people say that AI will never do x, maybe they’re right. But the stuff it can do is crazy. In research world it’s like the police discovering DNA. The backlog of things we can quickly solve is huge.

Amazing how often Farage security concerns correlate exactly with him getting caught doing something wrong. BBC News - www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c6... Farage addresses Reform UK conference after delay due to security concerns - live updates - BBC News

James Cleverly as London mayoral candidate for the Tories is not a bad shout. He did one of the most competent results day rounds I’ve seen an Ed Sec do - and I’ve seen a LOT - during a tough year, after only being in post for a few weeks.

Yet more dangers with hidden cameras. At some point this has to be regulated. schoolsweek.co.uk/teacher-bann...

Some news. To some of you this will be no surprise. To some of you it will.. bennewmark.wordpress.com/2026/08/22/s...

Sunny Dancer is such a wonderful movie - hard recommend if it’s on at a cinema nearby. George Jacques, the director, is still in his 20s, and if it’s anything to go by I think Gen Z have found their own Richard Curtis.