Inside Your Ed
Episodes
Should we teach students how to 'fail better'?
28 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
With exam season just around the corner, hundreds of thousands of students in schools, colleges and universities are making their final preparations a...
If the student loan system is the problem, is a 'graduate tax' the solution?
14 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
“We have concluded the disadvantages are such that we do not support a graduate tax”So said Lord Dearing in his landmark review of Higher Educatio...
SEND reforms are on the way, but are they the right reforms?
23 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
SEND reforms to 'strip away' children's legal protections, charity says. That was according to a recent headline on the BBC website.Nee...
What does the Schools White Paper mean for pupils, teachers and leaders?
10 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Normally a Schools White Paper from the Department for Education, or DfE, would attract plenty of attention on its release as it sets out the directio...
Should struggling independent schools be converted into state schools?
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
VAT on school fees, the end of their business rates relief, a big hike in employers’ National Insurance contributions, falling pupil rolls. It is no...
Is the push for more AI and ed tech in classrooms a big opportunity or big risk?
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
On the 28th of October 2021, the first ever episode of Inside Your Ed was released. Almost four and a half years later, I’m delighted to say that th...
Why are so many graduates struggling to find a job?
29 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
“It’s been a terrible year to graduate and find a job” said a recent headline in the Financial Times.Other newspapers have also chipped in with ...
What lies ahead for schools and colleges in 2026?
12 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome back to Inside Your Ed – I hope you’ve all had a great start to 2026.Last year concluded with an action-packed autumn term of education po...
To V or not to V - that is the question....
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In January 2025, I recorded an episode of Inside Your Ed titled ‘Will the debate over vocational and technical qualifications ever end?’.It is the...
Is the new international student levy going to be taxing for the HE sector?
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For the Higher Education, or HE sector, it may be starting to feel like one step forward is almost immediately followed by one step backward.Last year...
Everyone agrees the SEND system is broken, but how do you fix it?
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“Today is a landmark moment in improving the lives of children with SEND and their families. For too long, families have found themselves battling a...
What final grade does the Curriculum and Assessment Review deserve?
11 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The goal was evolution, not revolution, and when the final report from the Curriculum and Assessment Review, chaired by Professor Becky Francis, was p...
Does the Post 16 White Paper have the right answers, or even the right questions?
28 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
It is entirely normal for a Government to announce plans to reform either Higher Education (HE) or Further Education (FE). What is much less normal is...
How do you get more young apprentices into small businesses?
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Prime Minister Keir Starmer generated plenty of headlines at the Labour Party conference in late September when he set a new target of two-thirds of y...
Does the Higher Education system need more 'super universities'?
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you were looking for reasons to be optimistic about the future of Higher Education, or HE, in England, the last academic year was a rather disappoi...
Why have Ofsted's inspection plans caused controversy (again)?
17 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When Ofsted, the school and college inspectorate in England, launched a consultation earlier this year on their new framework for conducting inspectio...
What 'lessons' does Nick Gibb have for current and future education ministers?
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome back to Inside Your Ed – I hope you all had a great summer.For many people working in politics, the summer break offers a gentler pace of li...
Five years on, are the challenges with T-levels growing or receding?
16 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Since T-levels were introduced in 2020 as new technical qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds, they have rarely been out of the spotlight.In the last ...
How and when are we going to get 6,500 new teachers?
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On Thursday 4th July 2024, the Labour Party won a resounding victory in the UK General Election.In their election-winning manifesto, Labour’s number...
Did the Spending Review deliver good or bad news for the education sector?
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
On June 11th, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the result of the Government’s Spending Review, which confirmed the budgets that each governmen...
Do we need to rethink how we train teachers and leaders in schools?
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
I think most people would agree that England’s rise up the international education league tables over the past decade or so has been a welcome sign ...
Will flexible working for teachers help tackle the recruitment and retention crisis?
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Since the COVID pandemic, many jobs have been transformed by the dramatic expansion of hybrid and remote working.A recent survey by the education char...
Should employers pay more towards the cost of Higher Education?
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shortly before £1,000 tuition fees were first introduced in 1998, a landmark report by Sir Ron Dearing had pointed out that employers were also “ma...
Does Skills England have the skills that England needs?
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
No-one is surprised when a newly elected government decides to create new initiatives and new organisations to signify a change in direction and a bre...
Is the Curriculum and Assessment Review on the right track?
09 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Curriculum and Assessment Review, which is being chaired by Professor Becky Francis, was commissioned by the Department for Education last summer ...
Are universities still worth it?
26 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Those who work in and around the Higher Education, or HE sector, have been having a rough time if recent media headlines are anything to go by.Since t...
How easy will it be to get free breakfast clubs into all primary schools?
12 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Seeing as the government is clearly short of spare cash, you would have thought the Department for Education investing in a new national programme to ...
Do Ofsted's plans to reform inspections stand up to closer inspection?
26 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Given the endless debates and disagreements about Ofsted, the school and college inspectorate in England, Ofsted’s proposed new framework for conduc...
Is the Schools Bill going to leave state schools in a better state?
05 Feb 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Shortly after the General Election in 2024, the newly elected Labour government announced a Children’s Wellbeing Bill – a new piece of legislation...
Will the debate over vocational and technical qualifications ever end?
22 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Just before the end of 2024, the Government announced the outcome of their review of Level 3 vocational and technical qualifications, which are offere...
What does President-elect Trump have in store for US (and UK) education?
06 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Happy New Year and welcome back to Inside Your Ed.Regular listeners will know that this podcast usually focuses on the latest education news in Englan...
What exactly will the 'Youth Guarantee' guarantee for young people?
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“Labour will establish a youth guarantee of access to training, an apprenticeship, or support to find work for all 18- to 21-year-olds, to bring dow...
Can a new education institute help politicians make better policies?
04 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When it feels like every voter and politician has their own opinion on how to run the education system in England, wouldn’t it be nice if there was ...
Will the Lifelong Learning Entitlement ever become a reality?
20 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nuclear fusion offers the tantalising prospect of being a potentially limitless source of clean and self-sustaining energy, but, as the old joke goes,...
Do tuition fees and student loans need 'major reform'?
07 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On November 4th, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson confirmed that, for the first time since 2017, university tuition fees in England will rise fr...
Do we need to overhaul how maths is taught and assessed?
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
If you were asked to pick out a success story from the last 14 years of education policy, I’m sure some people would point to England’s rise in th...
Has the 'Growth and Skills Levy' set off in the right direction?
09 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The most significant education policy launched at last month’s Labour Party conference was the release of new details about the Growth and Skills Le...
GCSE resits: should we keep them, reform them or scrap them?
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
It is hard not to raise an eyebrow when a government policy is described by some as a ‘vital lifeline’ for students, while others describe the sam...
Why are so many people talking about 'tertiary education'?
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Although complaints from universities about a perceived lack of funding continue to attract plenty of media attention, some very interesting shifts in...
Can anyone or anything stop AI cheating in exams?
28 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Although this year’s exam season has largely passed without incident or drama, many exams and assessments throughout our education system are potent...
How do you solve a problem like international students?
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“Read my lips — I will bring immigration numbers down” said Keir Starmer during the recent General Election campaign.The Labour Party election m...
Who has the better manifesto for education: Conservatives or Labour?
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sometimes a UK General Election can be a tense and nervy affair with little indication of which party will prevail. The upcoming election on July 4th ...
What could be done to improve policymaking in education?
19 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With a General Election just weeks away, people’s thoughts are quickly turning to which education policies the next government will try to implement...
What does the future hold for tutoring on a national scale?
05 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Since the National Tutoring Programme, or NTP, was launched in 2020 to help combat the effects of the pandemic on children’s academic progress, it h...
20 years on - is it time to revisit the '14-19 Diplomas'?
22 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On the 16th of May, EDSK published a new report called ‘Evolution and revolution’, in which we set out a 10-year plan for reforming primary and se...
Do we all agree on what 'fairness' means in education?
08 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Despite the endless debates and disagreements in education policy, there are some things that we can all agree on, such as the need for a fair educati...
Why are so many pupils still absent from school?
24 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This time last year, we did a podcast episode about the growing problem of pupil absences in the aftermath of the pandemic, with record numbers of chi...
Should oracy play a greater role in primary and secondary education?
10 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“It’s not just a skill for learning, it’s also a skill for life. Not just for the workplace, also for working out who you are – for overcoming...
Why adding VAT to private school fees is more complicated than it sounds
26 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the current education policy landscape, the debate over adding VAT to independent school fees is by far the most high-profile dividing line between...
How and why have 'academy schools' evolved over the past quarter of a century?
14 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On the 15th of March in the year 2000, then Education Secretary David Blunkett invited businesses, churches and voluntary groups to build and manage a...
Are universities facing a 'financial crisis'?
28 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Existential crisis - at risk of insolvency - looming financial crisis - ticking time bomb - bankruptcy.Newspaper headline writers have certainly not...
Should we rethink how we talk about (and measure) social mobility?
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With a General Election on the way, all eyes and ears are trained on what our politicians are saying about the future of education and skills. Howeve...
Is the switch from paper to digital exams finally underway?
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
“The arrival of on-screen and online high stakes assessment has been predicted for many years.”Those are not my words, but the words of the exam r...
Would the 'Advanced British Standard' improve 16-19 education?
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Almost exactly 12 months ago, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak set out his plans for all students in England to study some form of maths to age 18.Ten month...
Are 'challenger' institutions in HE challenging the status quo?
05 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome back to Inside Your Ed in 2024 and happy New Year to all our listeners. Speaking of things that are new, this episode is all about the new in...
Is there a trade-off between apprenticeship quantity and quality?
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It seems as though the government are intent on continuing their crusade against what they call ‘low value’ Higher Education, with the Prime Minis...
Time to radically reform the way that we fund Higher Education?
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since the Labour Party moved away from its plan to scrap university tuition fees, the debate over how to fund Higher Education, or HE, has gone r...
Is Labour's 'Early Years' review asking the right questions?
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Regular listeners will know that we recently dedicated a whole episode to the main education stories from this year’s Conservative and Labour Party ...
Reducing teachers' workload - easier than it sounds?
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve been following the recent headlines on teacher recruitment and retention, you’ll know that the government’s statistics paint a grim pi...
What was the best new policy to emerge from the Labour and Conservative Party conferences?
14 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This year’s party conferences could be the last big gatherings before the next General Election, so it was the perfect opportunity for the Conserv...
Pupil wellbeing: what is it, and can we actually measure it?
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It has not been a great three and a half years to be a school pupil. The pandemic, repeated openings and closures of schools, illness and absences, ex...
Should we welcome rising state school admissions to Oxbridge?
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The annual cycle of school and college students applying to university, sitting their summer exams and being awarded their grades in August finally re...
Is 'ed tech' heading in the right or wrong direction?
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome back to Inside Your Ed - I hope you all had a good summer. Just as the summer break was getting underway in late July, you may have missed a n...
Is it boom or gloom for young people in the labour market?
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread predictions of a catastrophic situation for young people in terms of unemployment and lost...
Is behaviour in schools getting better or worse?
29 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It has often been said that school teachers should be called superheroes for heading into classrooms every day across the country to try to improve th...
Has England just become a 'reading superpower'?
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
With widespread strike action already underway across the education system and with so many institutions in need of more staff and more money, things ...
Labour will not scrap tuition fees, so what should they do instead?
01 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the world of education and politics more broadly, we are all used to seeing politicians making major announcements and getting plenty of media cove...
What is behind the recent rise in pupil absence rates?
18 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Covid may no longer be forcing schools to close or requiring pupils to self-isolate at home but there are still a worrying number of empty desks in sc...
Has the time come to say 'time is up' to written exams?
04 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As always, the month of May signals the beginning of exam season, with students around the country facing various challenges such as GCSEs and A-level...
Two reports raise questions about the future of Ofsted
19 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In March this year, the news that headteacher Ruth Perry had taken her own life caused a huge storm both within and outside the teaching profession af...
Is it time to replace the apprenticeship levy with a 'Growth and Skills Levy'?
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On April 6th 2023, the apprenticeship levy celebrates its sixth birthday. The question now is whether the levy will get the chance to celebrate many m...
Why did teachers go on strike, and are there more strikes to come?
22 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Doctors, nurses, train drivers, ambulance drivers, postal workers, university academics – the list of professions that have gone on strike since the...
Should we bring back work experience for school pupils?
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The decision in 2012 to remove the duty on schools to arrange a work experience placement for all 14 to 16-year-olds was perhaps not one of the most h...
Is 'compulsory maths to age 18' a sensible and achievable goal?
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In a cost of living crisis and with widespread strike action taking place across the education sector, it is always going to be difficult for the gove...
The Schools Bill is dead - what happened, and what now?
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Almost exactly a year ago, EDSK released an episode of this podcast about what the Department for Education should put into their upcoming Schools Whi...
Has the 2021 FE White Paper made a difference to the FE sector?
25 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Despite all the turmoil in our education system since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been occasional glimpses of long-term policymakin...
Two think tanks try to fix our childcare system
13 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
At the start of 2023, the cost of living crisis is still dominating the news. In recent months, the government has chosen to spend billions of pounds ...
Is the government still interested in reforming Higher Education?
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to a turbulent few months in British politics, it is easy to forget that earlier this year the government announced a sweeping set of reforms t...
Why are so many apprentices dropping out of their training?
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On the 27th of November 2012, the then Coalition Government published a major review of the apprenticeship system in England, which had been led by th...
What does the future hold for private schools in England?
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“We shall withdraw charitable status from private schools and all their other public subsidies and tax privileges. We will also charge VAT on the fe...
Why are teachers and headteachers on the verge of strike action?
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As you have probably noticed, the Government has been going through Education Secretaries at quite a rate – with five people having held the post si...
Is enough progress being made with mental health support in schools?
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“I want children and young people to have access to mental health support in schools.” said Liz Truss during her campaign for the Conservative Par...
How many education policies emerged from this year's party conferences?
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In some years, the political party conference season from mid September to early October can pass largely without incident. This year, party conferenc...
What is sitting in the new Education Secretary's in-tray?
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The “education prime minister” was how Liz Truss described herself during her leadership campaign this summer, and she offered plenty of proposals...
What were the major headlines from the 2022 exam season?
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
To say that the last two years of public examination results have been controversial would be an understatement. In 2020, many students’ final grad...
Is the government's COVID recovery plan having the desired effect?
05 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“After schools shut their gates on Friday afternoon they will remain closed until further notice. This will be for all children, except for those of...
Should teaching be less art and more science?
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Perhaps one of the most enduring debates in the world of teaching is the question of whether teaching is an art or science. In recent weeks, not one ...
Is the government right to reform qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds?
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You don’t often see teaching unions, schools, colleges, universities and education charities publicly join forces to resist a new government policy,...
Will the government's SEND proposals improve the lives of pupils and families?
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of March, the government published two significant documents in the space of two days. First came the government’s plans for the future o...
Do we need to overhaul careers education in schools and colleges?
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A Greek philosopher once said that “change is the only constant in life.” I’m sure that rings true for anyone working in careers education in En...
How can we prevent young people from falling out of our education system?
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the UK economy slowly emerges from the pandemic, the government has already begun withdrawing many of the schemes that it introduced to support you...
Will future students win or lose from the government's plans for Higher Education?
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Who would have thought - you wait three years for a government response to an independent review of the Higher Education system, and then two response...
Is the National Tutoring Programme delivering what pupils and schools need?
20 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Failing children and taxpayers”, “a bureaucratic nightmare”, a “spaghetti junction of funding”, “baking in deepening inequalities”, “...
What have we learned after five years of the apprenticeship levy?
06 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most common criticisms of politicians and policymakers is that they keep chopping and changing between different policies, making it hard f...
Did 'Kickstart' actually kickstart new jobs for young people?
23 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As the Chancellor Rishi Sunak set out his ‘Plan For Jobs’ in July 2020, he recognised that the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic were hitting ...
What role do wealth and privilege play in university admissions?
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The ‘Varsity Blues’ cheating scandal in the United States, which began almost exactly two years ago to the day, is one of the most astonishing edu...
How could you 'level up' our education system?
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In his foreword to the Government’s new ‘levelling up’ plans, the Prime Minister declared that “From day one, the defining mission of this gov...
To Baccalaureate or not to Baccalaureate? That is the question
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It is not just Prime Minister Boris Johnson who has been imploring us to BUILD BACK BETTER. Even US President Joe Biden has used this same phrase to d...
What could and should go into the 2022 schools 'White Paper'?
26 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A new Education Secretary was appointed a few months ago, and the government feels that now is the time to reshape the schools system by publishing a ...
What problems does the government's upcoming SEND review need to solve?
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Special educational needs and disabilities, or SEND for short, covers a wide range of difficulties that can affect a child or young person’s ability...