Blog

For the past year, some of the education team at SSAT have been working with school leaders from the network and colleagues from the EEF and the Research Schools Network, as part of EEF’s Working Through Others project.

With a clear focus on inclusion in the new inspection framework, what better way to show your commitment to this than through enhancing student voice and leadership mechanisms at your school?

I am an optimist. If there is anything that my seventeen years as a Politics teacher and school leader have taught me, it is that young people are enormously capable, passionate, empathetic and care about the world they live in.

When schools are fully ready for inspection processes, school leaders are enabled to focus on demonstrating their school’s true purpose. When this happens, inspection outcomes are more likely to validate school self-evaluation and recognise their culture.

The theme for Black History Month 2025, “Standing Firm in Power and Pride,” is both a celebration and a call to action. It honours the resilience and achievements of Black communities while inviting us to actively shape spaces where voices from Black and global majority heritage backgrounds are heard, valued, and celebrated.

At Townley Grammar, our commitment to racial equality isn’t a slogan or a policy document it’s something we live out daily in our classrooms, corridors, and community.

Rebecca Jarrett is Teaching and Learning Team / Art Lead / Writing Lead (Mat cover) / class teacher at Ryders Green Primary School. She was successfully re-accredited as an SSAT Lead Practitioner in March 2025. In this case study she shares how her work leading on developing metacognition across the school has impacted pupil learning.

Everyone is talking about behaviour, and what they are saying is worrying.

Why are Black and Global Majority teachers underrepresented at all stages in teaching? How can the teacher and leader workforce be more representative of the diversity of the pupil community?

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the northern town where my son and grandson live. I arrived just before 10pm. By the next morning, as we drove down the neighbouring streets, each lamppost had a George Cross attached, and Union Jack bunting hung on railings at crossings along the main road.