Education

The government has been accused of not offering value for money when recovering student loans.

The Department for Education confirms that the Al-Madinah free school will be taken over by a new head and the trustees have agreed to resign, our home affairs correspondent Darshna Soni reports.

Letters written by the headteacher of the troubled free school Al-Madinah to his staff, seen by Channel 4 News, reveal that he turns to press reports to find out what is happening at his own school.

As the Department of Education holds talks with governors over the future of the Al-Madinah school, Channel 4 News learns “super-head” Barry Day is favoured to take over running the institution.

Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt says the Al-Madinah controversy shows the government’s free schools policy is a “free market experiment” that puts the stability of pupils at risk.

Teenagers are to be graded from one to nine instead of A* to G in the biggest shake-up of GCSEs in the exam’s history.

Got the answer? The majority of Britons think that teachers should be qualified, and that all schools – free or otherwise – should stick to the national curriculum, a poll for Channel 4 News finds.

The deputy prime minister says the national curriculum should be taught in every school and all teachers should be qualified. One free school founder tells Channel 4 News why he disagrees.

Tens of thousands of teachers strike over pay and pensions across England, and to tell Education Secretary Michael Gove they are “sick and tired” of his “relentless attacks” on the profession.

“This is a school funded by British taxpayers, we have had a long fight for gender equality.” The shadow education secretary explains what restrictions he’d put on religious schools.

Schools minister David Laws says no school will be allowed to “languish in failure” as an Ofsted report on Al-Madinah school in Derby, a Muslim free school, says it is “in chaos”.

The new shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, says a Labour government would not close any free schools set up under the coalition.

It is one of several radical claims about education in an essay by the education secretary’s adviser Dominic Cummings, published last night. Here are the rest.

Children from the poorest families in the UK are “failing before they’ve even started in life”, Save the Children says – with seven-year-old pupils falling irretrievably behind their wealthier peers.