GENERAL NEWS NEWS...
New CEO appointed to lead Nottingham’s largest education trust
Archway Learning Trust has appointed James Higham as its CEO. He is expected to take the helm from September 2025, following the retirement of Sian Hampton, who has led the Trust for over two decades. The Trust is Nottingham’s biggest Multi Academy Trust (MAT) with 10 academies across Nottingham, Derby and Derbyshire and educates one third of Nottingham’s children. James joins from his role as CEO of Multi-Academy Trust, Transforming Lives Education Trust, in Rugby, Warwickshire, and brings more than 20 years
of experience in school and trust leadership. James said: “It’s a genuine honour to be appointed CEO of Archway Learning Trust. From my first conversations, I was deeply struck by the strength of the Trust’s ethos and its unwavering commitment to transforming the life chances of every child. That mission, rooted in values I share, resonates strongly with my own belief that every young person deserves to feel they belong and to be equipped for the world of possibilities ahead.”
Research shows UK teachers spend £25 a month of their own money feeding hungry pupils
A report entitled ‘Hungry to Learn: The impact of morning hunger on our schoolchildren’, reveals the extreme lengths teachers are going to feed hungry children at school; a sign of the increased pressures schools and families are facing when it comes to food poverty.
The report by Kellogg’s includes a study of 867 teachers and 2,000 adults and is being launched to mark the opening of its 2025 Breakfast Club Awards.
It found that the average teacher spends nearly £25 a month of their own money – more than £220 across the school year – feeding hungry pupils. This comes as over three quarters (78 percent) of teachers believe there is a significant issue with children not having daily access to food.
Over one third (36 percent) of teachers surveyed claim to see hungry children arriving at school every day, with almost half (49 percent) seeing an increase in the number of children in their classroom going hungry compared to last year. The launch of the research report marks the return of Kellogg’s Breakfast Club Awards for another year, recognising best practice and innovation among the thousands of breakfast clubs that take place at schools across the UK, and honouring the teachers and school communities tackling hunger in the classroom.
Curriculum pressure is reshaping UK school trips
UK school trips are being reshaped by curriculum pressure and cost scrutiny, with new figures revealing a rise in subject-linked travel over general ‘cultural enrichment’.
According to the 2025 School Trip Index from the UK’s largest educational travel group, PGL Beyond, one in two school trips is now directly tied to a core subject, with modern foreign languages and history accounting for almost half (46 percent) of all travel bookings made by UK schools. General ‘cultural’ or ‘primary’ trips now make up just 16 percent of all visits.
The data, drawn from over 5,000 trips taken by over 200,000 children from across the UK, shows a growing expectation that school travel must justify time away from the classroom through clear educational outcomes.
“Teachers are telling us they need to demonstrate the curriculum value of every hour outside school,” said Linda Green, Head of Educational Destinations at PGL Beyond, the group which includes PGL, NST, European Study Tours and StudyLink Tours. “Trips are no longer just rewards – they’re expected to deliver a measurable impact on learning, bringing subjects to life, from glaciation in Iceland to language immersion in Spain.”
France remains the top destination overall, with one in four trips 4
www.education-today.co.uk
by UK schools heading across the Channel in 2025, but Spain is fast catching up as the modern foreign language destination of choice, fuelled by a wider shift in language teaching. In 2025, Spanish accounted for 38 percent of all modern foreign language tours, catching up to France’s 48 percent.
For bringing history to life, WWI and WWII destinations continue to draw schools. In 2025, Germany’s Berlin, Artois in France, and Ypres in Belgium all ranked among the top five destinations. Krakow also made the top 10, with three percent of school trips including a visit to Auschwitz.
After History, Geography is the next most popular subject, and Iceland ranks in the top 10 destinations for its relative affordability with strong, direct curriculum links. Performing arts trips made to see popular shows such as Wicked also accounted for five percent of trips.
“Schools are using travel to meet multiple strategic objectives, from curriculum alignment to cultural enrichment, and even employability,” Green concludes. “There is growing accountability for every educational experience, yet teachers also know that well- structured school trips provide life-long benefits that are far harder to quantify.”
June 2025
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