The government’s teacher workload taskforce has published early recommendations from its work to help minsters meet their pledge to cut five hours from the working week of school staff. Headline recommendations include removing performance-related pay and introducing a workload-focused INSET day, with the latter being rejected by the government. The full findings will be published in March. By Lucas Cumiskey, Schools Week.

The government has promised new guidance to help schools tackle the harassment of staff, amid reports of a rise in the proportion of school leaders who have been verbally abused by parents. Ministers have also announced £1.5 million in funding to extend a professional supervision and counselling support scheme for another three years. Schools Week.

Academies minister Baroness Barran has committed to publishing the Department for Education's "detailed roadmap" for making the education estate net-zero, after admitting the school rebuilding programme alone would not be enough to hit sustainability targets. By Jack Dyson, Schools Week. 

Parents attempting to sign up to the government's new 15-hour free childcare scheme have called it a “debacle” and “confusing chaos” with many saying their nurseries have been left in the dark as to how it works. Pregnant Then Screwed, a childcare campaign group, has accused the government of drafting the scheme “on the back of a fag packet without proper consideration” as parents have been unable to request the funding. Applications for the scheme opened on 2 January, and the funding will start being rolled out in April. By Aasma Day, iNews.

Ofsted has claimed it "continues" to put staff wellbeing at the "forefront of its thinking", in an update about pledges made as part of the Educational Staff Wellbeing Charter. The statement has been met with criticism, with Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Education Union, claiming it shows the inspectorate is "out of touch" with the teaching profession and must do "much more" to address unnecessary workload and stress. By Cerys Turner, Tes. 

The Times reports hundreds of schools across Scotland are likely to close amid warnings of blizzards and plummeting temperatures. National Highways has also issued a severe weather alert for snow in northwest England, with high winds expected to cause further disruption. By Max Kendix.

The new official portrait of the King is part of an £8 million government-funded scheme to distribute the sovereign’s image free of charge to public authorities, including schools. The photograph, designed to hang outside heads’ offices, features Charles III resting one hand on a table sporting a chest heavy with medals, stars, chains, thistles, roses, a diamond-encrusted knight and a doomed dragon. The Cabinet Office has said it is hoped the scheme will "strengthen civil pride and reflect the new era in our history". By Jack Malvern, The Times. 

According to Oxford University Press, the Children’s Word of the Year is "climate change", with "war" in second place followed by "coronation" in third. Since the Children’s Word of the Year started in 2014, they have become gradually more serious. In 2020 it was "coronavirus"; the next year it was "anxiety"; in 2022, the year Queen Elizabeth passed away, it was "Queen". Helen Freeman, director of Oxford Children’s Books, said: "The choice of 'climate change' not only demonstrates how attuned children are to the news and their environment, but the research also reveals their willingness to engage with meaningful change." By Poppy Koronka, The Times.   

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