Tranmere Rovers captain Steven Jennings has given a thumbs up to a new school playground when he called round to officially open it. The tough tackling midfielder, who has led his side into the play off positions this season, gave a rousing team talk when he attended the official opening at Our Lady and St Edward’s Catholic Primary School in Birkenhead. The new facility was designed, manufactured and installed by outdoor play experts Creative Play. The Chester-based family firm’s mission involved turning a “blank canvas” into a dream destination designed to challenge youngsters’ physical, motor and social skills.

On Friday 21st October, educators of all kinds are encouraged to head to Ipswich for the Suffolk Festival of Learning, an event aiming to connect business with education, and to provide all education professionals with influential and inspirational speakers, workshops and CPD. The first event of its kind in the region, this gathering boasts 1000 delegates from all sectors of education on board for a day of keynote presentations and workshops.

As consistently featured in the news, the relationship between educators and the government can often be spiky. John Winstanley gives his thoughts on the matter.

Schools in England are relatively autonomous, however many people I speak to in the education sphere say that a ‘middle tier’ is helpful to support schools, and lots of academics and educational organisations, for example ADCS, Prichard and Crossley-Holland, say something similar.

There is no best organisational form of the middle tier. It is a mix of academy chains, local authorities (LAs), school advisors and many other people and organisations. Traditionally LAs have had a kind of monopoly on the school improvement services. However, over time, funding was directed toward schools rather than LAs, LA departments have undergone radical restructuring and new bodies with similar responsibilities have come to the forefront, for example academy chains.