More than £10bn was committed to building new schools between 2014-15 and 2023-24, compared with £6.8bn for rebuilding existing schools

Conservative governments spent £325m creating 67 free schools that subsequently failed or disappeared, many through lack of demand, according to data revealed by a freedom of information request.

The figures from the Department for Education (DfE) show that the government committed more than £10bn to building new schools between 2014-15 and 2023-24, compared with £6.8bn for rebuilding existing schools, which critics say left England with a backlog of crumbling and decaying buildings.

Report finds children at Mossbourne Victoria Park traumatised by disciplinary measures ‘designed to humiliate’

Staff at a London academy instilled a “climate of fear” among pupils, with a drive for academic success likely to have harmed vulnerable children including those with special needs, according to a damning independent investigation.

The report by Sir Alan Wood, one of the country’s foremost experts in children’s services, found that staff at Mossbourne Victoria Park Academy (MVPA) routinely used measures “designed to humiliate pupils”, frequently shouting at them and isolating them in corridors as part of “a harsh and damaging disciplinary culture”.