The education secretary is right that her job is not to ‘polish the status quo’. Next, she must decide what to change first

There is a good case to be made for the increased importance of speaking skills in our new age of machines. With the UK economy’s stronger-than-expected recent performance widely linked to AI investment, it is vital that people are equipped for the kinds of in-person, public-facing jobs that are least likely to be automated. A concerning decline in children’s language development, both in the UK and internationally, has been linked to high screen use. There is a grim irony in a situation where tech companies both compete with humans for contracts and undermine our ability to talk to one other.

The Guardian has previously backed efforts to more strongly embed speaking skills, or oracy, in British schools. In a speech on Thursday, Lucy Powell promised to give them equal status to reading and writing in English (education is devolved, so her main responsibility is for England, but there are parallel initiatives in the other nations). Yet with promised updates to the national curriculum postponed, and plans for special educational needs reform causing deep anxiety to families, schools and councils, the hardest questions for the education secretary are about priorities. Following negative feedback from schools, she has also asked Ofsted to look again at its new inspection framework.

NEU’s Daniel Kebede says earlier start times and longer summer breaks may be needed to help pupils and teachers

Schools should consider changing start and finish times, reordering holidays and moving exams from the summer months in an effort to adapt to the UK’s increasingly severe heatwaves, according to the leader of the country’s biggest education union.

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said this summer’s repeated bouts of extreme heat had a devastating impact on teachers and pupils, as classroom temperatures topped 40C and hundreds of thousands of young people were sent home.

Exclusive: Former minister’s review warns that dramatic action is needed over huge drop in youth apprenticeship starts

A national apprenticeship readiness scheme should be introduced in England to close the gap for young people between leaving school and starting work, the government is to be told.

Alan Milburn, who is leading a major review into Britain’s youth jobs crisis, will call for a new “national pre-apprenticeship route” to offer young people further education, training and work experience.

Nine in 10 school heads who responded say inspections still ‘negatively affected’ staff mental wellbeing

School inspections in England continue to damage the mental wellbeing of teachers and senior leaders, according to a survey commissioned by Ofsted that casts doubt on efforts to reduce the stress caused by inspectors’ visits.

The independent survey of school leaders who had undergone the revised inspections since last year found that 88% said it had “negatively affected” the mental wellbeing of school staff, including 29% who said it affected them “a lot”.

Gareth Jones and Richard Hooper draw on their experience as educators to offer alternatives to the Ofsted system that is not fit for purpose

The news that Ofsted inspections are to be overhauled again indicates that a fundamental rethink is required, rather than tinkering again with the grading system (England school inspections to be overhauled again after barrage of complaints, 2 October). As an educator with 30 years’ experience in international schools (21 years as head of two schools), I would suggest that when further changes are made, the first step should be to stop calling them “inspections”. The word implies an unfeeling, top-down procedure. While British curriculum international schools tend to use an Ofsted-style procedure, American international and international baccalaureate schools tend to use “evaluation” or “accreditation” procedures.

In these, the school evaluates its own performance against a set of standards. The people who work in the school, including students, plus parents and board members, spend a year discussing the school’s achievements and identifying areas for improvement. They submit their report to the agency, which then puts together a team who will visit the school. The team is made up of practising educators from other international schools. So the school is evaluated by fellow professionals, which is much less threatening than a team of inspectors. Their job is to decide whether the school has accurately evaluated its own performance.

Campaigners and Send parents including Chris Packham, Carrie Grant and Sally Phillips urge ministers to work with families and organisations to preserve individual provision and improve accountability in the system

The legal rights of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) are still under threat. The government’s proposed Send and education otherwise than at school (Eotas) reforms would significantly reduce existing legal rights to enforceable education, health and care plans (EHCPs), parental choice of educational settings and independent routes of appeal.

We support the government’s ambitions for a more inclusive education system. Better teacher training, earlier identification of need, greater specialist expertise and a properly staffed workforce are all necessary. But none of these initiatives require children and families to surrender the legal protections they currently have.

Exclusive: Letter to government says changes will unfairly remove legal protections for children in England

• Letter: Legal rights must be retained for children with Send

Campaigners are calling on Andy Burnham to abandon the core elements of the government’s overhaul of special educational needs provision in England, arguing they unfairly remove children’s legal protections.

A group of children, parents and experts, led by the broadcaster Chris Packham, have written a letter calling for the prime minister to gut the plans laid out under his predecessor Keir Starmer.

Overhaul of special education in England could unravel, thinktank finds, because of ‘use it before you lose it’ dynamic

Labour’s flagship changes to special education in England are at risk of unravelling because parents are rushing to secure support for their children before the system changes, new analysis has found.

The Institute for Government (IfG) thinktank says the government’s plans to largely replace education, health and care plans (EHCPs) in England with more widespread support in mainstream schools may be too optimistic and take longer to complete than its 2030 timeline.