Ellen Peirson-Hagger

South East London

Journalist and Senior Writer at Tes

Journalist. Senior writer, @tes. Also writing in the New Statesman, the Observer, Prospect, the i and more. [email protected]

Articles

How the mental health teams rollout created a two-tier system

1 week ago | tes.com | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

Last month, the Department for Education said it will invest an additional £49 million in a bid to ensure that six in 10 pupils have access to mental health support teams at school by March 2026. The DfE says mental health support teams (MHSTs), which are made up of specially trained education mental health practitioners, will “improve children’s life chances and tackle the root causes of poor attendance and behaviour”.
Martha Wainwright, in her own right

1 week ago | newstatesman.com | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

“Though I was a ‘daughter of’ twice over, doors seemed closed to me,” writes Martha Wainwright in her 2022 memoir Stories I Might Regret Telling You, recalling the difficulty she had getting her music career off the ground in the late Nineties. Wainwright – the daughter of the American songwriter Loudon Wainwright III and the Canadian folk artist Kate McGarrigle, and the younger sister of the singer and composer Rufus Wainwright – was born into a family renowned for its musicality.
Claire Adam: ‘I stress all day, then write at night’

1 week ago | observer.co.uk | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

Claire Adam, 51, was born in Trinidad and Tobago, studied at Brown University in the US and now lives in south-east London. Her debut novel, Golden Child, won the 2019 Desmond Elliott prize and was listed by the BBC as one of its “100 novels that shaped our world”. Adam’s second novel, Love Forms (Faber), begins in Trinidad in 1980, when 16-year-old Dawn becomes pregnant and travels to a house run by nuns in Venezuela to have her baby in secret.
Wendy Erskine's memory games

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

The Northern Irish writer's witty debut novel The Benefactors is a daring deconstruction of time On the face of it, this debut novel is about three Belfast mothers who are brought together when their 18-year-old sons are accused of sexually assaulting a local girl, Misty.
Fang Fang’s acts of resistance

2 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

The Running Flame is a gripping, heart-wrenching read. In this novel by the Chinese author Fang Fang, first published in the writer’s home country in 2001 and now in English, we follow Yingzhi, a teenager from a rural village. When she unexpectedly gets pregnant, she enters into a marriage she wouldn’t otherwise have chosen. Her husband, Guiqing, is a lazy, entitled man whose negligence of his adult responsibilities soon turns to sheer callousness towards Yingzhi. Guiqing becomes violent.
Gender pay gap: Why are female secondary heads paid less?

2 weeks ago | tes.com | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

The average female secondary headteacher is paid £5,765 less than her male counterpart each year, according to new government data. The latest school workforce report, published last week, shows that as of November 2024 the median salary for a female headteacher in a state secondary school is £114,759. For a male secondary head, it’s £120,524. Over the course of a headship, that missing £5,765 each year certainly adds up.
7 teacher workforce trends you need to know

3 weeks ago | tes.com | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

What’s the state of the current school workforce? Today, the Department for Education released the latest edition of its annual data release on the workforce, providing information across staff numbers and characteristics, as well as retention and recruitment trends for the state school sector in England. In a time of a staffing crisis, these figures are crucial. Tes has analysed the data to highlight the key points for school leaders. 1.
Why a new safeguarding law is still leaving many children at risk

3 weeks ago | tes.com | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

After six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes was killed by his parents in June 2020, a national review found a series of flaws in the public systems that should have protected him - one of which related to Operation Encompass. Operation Encompass, the report notes, was then a voluntary safeguarding partnership in which “the police notify schools after a recorded domestic abuse incident where a child on the school’s roll was present”.
Lauren Elkin: ‘Translating De Beauvoir is like a puzzle’

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

The American writer on Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘feminist Mad Men’, how Lacan helps with boyfriend trouble, and the Annie Ernaux book everyone should read Lauren Elkin, 46, grew up in Long Island, New York, and lived in Paris for more than 20 years before moving to south-east London, where she is now based.
Neil Mercer: Why oracy should be introduced in schools

1 month ago | tes.com | Ellen Peirson-Hagger

The term “oracy” - effective speaking, listening and oral communication - has been a buzzword in education in recent years, with many arguing that it should have a more prominent role in schools. In 2023 Sir Keir Starmer, when he was leader of the opposition, pledged that the Labour Party would “weave oracy through a new national curriculum”.