Well, who would have predicted the weekly Frank and Stan Chat would reach its seventh academic year. Back in May 2020, the two gents were unable to meet for a beer, so decided to chat using Zoom and press the record button as a means of saving our thoughts on the ongoing pandemic. Putting it on Youtube without knowing what we were doing enabled viewers to watch and follow. We are now at edition 231, with a further 16 specialist SPOTLIGHT editions so we are getting close to 250! With guests lined up into 2026, all being well, we will be heading towards 300 by the end of 2026.

We are privileged to be joined by Dennis Sherwood for this edition. Dennis was our first SPOTLIGHT guest in July 2023. It was one of the most interesting yet deeply worrying editions because he explained how and when he started to lose confidence in the work of OFQUAL. Look it up.

Dennis explains how he has felt while students have recently received their external national examination results and why he feels so disappointed with OFQUAL especially the complaint system. Stan then considers the calculation that by the not so new Behaviour Tzar that the Behaviour crisis 'means every pupil loses 45 days of learning a year'. Frank then considers whether the focus on Islamist terrorism is the right one for the Prevent programme and for the recent Ofsted training when the DfE's own data suggests something rather different.

Topical and challenging. Hope you enjoy it.

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