Times Educational Supplement
Encyclopedia
The Times Educational Supplement (TES) is a weekly UK
publication
aimed primarily at school teachers in the UK. It was first published in 1910 as a pull-out supplement in The Times
newspaper. Such was its popularity that in 1914, the supplement became a separate publication selling for 1 penny.
The TES focuses on school-related news and features. It covered higher education until the Times Higher Education Supplement (THE) was launched as a sister publication in 1971. Today its editor is Gerard Kelly. An alternative version of the publication is produced for Scotland, TESS, which is edited by Gillie Macdonald. All are produced by publishers TSL, owned by private equity group Charterhouse
.
The TES is published weekly on Fridays, at a cover price of £1.70. Data from the National Readership Survey suggests that average monthly readership is around 397,000, of which around 90 per cent are in the ABC1 category.
The publication has developed a popular website featuring teaching jobs, forums and free resources, uploaded by teachers.
had recently begun his reign, and the paper noted that “some great resettlement of the English school system seems likely to take place”.
Over its first decade, The TES established itself as a paper for teachers, though it was primarily aimed at those in private
and grammar schools
. However, it pressed for education reform from its early years, calling in 1913 for “Secondary Education for All”.
In 1914, The TES became a stand-alone publication, noting on the outbreak of the First World War that “every great war in the modern world has been followed by changes in education”. Two years afterwards - while the war still raged - the paper began to be published weekly. The TES later explained that “the decision to change into a weekly periodical was taken in order to lend the support of The Times more effectively to the movement for reform in education which culminated in the Fisher Reform Act of 1918
”.
Notable editors of The TES included HC Dent, a progressive former schoolteacher who became acting editor in 1940. He put the newspaper together practically single-handedly during the Blitz
. His editorials pressed for “total reform” of the education system, “based on a new conception of the place, status and function of education in a democratic State, not a patching and padding of the present system”. This attitude chimed with the radical thinking then going on within the Board of Education. Mr Dent had regular meetings with its president, Rab Butler
, in the years building up to the 1944 Education Act
.
The readership of The TES, once primarily private and grammar school teachers, broadened during the 20th century. During the 1970s, the paper became more supportive of comprehensives
, when it had once defended grammars.
In the 1980s it became increasingly concerned that political reforms might overload or restrict teachers, particularly the launch of the national curriculum and league tables with the Education Reform Act 1988
. Its then editor, Stuart Maclure, noted in 1985 that “the irony of the last 10 years, in which the politicians and industrialists have clamoured for reform and accused the educationists of blocking it, was not lost on anyone who cares to look back”.
When the newspaper reached its centenary in 2010, its editor Gerard Kelly, wrote: “If there is one phenomenal, outstanding, amazing development of the past century in this country, it has to be that education has liberated women in a way that was never anticipated by the most liberal of reformers, even by those far-sighted individuals on The TES in 1910”.
. After his death in 1922 the newspapers were sold to the Astor family
, and it was sold on again in 1966 to the Canadian newspaper tycoon Roy Thomson
.
Rupert Murdoch
took ownership of the newspaper in 1979. Murdoch’s News International
restructured its newspapers to set up Times Supplements Limited, and by 1999 this became TSL Education Limited, which also published THE and Nursery World. In October 2005, the group was sold to Exponent, a private equity group, who in turn sold it to Charterhouse in May 2007.
, who became editor of The Evening Standard
and The Times
, and Timothy Mo
and Frances Hill
, who both became novelists.
The newspaper’s columnists have included Ted Wragg
, Caitlin Moran
and Libby Purves
. The pop singer Daniel Bedingfield
was employed to work on the newspaper’s website.
External contributors have included Gordon Brown
, who contributed comment articles to the Scottish edition of The TES as a young lecturer in 1979. A competition for writing by pupils in 1980 was won by Sacha Baron Cohen
, then eight years old.
It was revamped after the newspaper’s relaunch in 2007, and is now split into distinct sections, including 'Community', 'Jobs' and 'Resources'. Community contains staffroom forums. Jobs is home to all the vacancies listed in the TES paper and is updated daily.
The Resource section is the place for teachers to share their uploaded classroom resources, free of charge, including lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, interactive whiteboard resources, worksheets and activities. More than 88,000 free resources have been uploaded by teachers.
The PPA (Professional Publishers Association) awarded The TES website digital brand of the year in 2011.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
publication
Publication
To publish is to make content available to the public. While specific use of the term may vary among countries, it is usually applied to text, images, or other audio-visual content on any medium, including paper or electronic publishing forms such as websites, e-books, Compact Discs and MP3s...
aimed primarily at school teachers in the UK. It was first published in 1910 as a pull-out supplement in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper. Such was its popularity that in 1914, the supplement became a separate publication selling for 1 penny.
The TES focuses on school-related news and features. It covered higher education until the Times Higher Education Supplement (THE) was launched as a sister publication in 1971. Today its editor is Gerard Kelly. An alternative version of the publication is produced for Scotland, TESS, which is edited by Gillie Macdonald. All are produced by publishers TSL, owned by private equity group Charterhouse
Charterhouse Capital Partners
Charterhouse Capital Partners is a private equity investment firm focusing on leveraged buyout of established, substantial businesses, based in Western Europe...
.
The TES is published weekly on Fridays, at a cover price of £1.70. Data from the National Readership Survey suggests that average monthly readership is around 397,000, of which around 90 per cent are in the ABC1 category.
The publication has developed a popular website featuring teaching jobs, forums and free resources, uploaded by teachers.
History
The idea for a regular section on education in The Times was first proposed in 1905 by J E G de Montmorency, a barrister and writer who later composed leader articles for The TES. The first issue of the monthly educational supplement appeared on September 6, 1910, opening with a witty weather forecast for the UK’s school systems. King George VGeorge V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
had recently begun his reign, and the paper noted that “some great resettlement of the English school system seems likely to take place”.
Over its first decade, The TES established itself as a paper for teachers, though it was primarily aimed at those in private
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
and grammar schools
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
. However, it pressed for education reform from its early years, calling in 1913 for “Secondary Education for All”.
In 1914, The TES became a stand-alone publication, noting on the outbreak of the First World War that “every great war in the modern world has been followed by changes in education”. Two years afterwards - while the war still raged - the paper began to be published weekly. The TES later explained that “the decision to change into a weekly periodical was taken in order to lend the support of The Times more effectively to the movement for reform in education which culminated in the Fisher Reform Act of 1918
Education Act 1918
Education Act 1918 , often known as the Fisher Act, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was drawn up by Herbert Fisher. Note that the "Education Act 1918" applied to England and Wales, whereas a separate "Education Act 1918" applied for Scotland.This raised the school leaving age...
”.
Notable editors of The TES included HC Dent, a progressive former schoolteacher who became acting editor in 1940. He put the newspaper together practically single-handedly during the Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
. His editorials pressed for “total reform” of the education system, “based on a new conception of the place, status and function of education in a democratic State, not a patching and padding of the present system”. This attitude chimed with the radical thinking then going on within the Board of Education. Mr Dent had regular meetings with its president, Rab Butler
Rab Butler
Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, KG CH DL PC , who invariably signed his name R. A. Butler and was familiarly known as Rab, was a British Conservative politician...
, in the years building up to the 1944 Education Act
Education Act 1944
The Education Act 1944 changed the education system for secondary schools in England and Wales. This Act, commonly named after the Conservative politician R.A...
.
The readership of The TES, once primarily private and grammar school teachers, broadened during the 20th century. During the 1970s, the paper became more supportive of comprehensives
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
, when it had once defended grammars.
In the 1980s it became increasingly concerned that political reforms might overload or restrict teachers, particularly the launch of the national curriculum and league tables with the Education Reform Act 1988
Education Reform Act 1988
The Education Reform Act 1988 is widely regarded as the most important single piece of education legislation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland since the 'Butler' Education Act 1944...
. Its then editor, Stuart Maclure, noted in 1985 that “the irony of the last 10 years, in which the politicians and industrialists have clamoured for reform and accused the educationists of blocking it, was not lost on anyone who cares to look back”.
When the newspaper reached its centenary in 2010, its editor Gerard Kelly, wrote: “If there is one phenomenal, outstanding, amazing development of the past century in this country, it has to be that education has liberated women in a way that was never anticipated by the most liberal of reformers, even by those far-sighted individuals on The TES in 1910”.
Ownership
At its start The TES was owned, like its parent paper, by Lord NorthcliffeViscount Northcliffe
Viscount Northcliffe, of St Peter in the County of Kent, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, It was created in 1918 for the press baron Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Baron Northcliffe. He had already been created a Baronet in 1904 and Baron Northcliffe, of the Isle of Thanet in the County of...
. After his death in 1922 the newspapers were sold to the Astor family
Astor family
The Astor family is a Anglo-American business family of German descent notable for their prominence in business, society, and politics.-Founding family members:...
, and it was sold on again in 1966 to the Canadian newspaper tycoon Roy Thomson
Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet
Roy Herbert Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet GBE was a Canadian newspaper proprietor and media entrepreneur.-Career:...
.
Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
took ownership of the newspaper in 1979. Murdoch’s News International
News International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
restructured its newspapers to set up Times Supplements Limited, and by 1999 this became TSL Education Limited, which also published THE and Nursery World. In October 2005, the group was sold to Exponent, a private equity group, who in turn sold it to Charterhouse in May 2007.
Past staff and contributors
Staff journalists at The TES have included Simon JenkinsSimon Jenkins
Sir Simon David Jenkins is a British newspaper columnist and author, and since November 2008 has been chairman of the National Trust. He currently writes columns for both The Guardian and London's Evening Standard, and was previously a commentator for The Times, which he edited from 1990 to 1992...
, who became editor of The Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, and Timothy Mo
Timothy Mo
Timothy Peter Mo is an Anglo-Chinese novelist. Born to a Welsh-Yorkshire mother and a Hong Kong Chinese father, Mo lived in Hong Kong until the age of 10 before he moved to Britain, studying at St John's College, Oxford.He self-publishes his books under the label "Paddleless Press".- Novels :*The...
and Frances Hill
Frances Hill
Frances Hill is the author of four non-fiction books on the Salem Witch Trials, including the widely acclaimed A Delusion of Satan, published in hardback by Doubleday and paperback by da Capo. Hill seeks to retell the story of the trials in order to better understand the psychological and social...
, who both became novelists.
The newspaper’s columnists have included Ted Wragg
Ted Wragg
Edward Conrad Wragg known as Ted Wragg, was a British educationalist and academic known for his advocacy of the cause of education and opposition to political interference in the field...
, Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Moran
Caitlin Moran is a British broadcaster, TV critic and columnist at The Times, where she writes three columns a week: one for the Saturday Magazine, a TV review column, and the satirical Friday column "Celebrity Watch"...
and Libby Purves
Libby Purves
Libby Purves OBE is a British radio presenter, journalist and author. A diplomat's daughter, she was educated at convent schools in Israel, Bangkok, South Africa and France, and then Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells.Purves won a scholarship to St Anne's College, Oxford, where she...
. The pop singer Daniel Bedingfield
Daniel Bedingfield
Daniel John Bedingfield is a British singer-songwriter. He is the brother of pop singers Natasha Bedingfield and Nikola Rachelle.-Music career:...
was employed to work on the newspaper’s website.
External contributors have included Gordon Brown
Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007...
, who contributed comment articles to the Scottish edition of The TES as a young lecturer in 1979. A competition for writing by pupils in 1980 was won by Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...
, then eight years old.
Website
The TES first established a website in 1997, when it briefly experimented with a paywall.It was revamped after the newspaper’s relaunch in 2007, and is now split into distinct sections, including 'Community', 'Jobs' and 'Resources'. Community contains staffroom forums. Jobs is home to all the vacancies listed in the TES paper and is updated daily.
The Resource section is the place for teachers to share their uploaded classroom resources, free of charge, including lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, interactive whiteboard resources, worksheets and activities. More than 88,000 free resources have been uploaded by teachers.
The PPA (Professional Publishers Association) awarded The TES website digital brand of the year in 2011.
Awards
First held in 2009, The TES Schools Awards are held annually to celebrate achievements by schools in the UK. Categories include school of the year for primary, secondary and special needs, as well as outstanding community partnership, and outstanding sustainable school.Trivia
The TES print publication has been:- Credited with introducing the phrases “Estuary EnglishEstuary EnglishEstuary English is a dialect of English widely spoken in South East England, especially along the River Thames and its estuary. Phonetician John C. Wells defines Estuary English as "Standard English spoken with the accent of the southeast of England"...
” and “happy slappingHappy slappingHappy slapping was a fad in the UK, in which someone assaulted an unwitting victim while others recorded the assault...
” to the English language.
- Printed the first newspaper interview with the poet Philip LarkinPhilip LarkinPhilip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
.
- Credited with providing plot inspiration for Jilly Cooper’sJilly CooperJilly Cooper OBE is an English author. She started her career as a journalist and wrote numerous works of non-fiction before writing several romance novels, the first of which appeared in 1975. She is most famous for writing the Rutshire Chronicles.-Early life:Jilly Sallitt was born in Hornchurch,...
novel WickedJilly CooperJilly Cooper OBE is an English author. She started her career as a journalist and wrote numerous works of non-fiction before writing several romance novels, the first of which appeared in 1975. She is most famous for writing the Rutshire Chronicles.-Early life:Jilly Sallitt was born in Hornchurch,...
and the television series Waterloo RoadWaterloo Road (TV series)Waterloo Road is an award-winning British television drama series, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 9 March 2006. Set in a troubled comprehensive school in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, the series focuses on the lives of the school's teacher and students, and confronts social...
.
- The publication has featured as a prop in television series and films including Coronation StreetCoronation StreetCoronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
, The Children (2008)The Children (2008 film)The Children is a 2008 British horror film directed by Tom Shankland and starring Eva Birthistle.-Cast:* Eva Birthistle as Elaine* Stephen Campbell Moore as Jonah* Hannah Tointon as Casey* Eva Sayer as Miranda* William Howes as Paulie*...
and St Trinians 2, while a TES schools’ wall-planner is visible in Notes on A ScandalNotes on a Scandal (film)Notes on a Scandal is a 2006 British psychological thriller film, adapted from the 2003 novel of the same name by Zoë Heller. The screenplay was written by Patrick Marber and the film was directed by Richard Eyre. Many parts of the film were shot in Islington Arts and Media School...
.
- Mentioned in books including The Terror of St TriniansD. B. Wyndham-LewisDominic Bevan Wyndham-Lewis FRSL was a British writer best known for his humorous contributions to newspapers and for biographies. His family were originally from Wales, but he was born in Liverpool and brought up in Cardiff...
.