Scott Challinor

After pupils and teachers have spent six months away from the classroom as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown, the education sector has had to get to grips with the challenge of bringing children back into schools among their peers and reintegrated into full-time learning. In late June, Nigel Attwood, the headteacher of Bellfield Junior School in Birmingham, spoke to the Leaders Council about the challenges that schools could expect to face in September. Now, a month following the start of term, Nigel lifts the lid on how the school has been coping since reopening its doors and discusses how wellbeing has been at the heart of its approach.

Hospitality business Becketts Southsea has made significant strides over the last year, and it has added to its recent success having now been singled out for recognition by bimonthly luxury lifestyle magazine LUXlife, which awarded the business its Hospitality Experience of the Year Award for the Hampshire region in its fifth annual Hospitality Awards.

A technical glitch which saw 16,000 cases of Covid-19 go unreported has hampered contact tracing efforts, but Public Health England has insisted that the issue has now been resolved. Meanwhile, Mohammed Abdul, owner and director of Leamington Spa’s award-winning Indian restaurant, Millennium Balti, reveals how the pandemic forced his business to adapt their entire business strategy and offering in order to survive.

London based online market research agency FlyResearch has been issuing weekly polls to its research panel of over 3000 people throughout the coronavirus lockdown in the UK, in order to project how the outbreak and the implementing of social distancing has been impacting the daily life of UK citizens.

Earlier this week, prime minister Boris Johnson revealed plans to make higher education loans more flexible so that over-18s in England who do not have A-Levels or equivalent qualifications can access fully funded college courses and space study out across their lives.

London based insurance company GG Insurance Services, which provides specialist insurance solutions to the games industry, has announced that it is expanding overseas to the United States.

It is a well-documented truth that the Covid-19 lockdown period in the UK dealt a significant blow to the nation’s hospitality sector, and those woes intensified last week as prime minister Boris Johnson announced the introduction of newer national restrictions, forcing industry operators to close between the hours of 22:00 and 05:00.

As “huge numbers” of Brits are faced with the prospect of having to find new employment as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the economy, prime minister Boris Johnson has this week announced that UK citizens will be able to access four years of loans to access higher education in a “shakeup” of the sector. Meanwhile, Hayley Mason, director and senior solicitor at Education Law specialist Sen Legal, offers her take on leadership and emphasises the importance of recognising team efforts, as opposed to individual feats.

It is a fact that there is a currently a care crisis in the UK. Several media outlets regularly comment on the ageing British population and increasing needs of the elderly, while funding to meet these needs has been on the decline over the last decade. Looking to turn around his party’s poor fortunes in the previous three general elections, newly elected Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has promised to be “the voice of nine million carers” and bring an end to the sector’s woes.

London based online market research agency FlyResearch has been issuing weekly polls to its research panel of over 3000 people throughout the coronavirus lockdown in the UK, in order to project how the outbreak and the implementing of social distancing has been impacting the daily life of UK citizens. This week, managing partner Greg Ward discusses the findings from the 26th wave of the Covid-19 tracker survey with the Leaders Council, published on September 25 and sourced from data collected on September 18, and with restrictions beginning to return to control the spread of the virus, opinions of the government’s handling of the crisis began to worsen with the lingering sense of déjà vu.

Since the mid-twentieth century, generations of people have taken it for granted that their children would go on to surpass their own successes. Those were the words of Nick Maughan, investor and founder of the Nick Maughan Foundation philanthropic project which supports education initiatives and civic support schemes for disenfranchised communities.

Charity and social enterprise Wave Leisure trust will receive a £500,000 loan from Lewes District Council to help restart its gym, swimming and exercise classes for Lewes district locals, to help alleviate the financial challenges brought about by the Covid-19 crisis and secure its future. Meanwhile, prime minister Boris Johnson has said that he wants to back renewables and transform the UK into the “Saudi Arabia” of wind power.

It was news that very few will have wanted to hear, but the nation was left dismayed this week as prime minister Boris Johnson announced new national restrictions covering the whole of England in an attempt to curb rising Covid-19 cases.

Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons saw Boris Johnson and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer cross swords once more over the coronavirus test and trace system, while chancellor Rishi Sunak is understood to be considering his options to replace the furlough scheme when it ends on October 31. Meanwhile, CNC Property Fund Management managing director, Robert Locker, encourages leaders and employees to question the status quo and move away from blind adherence to established systems to help augment real knowledge.

One of the central issues that is causing a lack of sleep for business leaders ahead of Brexit’s full enactment at the end of the year is the effect that it will have on imports and exports to and from Europe if a free trade deal cannot be agreed with the EU. Michael Dixon, operations director of cleaning and maintenance services provider, Clean Green Services, is one executive who shares these concerns, specifically around the import of raw materials which, if affected, will have cost implications for his firm.