Times Educational Supplement

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 Jan-Dec 2011 suggests that the average yearly readership is around 378,000, 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.^[1]

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 V 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

• George Sydney Freeman, who was editor for its first 28 years [1]
• Harold 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”.^[2]

Ownership

At its start The TES was owned, like its parent paper, by Lord Northcliffe. 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.

Past staff and contributors

Staff journalists at The TES have included Simon Jenkins, 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.^[2]

Website

The TES first established a website in 1997, when it briefly experimented with a paywall.^[3]

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. As of the 28 January 2013 more than 575,000^[4] free resources have been uploaded by teachers.

The PPA (Professional Publishers Association) awarded The TES connect website the digital product of the year and the TES magazine the business magazine of the year in 2012.

In 2013, it launched TES Pro, a system for teachers to store their own lesson materials online, organise them, and plan their work in a specially designed calendar.

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.^[5]

Trivia

The TES print publication has:

• Been credited with introducing the phrases “Estuary English” and “happy slapping” to the English language.

• Printed the first newspaper interview with the poet Philip Larkin.

• Been credited with providing plot inspiration for Jilly Cooper’s novel Wicked and the television series Waterloo Road.

• Featured as a prop in television series and films including Coronation Street, The Children (2008) and St Trinians 2, while a TES schools’ wall-planner is visible in Notes on A Scandal.

• Been mentioned in books including The Terror of St Trinians.

See also

Times Higher Education (THE)

Times Higher Education World University Rankings

TES Teaching Resources

TES India

Share My Lesson

References

External links

• Times Educational Supplement
• TES Jobs – Teaching Jobs, Education Jobs & Career Guidance
• TES Teaching Resources