Hayley Clarke
Hayley Clarke reports on how education policy and systems shape everyday life for children and young people, with a particular focus on disability and special educational needs. Her coverage at the BBC concentrates on the points where rules, funding decisions and oversight structures meet the lived experience of pupils, families and teachers. She works across online articles, podcasts, social video and television pieces, bringing classroom experience and investigative reporting together on the education beat.
Special educational needs and disability
Clarke’s most distinctive strand of work looks at how the school system serves pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, and what happens when it fails them.
She has reported on how pupils with special educational needs are more likely to face negative outcomes within the system, working alongside data specialists to show the scale of these disparities. In long-form features, she follows families of autistic children through the process of securing support, documenting how they are forced to fight for basic entitlements despite official commitments to inclusion.
Her reporting on the costs of special educational needs provision for councils examines how funding mechanisms, rising demand and complex legal duties combine, and what that means for children whose support depends on these budgets.
For younger audiences, she has fronted video pieces that follow individual pupils who need extra help at school, using their stories to explain government plans for managing and reforming SEND provision. Across these pieces she returns to the same pressure point: the promise of an inclusive education system weighed against the reality experienced by disabled and neurodivergent pupils and their families.
School policy, funding and oversight
Another recurring theme in Clarke’s work is the impact of national policy decisions on school budgets, staffing and accountability. She has reported on rising costs that force schools into “difficult choices”, exploring how inflation, energy bills and other pressures translate into cuts to provision or support for pupils. Her coverage of term-time holiday fines sets out how government guidance is applied in practice and how escalating penalties affect families, combining official figures with individual cases to show why enforcement continues to rise.
She follows the debate around Ofsted inspections closely, including union calls for a halt to graded inspections on the grounds that current regimes pose a serious risk to staff wellbeing and safety.
Clarke also tracks legislative and committee recommendations, such as calls from MPs to auto-enrol eligible pupils for free school meals and demands for rapid changes when children entitled to support are missing out. In pieces on government investment, she reports on large funding packages to adapt school buildings for SEND pupils, scrutinising whether headline sums match the scale of need in classrooms. Her work on these topics is consistently grounded in policy detail but framed around the real-world consequences for schools and the children they serve.
Student voice, welfare and rights
Clarke regularly centres the voices of young people in stories about broader social and political issues linked to education. She has reported on proposals to ban social media use among teenagers, highlighting that many young people consider blanket bans impractical or ineffective and instead call for more targeted action on violent content and platform responsibility.
Her coverage of period poverty in schools focuses on pupils who cannot access basic products, including those who have experienced leaks in exam halls, using these testimonies to show how lack of provision undermines dignity and concentration. She has written on youth mental health support for LGBTQ groups, using census data and local campaigns to illustrate how information about the community can be used to direct resources more effectively.
In legal and rights-based reporting, she has covered cases involving people with Down’s syndrome challenging abortion law, framing these stories around questions of autonomy, equality and the value society places on disabled lives.
On the post-16 side of education, her work on student finance and consumer protection includes coverage of MPs’ criticism of phone contract-style comparisons that amounted to mis-selling student loans, reflecting a broader concern with how complex financial products are marketed to students. Across these pieces, Clarke uses interviews and case studies to tie policy and legal debates back to the welfare and rights of the young people affected.
Technology, investigations and multi-platform reporting
Clarke often reports at the point where new technology and investigative journalism intersect with education.
Her coverage of artificial intelligence in schools looks at how teachers and leaders are “crying out” for guidance from government, examining both the opportunities AI presents and the risks when clear policy and safeguards are lacking. She has worked on broadcast investigations into the costs and consequences of SEND provision, including pieces that feed into wider current affairs programmes and radio documentaries.
Her journalism experience includes contributing to major television investigations about misconduct in schools, reflecting a willingness to scrutinise institutions and practices that directly affect children. Clarke’s role spans online, radio, podcasting and TV, and she has been recognised by industry training bodies for the strength of her education and disability reporting, as well as her ability to tell these stories across formats.
That breadth shows in her work: data-led explainers, human-interest features, committee and legal coverage and on-air investigations all feed into a consistent focus on how education systems treat those who rely on them most.
4 more education journalists.
Ajit Niranjan
Ajit Niranjan links climate science, policy and hard numbers to how extreme weather and environmental damage disrupt daily life, public services and industry. He is European environment correspondent at the Guardian. His beat includes violent heat, pollution, wildfires, air quality, EU green policy, corporate responsibility, energy transition, clean home heating, public health and long-term risks to landscapes and ecosystems. He examines how lobbying, supply chains and regulation shape environmental harm, from data centres and fish farms to fossil fuel industries. His reporting covers schools, hospitals, transport, homes and infrastructure as climate stress points. He previously reported on climate for DW News. He combines data, scientific research, eyewitness accounts and on-the-ground reporting. He also produces explainers, dossiers, factsheets and Q&As that translate complex technical debates into clear, precise language.
Albert Tait
Albert Tait is Education Editor at The Telegraph, leading coverage of schools and universities as institutions whose decisions have direct consequences for staff and students. He focuses on how regulators, senior leaders and governing bodies respond when safety, standards or integrity are under scrutiny, and how those responses affect classrooms and lecture halls. His work links school inspections and teacher safety to regulatory frameworks and conditions on the ground, and he reports on incidents such as knife attacks and “Code Red” alerts with attention to immediate impact and emergency protocols. He produces multi-part investigations into university governance, including extensive reporting on Cambridge’s handling of Jason Arday’s appointment and resignation. He also covers curriculum debates such as changes in how scientists view evolution and inheritance. He began at The Telegraph as a news reporter and previously covered community news at a local paper.
Beth Kennedy
Beth Kennedy is editor at The PIE News and stands out for reporting on how UK policy, institutional strategy and new delivery models reshape international education. Her beat covers UK study visa rules, international student flows, Home Office and UCAS data, alternative study pathways, language schools, and mergers and acquisitions across the sector. She reports on the practical effects of visa changes, scholarship schemes, online and transnational education, school closures, job losses and sector consolidation. Her work is direct and data-led, with clear explanations of complex systems and a focus on what policy and market shifts mean for universities, language schools and private training organisations. She has over a decade in specialist media, including years reporting for primary healthcare professionals before joining The PIE in 2024.
Callum Clark
Callum Clark is a multimedia journalist at STV News who covers education through the lens of university finances, restructuring and their impact on students, staff and local services. He focuses on stories where cost‑saving plans, job losses and service closures reshape community life, such as Dundee University’s nursery and botanic garden closures, and sets those decisions within wider restructuring efforts. His reporting is direct and fact driven, built on official documents, statements and precise figures that show both the scale of savings targets and monthly losses, and the number of posts at risk. Clark’s background in local news and public service coverage, including mental health service reforms and redundancy schemes, shapes a methodical style that tracks formal processes while keeping the lived experience of workers, families and service users in view.