SecEd

About SecEd

Every week during term time, a free newspaper-style magazine lands in secondary schools across the United Kingdom, written by teachers, for teachers, and devoted to the practical business of running classrooms and leading schools. SecEd — the title is short for Secondary Education — has been the weekly voice of the secondary sector since April 2003, offering news, best practice, pedagogy and policy analysis to teachers, school leaders and support staff. Where much education coverage is written for a general audience, SecEd speaks the language of the staffroom: evidence-based, case-study-led and relentlessly practical.

Published by MA Education, part of the Mark Allen Group, SecEd is delivered free to every UK secondary school, with an open-access website, free weekly email bulletins, a podcast, webinars and live events extending its reach. Its sister publication is Headteacher Update, which serves primary school leadership teams, making the two titles together a matched pair covering the whole of school education. Below is a detailed profile of the publication: its founding, editorial character, content formats, and its place in the life of secondary schools.

History and Founding

SecEd was launched in April 2003 by MA Education Limited, the education publishing arm of the Mark Allen Group. The launch filled a clear gap in the market: while there were established titles serving primary headteachers and the education sector in general, there was no dedicated weekly publication written specifically for the teachers and leaders working in secondary schools. From the start, the magazine was conceived as a free publication, delivered to every UK secondary school — a distribution model that gave it immediate national reach within its target audience.

The timing was significant. The early 2000s were a period of intense reform in English education: the academies programme was beginning, workforce remodelling was changing who did what in schools, and accountability through inspection and league tables was intensifying. A new generation of school leaders needed practical guidance on navigating the changes, and SecEd set out to provide it — positioning itself from the beginning as a positive and constructive voice for teachers and school leaders, written by practitioners rather than commentators.

Over more than two decades the title has built a strong and loyal readership within the secondary education sector, expanding from its print origins into a multi-platform brand while keeping the core proposition unchanged: practical, research-informed advice and best-practice guidance for the people who work in secondary schools.

Editorial Focus and Audience

SecEd prides itself on being written by teachers, for teachers. Its contributors are, in large part, practising teachers, school leaders and education professionals, and its editorial stance is deliberately positive and constructive — a voice for the profession rather than a critic of it. The audience is everyone who works in UK secondary education: classroom teachers, heads of department, senior leaders, headteachers, and the support staff who keep schools running.

The topics the magazine addresses read like the agenda of a senior leadership team meeting: education policy and legislation, pedagogy and classroom practice, leadership and management, inspection and accountability, professional development, safeguarding, curriculum delivery, behaviour, inclusion, and staff wellbeing. Its journalism treats these subjects from an in-depth, practice-focused perspective — less interested in the Westminster politics of education than in what a new policy means for a head of year on a Monday morning.

The magazine's journalism is led by editor Pete Henshaw, who also edits its sister title Headteacher Update, and its pages regularly carry the bylines of some of the most respected practitioner-writers in English education.

Content Formats: Articles, Blogs and News

SecEd publishes regular best-practice articles during term time, focusing on delivering actionable advice, ideas and examples that can be directly applied in schools. These long-form pieces are the heart of the title: evidence-based, case-study-led explorations of what works in teaching and school leadership, written to be read on a Sunday evening and used on a Monday morning.

Alongside the best-practice articles, the magazine publishes blogs presenting commentary, analysis and opinion from education professionals and the editorial team, and news coverage explored from an in-depth, practice-focused perspective. The news agenda it follows is the one that matters to schools: teacher recruitment and retention — with tens of thousands of teachers leaving the profession each year — the condition of school buildings, funding settlements, inspection frameworks, curriculum reform and the perennial challenge of workload.

The Website and Email Bulletins

The SecEd website at sec-ed.co.uk is open access, carrying the full range of the title's articles, blogs, news and resources without a paywall — a deliberate choice that reflects the free-to-schools print model. The site is organised by theme and subject, allowing teachers to find content relevant to their role and responsibilities, from classroom practice to school leadership.

The weekly email bulletins extend the website's reach directly into teachers' inboxes, sharing updates on news, best practice and blogs. For busy professionals who may not visit the site daily, the bulletin is the primary point of contact with the brand — a digest of the week's most useful content, delivered free.

Podcasts, Webinars and Events

SecEd has grown well beyond print into a full multi-platform media brand. The SecEd Podcast interviews secondary education experts and focuses on best practice, policy and research in the classroom and across the school, offering practical advice, insights and examples from professionals working in and with UK secondary schools. Each episode features a panel of teachers, school leaders and other experts tackling topics relevant to secondary teaching and learning and wider education practice.

The title also hosts several webinars each year — online professional development sessions on issues such as supporting pupils with additional needs — and organises conferences and live events that provide interactive learning opportunities for education professionals. These events bring together the practitioners who write for and read the magazine, turning the community SecEd serves into a physical gathering.

Ownership and Publishing

SecEd is published by MA Education, part of the Mark Allen Group, the independent publishing and events company. The Mark Allen Group's education portfolio also includes Headteacher Update, the sister publication serving primary school headteachers, and the group is associated with major education events including the TES SEND Show. The group's ownership has given SecEd the stability to invest in its digital platforms and events while maintaining the free-to-schools print distribution that defines the brand.

The business model is built around the value of the audience rather than the cover price: because the magazine reaches every secondary school in the country, it offers advertisers, recruiters and education suppliers unrivalled access to the profession. Subscriptions, in the conventional sense, are beside the point — the title's currency is its readership, and its readership is the whole of the secondary sector.

Relationship with Headteacher Update

SecEd's sister publication, Headteacher Update, is the equivalent title for the primary sector — the magazine produced for primary school headteachers in the UK. Together the two titles give the Mark Allen Group's education division coverage of the full span of school education, from early years leadership to sixth-form teaching. The two share editorial leadership and a common philosophy: practical, evidence-based, case-study-led journalism written by and for education professionals.

The pairing reflects the structure of the English school system itself, in which primary and secondary phases face distinct challenges — different curricula, different accountability measures, different workforce issues — but share the same underlying mission. A headteacher moving from primary to secondary leadership, or a multi-academy trust spanning both phases, will find a familiar editorial voice in both titles.

Role in Secondary Education

In a sector saturated with policy announcements, inspection frameworks and political debate about schools, SecEd has carved out a distinct and valued role: the practitioner's paper. Its commitment to being written by teachers, for teachers — and to offering a positive and constructive voice rather than adding to the noise — has earned it the loyalty of a profession that is often talked about more than it is listened to.

For more than twenty years, through workforce remodelling and academisation, through austerity and pandemic, through successive waves of curriculum and accountability reform, SecEd has arrived in staffrooms every week with the same offer: practical ideas, honest analysis and the collective wisdom of the profession, free to every secondary school in the land.

To explore the magazine's current coverage, visit the official website at sec-ed.co.uk.