National news
New 'transformational' code to protect children's privacy online
Wednesday 22nd January 2020Future generations will be "astonished" to think we did not protect kids, the information commissioner says...
Welsh parents lose opt-out for sex, relationship and religious education
Tuesday 21st January 2020Government confirms pupils will no longer be able to be withdrawn from classes Parents in Wales will soon lose the right to withdraw their children from lessons on sex and relationships or religion, provoking concern among both church groups and secular campaigners...
Wales parents lose opt-out for sex, relationship and religious education
Tuesday 21st January 2020Government confirms pupils will no longer be able to be withdrawn from classes Parents in Wales will soon lose their ability to withdraw children from lessons on sex and relationships or religion, provoking concern among both church groups and secular campaigners...
Teachers, tell us if you think the planned pay rise is enough
Tuesday 21st January 2020If you are a teacher working in England we would like to hear your thoughts on salaries in the profession In light of the government announcing plans to raise salaries for teachers in England, we’d like to find out whether this measure is enough to stop teachers leaving the profession...
Schools warned against 'gaming' exam league table
Tuesday 21st January 2020Ofsted says schools must not inflate results with low-value qualifications...
Schools warned against 'gaming' exam league tables
Tuesday 21st January 2020Ofsted says schools must not inflate results with low-value qualifications...
'I question if I'm doing the right thing': how to cope at law school later in life
Tuesday 21st January 2020Tackling a law degree as a mature student is daunting, but strong work ethic and life experience can provide an edge“My first day at law school as a mature student was the scariest moment of my life,” says Clara Jennings...
Ofsted boss hits out at schools for continuing to 'game' league tables
Tuesday 21st January 2020Amanda Spielman says some schools in England putting own interests ahead of their pupils’The head of Ofsted has issued a sharp rebuke to schools in England that continue to “off-roll” vulnerable pupils and force others to take “sham qualifications” in order to maximise results and improve league table positions...
‘It happens to real people’: how to help children grasp the horror of the Holocaust | Michael Rosen
Tuesday 21st January 2020Remembering the questions of his own childhood has helped Michael Rosen to tell pupils difficult truthsAs a very young child, the only inkling I had of the Holocaust was that every now and then my father would say that he’d had two uncles in France who were “there before the war and weren’t there afterwards”...
The DofE award changes show you don’t have to climb a mountain to build character | Micha Frazer-Carroll
Tuesday 21st January 2020The scheme’s new list of activities, such as becoming a mentor, can help young people build meaningful livesDo you really have to suffer to “build character”? This narrative was particularly pervasive during the slog of my secondary school years – and never more so than when my teachers talked about the Duke of Edinburgh award...
The Tories are hiding from blame for youth crime. That’s not on | Laura McInerney
Tuesday 21st January 2020Exclusions are not the real problem – it’s cuts in schools and youth support that are responsibleIn the movie Enemy of the State, the final scene involves a mafia standoff...
Third of world's poorest girls denied access to school
Monday 20th January 2020A "crippling learning crisis" faces girls in some of the world's most deprived countries, says UN...
Period poverty: Schools urged to order free menstrual products
Monday 20th January 2020Period poverty campaigners are urging schools and colleges to opt-in to the new scheme in England...
Should schools be allowed to ban slang words like 'peng'?
Monday 20th January 2020Research suggests that slang bans in schools may be more harmful than good...
Montessori education could reduce the advantage gap between rich and poor, but it's only available to the rich | Matt Beard
Sunday 19th January 2020There’s evidence of the benefits of Montessori methods, but mostly only the white middle-class have the time or money for itAround the middle of last year a scandal broke out in the US after it emerged that fifty people – including some B-grade celebrities for extra juice – had been bribing college admissions officials to get underperforming rich kids enrolled at prestigious universities...
‘Part-science lab, part-playground’: how kids made museums take fun seriously
Sunday 19th January 2020From London to California, architects are helping museums provide interactive learning experiences that can’t be found on screenLast year, the Hoxton-based architecture practice AOC set up the Open Studio at the V&A Museum of Childhood in nearby Bethnal Green, east London...
How we gave Oxford University applicants a level playing field
Sunday 19th January 2020After years of criticism for low intake of ethnic minority and state school students, the university has achieved a dramatic turnaroundWe have been talking a lot about fairness this year at Oxford, with conversations revolving around the university’s recent commitment to transform admissions...
I’ve been a head for 17 years. Now Ofsted has driven me out of the job I loved
Saturday 18th January 2020Lynne Fox had won awards but inspectors still downgraded her school – and then refused to share their evidenceTeacher Lynne Fox received a prestigious Pearson national headteacher of the year award last summer...
Free period products to be available in schools and colleges in England
Saturday 18th January 2020State scheme starts from Monday as part of government bid to tackle ‘period poverty’Tampons, sanitary pads and other period products will be made freely available to all state schools and colleges in England starting next week, with the launch of a scheme funded by the Department for Education...
Behaviour battleground: isolation booths divide opinion among teachers
Friday 17th January 2020From a ‘lose the booths’ conference to ‘warm-strict’ policies, teachers fail to agree on best way to tackle unruly pupilsSchools ‘converting toilet blocks into isolation booths’ The use of isolation booths in state schools has become one of the most contentious issues among teachers in England, even if public concern over pupil behaviour has faded from the headlines since the 1990s...
Schools 'converting toilet blocks into isolation booths'
Friday 17th January 2020Children’s commissioner describes ‘horror stories’ of children put in isolationSchools are converting toilet blocks and classrooms to build isolation booths to accommodate “disruptive” children, the children’s commissioner has said, as campaigners warn that excessive use of the practice could be putting young people’s mental health at risk...
'Like going back 40 years': dismay as Bolsonaro backs abstinence-only sex ed
Friday 17th January 2020Brazilian president’s plan to cut teenage pregnancies inspired by a Christian pressure group and Trump’s approach in the USBrazil’s government plans to push abstinence-based sex education to help cut teenage pregnancy rates, in a controversial move inspired by an evangelical Christian pressure group and Donald Trump’s policy in the US...
Law students: how to start practising before you graduate
Friday 17th January 2020Students need legal work experience and real-life skills to succeed...
Social media data needed for 'harm' research, say doctors
Friday 17th January 2020Understanding usage by children is key to studying potential harms and benefits, psychiatrists say...
London council's special needs inquiry caused by 'systemic failures'
Friday 17th January 2020The cases of all children with suspected special educational needs in Richmond are going to be reviewed...
Futsal: the thinking player's game that doesn't hurt the head
Thursday 16th January 2020With a smaller, heavier ball, the game is played on the ground, which means less worry about head injuriesGone are the days when primary-school children were condemned to wincing, eyes shut tightly in fear, as a heavy leather football smashed against their heads...
Record numbers of state school pupils offered Oxford places
Thursday 16th January 2020University also says more than 22% of admissions last year were from a BME backgroundState school pupils have won nearly 70% of Oxford University’s undergraduate places next year, a record level that represents a remarkable turnaround in the university’s intake over the last five years...
Record numbers of state school pupils win Oxford places
Thursday 16th January 2020University also says more than 22% of admissions last year were from a BME backgroundState school pupils have won nearly 70% of Oxford University’s undergraduate places next year, a record level that represents a remarkable turnaround in the university’s intake over the last five years...
Boris Johnson says the Erasmus scheme isn't under threat. Do you trust him? | Layla Moran
Thursday 16th January 2020The Erasmus mobility scheme changes young people’s lives...
The ‘playing the race card’ accusation is just a way to silence us | Afua Hirsch
Thursday 16th January 2020Many British people are ignorant about how racism works...
Record numbers of state school pupils given Oxford places
Thursday 16th January 2020University also says more than 22% of admissions last year were from a BME backgroundState school pupils have won nearly 70% of Oxford University’s undergraduate places next year, a record level that represents a remarkable turnaround in the university’s intake over the last five years...
DofE scheme draws up 'experience list' to build teen resilience
Thursday 16th January 2020Veganism, digital detox, dancing and getting to know an older person are among 25 recommended activitiesThe Duke of Edinburgh award scheme’s leaders are calling on the government to support character building in schools...
Nurseries face closure over free childcare funding gap
Wednesday 15th January 2020Nurseries say they cannot afford to run their services because the government has failed to properly fund its free childcare policy...
Universities must overhaul the toxic working culture for academic researchers | Anton Muscatelli
Wednesday 15th January 2020A survey has warned that researchers are too stressed...
'How can we compete with Google?': the battle to train quantum coders
Wednesday 15th January 2020A major skills shortage in quantum computing could harm the UK economy unless universities don’t recruit more studentsThere is a laboratory deep within University College London (UCL) that looks like a cross between a rebel base in Star Wars and a scene imagined by Jules Verne...
Food for thought: the school lunch scheme linking London and Liberia
Tuesday 14th January 2020By providing free school meals to some of the poorest children on Earth, a UK charity is also ensuring they get an education It’s breakfast time in Domagbamatma (population: 63) in the depths of the Liberian rainforest, but there’s no food in evidence in the home of Massa Kamara...
How to be a commuter student – and keep your social life
Tuesday 14th January 2020Weighing up the full student experience versus a peaceful home life can be hard, but there are ways to enjoy bothI felt an immense pressure when choosing which university campus I wanted to attend...
Sacked or silenced: academics say they are blocked from exploring trans issues
Tuesday 14th January 2020Universities are at a loss how to maintain free speech when both sides claim they feel unsafeOn the December morning that Jo Phoenix, professor of criminology at the Open University, was to give a lecture at Essex University on trans rights in prisons, Twitter roared into action, with several Essex staff and students tweeting allegations that a “transphobe” would be on campus...
Schools should brace for five years of upheaval from a triumphant party with Gove at its heart | Melissa Benn
Tuesday 14th January 2020Boris Johnson needs to remember that the influential former education secretary was sacked because he had become ‘toxic’ to teachersThe election campaign is now in a bygone decade but we are still not much clearer about what the Tories have in store for education over the next five years...
When school is an isolation cubicle with three toilet breaks a day
Tuesday 14th January 2020A Lose the Booth conference in Leeds later this month will bring to a head calls to stop using isolation to discipline pupilsSix days a week Brendan, 17, leaves at six in the morning for his job on a building site and doesn’t get home until tea time...
Review reveals scale of abuse scandal at London private school
Monday 13th January 2020More than 80 complaints made against 32 members of staff at St Paul’s school in BarnesAn inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse at a leading private school for boys has revealed that more than 80 complaints have been made by former pupils against 32 members of staff covering a period spanning six decades...
My working week: 'I fight to get a teenage gang target the help he needs'
Monday 13th January 2020As a youth advocate at a charity, I fight for children and young people to get the help from services they are entitled toI’m an advocate at a charity that supports young people who’ve been referred from other organisations or have come to us themselves...
How GCSE revision helped spot a dad's cancer
Sunday 12th January 2020Jonathan Jenkyn says he is dodging "the grim reaper" after suffering a cardiac arrest and cancer...
'Treatment gap' in youth mental health services
Friday 10th January 2020Young people are struggling to get the help they need for mental health problems, says a report...
Outstanding schools to face inspections again
Friday 10th January 2020The exemption on inspections for outstanding schools is set to be scrapped...
Ofsted to bring back routine inspections for outstanding schools
Friday 10th January 2020DfE returns to policy of five-yearly visits by the regulator for outstanding schoolsOutstanding schools and colleges in England are to be stripped of their exemption from regular inspections, overturning a policy introduced by the former education secretary Michael Gove...
UK 'committed' to maintaining Erasmus+ exchange scheme
Thursday 9th January 2020DfE says government wants to ensure students can continue to benefit from European exchange schemeThe government has said it is committed to maintaining the UK’s membership of the Erasmus+ programme, which funds opportunities for young people to train and study across Europe, despite shooting down an attempt to make its membership a priority in EU withdrawal negotiations...
Learning foreign languages should be compulsory, says report
Thursday 9th January 2020Survey showed just 32% of young Britons can read or write in more than one languageLearning a new language should be compulsory for pupils up to the age of 16, according to a new report highlighting the UK’s recent abysmal record in encouraging young people to study languages other than English...
Putting pupils in isolation 'drives poor behaviour'
Thursday 9th January 2020The use of isolation rooms only makes behaviour more challenging, warns a mental health charity...
Free breakfasts for poorer pupils in Wales
Wednesday 8th January 2020From September, a pilot scheme will provide extra money to Year 7 children on free school meals...
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