National News
Phillipson accuses lawyers of exploiting parents of children with special needs
Friday 13th March 2026Education secretary claims lawyers’ criticisms of her department’s policy changes are motivated by profitLawyers have been accused of exploiting parents of children with special needs by the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, who said their criticisms of the government’s policy changes were motivated by profit...
AI toys for young children must be more tightly regulated, say researchers
Friday 13th March 2026University of Cambridge study finds AI-powered toys can misread emotions and respond inappropriately to childrenIt was all going well...
‘It’s like a giant book club’: how schools are getting children excited about reading again
Friday 13th March 2026In the National Year of Reading, teachers say a culture of enthusiasm, from dress-up days, story time and book clubs, can reverse a national declineAjmal, 7, is an avid fan of the InvestiGators comic books...
AI toys for children misread emotions and respond inappropriately, researchers warn
Friday 13th March 2026In first study of its kind, Cambridge researchers found AI toys could misread some children's emotions...
How should schools respond in emergency situations?
Friday 13th March 2026A union says schools should practise emergency responses as they do with routine fire drills...
Short tempers and legal threats: UK teachers report rise in problem parents
Friday 13th March 2026Rudeness, social media posts and AI-generated complaints among issues harming staff wellbeing, union survey findsTeachers are used to outbreaks of rudeness and defiance from their pupils, but are now saying parents are some of the worst offenders and affecting staff mental health, according to a headteachers’ union...
MPs launch student loans inquiry amid ‘perfect storm’ for young people in UK
Thursday 12th March 2026Influential Treasury committee chair Meg Hillier says review follows growing concern over graduate debtUK firms struggling to hire young people amid cost pressures, MPs toldYoung adults in the UK face a “perfect storm” of economic challenges, the head of the influential Treasury select committee has warned as it launches an inquiry into student loans...
Social media firms asked to toughen up age checks for under-13s
Thursday 12th March 2026Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and Roblox are among the platforms UK regulators say aren't putting children's safety at the heart of their products...
College fears more students given wrong GCSE results
Thursday 12th March 2026The college said checks found more than 20 GCSE English tests had been marked wrong...
Teacher banned after sending former pupil £500
Thursday 12th March 2026A panel found that geography teacher Roger Towersey's behaviour was "clearly unprofessional"...
Pupils told to remove blazers to prevent violence
Monday 9th March 2026Posts encouraging fights between different schools are emerging on social media...
A Mississippi mother couldn’t find accurate sex ed for her kids. So she started a class at church
Monday 9th March 2026As states scale back requirements for comprehensive sex ed, some parents and faith communities are stepping in to teach what schools won’tWhen Wendy Pfrenger’s children started high school in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, she had the choice to enroll them in abstinence-only or abstinence-plus sex ed...
SEND reforms to 'strip away' children's legal protections, charity says
Monday 9th March 2026Planned changes to the special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system in England were announced last month...
‘Only Nazis ban books’: on the frontlines with students fighting Trump over higher education
Friday 6th March 2026Documentary First They Came for My College goes inside the fight for academic freedom at Florida’s New CollegeIt took a half century to build New College into a sanctuary of independent thought and less than a year to destroy it...
Allergy training to become compulsory in schools in England
Thursday 5th March 2026The plans, due to come into force in September, follow support for Benedict's Law, a campaign to improve allergy safety in schools...
RFK Jr urges medical schools to increase nutrition education training
Thursday 5th March 2026As part of his Maha agenda, health secretary wants schools to incorporate 40 hours of instructionSign up to the Breaking News US newsletter emailHealth secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr unveiled a new effort on Thursday aimed at increasing the amount of nutrition education taught in medical schools...
Extra stress or a bit of fun? Teachers and parents discuss World Book Day
Thursday 5th March 2026As children dress up in UK and Ireland on Thursday, not everyone is on the same page over event’s pros and consThursday is World Book Day in the UK and Ireland, with many primary schools encouraging children to take part...
Pupils told to remove blazers to prevent disorder
Wednesday 4th March 2026Posts encouraging fights between different schools are emerging on social media...
What does Neet stand for and how many are there in the UK?
Wednesday 4th March 2026Ministers want to tackle the high number of young people not in education, employment or training...
Pupils told to remove blazers to prevent violence
Wednesday 4th March 2026Posts encouraging fights between different schools are emerging on social media...
Schools in England sidelining dressing-up for World Book Day, MPs hear
Tuesday 3rd March 2026Literacy experts say move comes over cost concerns and fears costumes can detract from reading for pleasureSchools in England are moving away from pupils dressing up as their favourite literary characters for World Book Day, with experts telling MPs they feared the cost of costumes undermined efforts to increase reading for pleasure...
Telegraph censured for story of fictional family’s struggle to pay school fees
Tuesday 3rd March 2026Watchdog upholds complaint it breached code with article about impact of VAT on banker who did not existThe Telegraph has been reprimanded by a press standards watchdog after it published an entirely fabricated story about a wealthy banker complaining of the impact of school fee increases...
Schools are using AI counselors to track students’ mental health. Is it safe?
Tuesday 3rd March 2026As hundreds of schools implement an automated monitoring tool, educators say that students can find talking to chatbots ‘more natural’ than confiding in a human• Produced in partnership with EdSurgeThe alert came around 7pm...
Teacher v chatbot: my journey into the classroom in the age of AI
Tuesday 3rd March 2026I was a newcomer, negotiating all of usual classroom difficulties for the first time...
'Deeply misleading' school talks compared student loans to £30 phone contracts
Tuesday 3rd March 2026Graduates hired to deliver the presentations a decade ago were told to avoid using words like "debt"...
Cheating machine or powerful assistant? The AI anxieties of a trainee teacher
Tuesday 3rd March 2026I was a newcomer, negotiating all of usual classroom difficulties for the first time...
Parents of nursery abuse victims to meet minister
Tuesday 3rd March 2026Parents of Vincent Chan's victims will meet the education secretary to press her on safeguarding...
The Guardian view on schools: Send reforms aside, the government’s white paper lacks focus | Editorial
Monday 2nd March 2026Plans to resurrect the children’s services decimated by austerity are appealing...
Learn With Ms Rachel review – undoubtedly the TV event of the year for millions of us
Monday 2nd March 2026The queen of children’s edutainment is back after four very long months, with her most extraordinary, envelope-pushing and moving special yet...
Nine in 10 pupils offered first-choice school
Monday 2nd March 2026Pupils across the country are finding out which secondary school they have been allocated...
Worried about freedom of speech? Then what’s happening at the Open University should terrify you | Owen Jones
Monday 2nd March 2026The OU has capitulated to a pro-Israel lobby group about the use of the term ‘ancient Palestine’...
‘Some parents said they’d break my knees’: the teacher who exposed Putin’s primary school propaganda
Monday 2nd March 2026Grenade-throwing contests replaced PE and ‘denazification’ speeches became homework...
UK teachers and parents urged to talk to children about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes
Sunday 1st March 2026Experts say trusted adults must be brave and discuss issue or risk children looking for answers from unsafe sourcesTeachers and parents in the UK need to be brave and discuss Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes with children and young people or risk them looking for answers from dubious or dangerous sources, according to experts who will host the first public seminar for schools on the issue...
ICE has detained this high schooler for 10 months. Here’s what he and his classmates want you to know
Sunday 1st March 2026Dylan Lopez Contreras, a senior at Ellis Prep academy, was taken by ICE in May...
The National Year of Reading celebrates the ‘joy’ of books. But let’s not forget they can also be deeply troubling, too | Charlotte Higgins
Saturday 28th February 2026Encounters with great art can be absorbing, unsettling and even painful...
Private schools lose legal challenge over VAT changes
Friday 27th February 2026A group of low-fee paying private schools have challenged the government's removal of the VAT exemption...
Appeal court rejects latest challenge to adding VAT to UK private school fees
Friday 27th February 2026Parents opposing plans told they can home school their children if they object to sending them to state schoolsThe court of appeal has rejected the latest challenge to the addition of VAT to private school fees, telling parents they have the option to home school their children if they object to sending them to state schools...
TikTok and Snapchat posts urge London pupils to join ‘school wars’ fights
Thursday 26th February 2026Met urges pupils not to get involved and asks platforms to ban accounts promoting ‘fights’ with images of weaponsPupils as young as 11 are being encouraged to join in school fights in posts on TikTok and Snapchat, prompting police to urge children not to get involved...
Send provision and student loans: will Labour’s changes backfire? – podcast
Thursday 26th February 2026As the dust settles on the government’s landmark changes to children’s special educational needs and disabilities provision, what will their impact really be on young people, their families and schools? John Harris and Kiran Stacey look at what we know so far...
‘Very Republican, very patriotic’: right-leaning civic centers now offer courses at US public colleges
Thursday 26th February 2026Republican lawmakers push for conservative professors to counter purported leftwing indoctrination in schoolsThis story was produced by the Hechinger Report, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education...
Instagram to alert parents if teens search for self-harm and suicide content
Thursday 26th February 2026Safety campaigners say Meta is "passing the buck" with its new feature for parents using Instagram's teen supervision tools...
Labour’s Send reforms get this right: disabled children in mainstream schools is transformative for everyone | Frances Ryan
Thursday 26th February 2026It doesn’t fit neatly on a Treasury spreadsheet, but there is huge value in disabled and non-disabled pupils learning togetherWhen I was 11, a woman at the hospital asked me what school I was starting in September...
What does Neet stand for and how many are there in the UK?
Thursday 26th February 2026Ministers want to tackle the high number of young people not in education, employment or training...
Young people out of work, training and education edges closer to one million
Thursday 26th February 2026People at the start of their careers are particularly affected by the UK's weak job market...
Homeschooled by Stefan Merrill Block review – a true ‘Misery’ memoir
Wednesday 25th February 2026A compelling and fitfully harrowing child’s-eye account of a mother’s unravellingStefan Merrill Block was nine when his mother pulled him out of school...
'Pupils locked me in a room' claims striking teacher
Tuesday 24th February 2026Teachers at two Greater Manchester schools took to the picket lines after claims of violent childrenRead full story...
Send plan for England gets cautious welcome amid workload concerns
Tuesday 24th February 2026Education leaders and MPs say government needs to be careful about mental health impact on leaders and teachers in already overstretched sectorTeachers and schools face “a huge ask” implementing the government’s special needs proposals affecting hundreds of thousands of children, according to education leaders and MPs who otherwise gave the plans a cautious welcome...
Children in care off school for months as school rejections stack up
Tuesday 24th February 2026Councils seek powers to require more schools to take children as heads say funding would meet needs...
'We fear SEND overhaul could leave more families feeling alone'
Tuesday 24th February 2026Robyn and Adam say changes to SEND provision could impact children like their eight-year-old son Oli...
Labour’s Send revolution is a high-stakes experiment. It also threatens precious parental rights | John Harris
Monday 23rd February 2026Bridget Phillipson’s 10-year plan is generous in places, but it has its problems...
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