Category Archives: Children

Home Office banned from routinely placing lone children in asylum hotels

Posted on by

High court order says hotels can be used only for very short periods ‘in true emergency situations’

The Home Office has been banned from accommodating lone asylum seeker children in hotels apart from for very short periods “in true emergency situations” after a long-running high court case.

The home secretary’s practice of routinely and systematically accommodating these children in hotels has been ruled unlawful in an order finalised on Thursday. The order states that since December 2021 this practice has “exceeded the proper limits of his powers”.

Continue reading...

Psychologists pinpoint average age children become Santa sceptics

Posted on by

Research found little ones typically begin to distinguish fantasy from reality during preschool years

• ‘I cried for hours’: the moments people realised truth about Father Christmas

From empty glasses of sherry on the mantelpiece to sooty footprints leading to the bedroom door, evidence of Santa’s existence is clearly irrefutable. Yet most children will begin to question it at some point – and many parents anticipate this moment with dread. Now psychologists have identified the average age when Santa scepticism creeps in, and which children are at greatest risk of harbouring negative feelings when it does.

While most adults have fallen for the myth that Santa doesn’t exist, many children still believe – even if the idea of a single individual visiting the homes of billions of children in a single night is at odds with their wider reasoning skills.

Continue reading...

Classes in character do little to narrow gap in pupil outcomes, says study

Posted on by

Focusing on poorer children’s social and emotional learning barely helps their results catch up with those of better-off peers

Teaching character, grit and resilience in schools is valuable to children but is unlikely to play a major part in eradicating the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier peers, according to research.

In recent years, policymakers in England and elsewhere in the world have focused on social and emotional learning, and the importance of developing character, determination and self-belief as a way of improving learning, particularly among children from lower income backgrounds.

Continue reading...

Alex Batty’s French hosts say he wanted ‘normal life’

Posted on by

Owners of gite where formerly missing British boy spent time say he enjoyed sharing in their family life

The owners of a remote French gite where teenager Alex Batty stayed on and off for two years have said he was eager to go to school and “get back to a normal life”.

Ingrid Beauve and Fred Hambye said they treated Alex as part of their family and had no idea of his true identity until last week.

Continue reading...

Alex Batty back in UK six years after vanishing on holiday in Spain

Posted on by

Teenager whose disappearance, aged 11, sparked an international police hunt, flies home after being found in France

Teenager Alex Batty has returned to the UK six years after disappearing while on holiday in Spain with his mother and grandfather, police said on Saturday.

Detectives told a press conference at Greater Manchester police HQ that the teenager, who was 11 when he went missing, met his step-grandfather at Toulouse airport earlier on Saturday before flying back to the UK.

Continue reading...

Number of Australian children skipping fruit and vegetables on the rise, survey finds

Posted on by

Marketing of processed foods and sugary drinks plays significant role in influencing children’s diets, expert says

Public health advocates are calling for action to curb obesity after fewer Australian children were found to be eating fruit and vegetables.

The number of children eating the recommended amount of fruit has dropped substantially, according to the results of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ National Health Survey, down by 9% (73% to 64%) in the five years to 2022.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Closure of primary school in Hackney highlights struggle of London families

Posted on by

Residents ‘absolutely fuming’ about council’s decision to shut Colvestone primary and transfer its pupils

Helen Davis could not believe her children’s luck when Hackney council announced the borough’s first “21st-century street” was going to be built on the doorstep of their local school.

“It still makes me tingle just to think about it,” she said. “Colvestone primary school was going to be at the heart of this new, pedestrianised, green space. Pupils were going to be able to grow their own vegetables, run conservation projects and have outside play activities. They were even planning an outdoor classroom.”

Continue reading...

British boy missing since 2017 Spanish holiday found in France

Posted on by

Alex Batty was 11 when allegedly abducted by mother and grandfather to give him ‘alternative lifestyle’

A British boy who has not been seen by his legal guardian since he went missing on a family holiday to Spain in 2017 has been found in France.

Alex Batty, from Oldham, was 11 and under the guardianship of his grandmother Susan Caruana when he was allegedly abducted by his mother, Melanie Batty, and grandfather, David Batty.

Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak considers curbing social media use for under-16s

Posted on by

Reports suggest a ban is among potential options to protect young people from online harm

Rishi Sunak is considering limiting social media access for teenagers under the age of 16 to try to protect them from online harm, with reports suggesting a potential ban is on the cards.

The government is considering further action despite bringing in the Online Safety Act, which requires social media platforms to shield children from harmful content or face fines of up to 10% of a company’s global revenue.

Continue reading...

Protocols protecting young people’s right to silence ‘forgotten’ by NSW police, watchdog finds

Posted on by

Officers interviewed people who wished to remain silent despite court judgments finding practice was improper, law enforcement commission says

New South Wales police officers have been interviewing young people in custody in a way that compromises their right to silence, with a report by the state’s law enforcement watchdog finding it is a “systemic problem”.

The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission (Lecc) found that NSW police had also failed to act with any urgency to prevent officers interviewing vulnerable people, including Aboriginal people and young people, after they had received legal advice and said that they did not wish to be interviewed.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Meta platforms are marketplaces for child predators claims lawsuit

Posted on by

Facebook and Instagram ‘enabled adults to find, message and groom minors’ for sexual exploitation, alleges state of New Mexico legal filing

Meta has allowed its social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, to become marketplaces for child predators, the state of New Mexico alleges in a lawsuit filed against the company and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.

The lawsuit claims that Meta “proactively served and directed [children] to egregious, sexually explicit images through recommended users and posts – even where the child has expressed no interest in this content”. It claims Meta “enabled adults to find, message and groom minors, soliciting them to sell pictures or participate in pornographic videos”. The company is also accused of fostering unmoderated user groups devoted to facilitating and selling child sexual exploitation content.

Continue reading...

Thousands of new foster carers urgently needed in England, experts say

Posted on by

Social workers scrambling to find places for children after net loss of 1,000 foster families in past year

Child protection experts have called for an urgent nationwide hunt for thousands of new foster carers after a net loss of 1,000 families in the past year and a record number of children being placed far from home.

Social workers have described scrambling to find friends and family to take children in urgent need of safety, and reported that children are sometimes placed in hotels.

Continue reading...

Meta designed platforms to get children addicted, court documents allege

Posted on by

Instagram and Facebook parent company also knowingly allowed underage users to hold accounts, unsealed legal complaint says

Instagram and Facebook parent company Meta purposefully engineered its platforms to addict children and knowingly allowed underage users to hold accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint.

The complaint is a key part of a lawsuit filed against Meta by the attorneys general of 33 states in late October and was originally redacted. It alleges the social media company knew – but never disclosed – it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts. The large number of underage users was an “open secret” at the company, the suit alleges, citing internal company documents.

Continue reading...

UK school pupils ‘using AI to create indecent imagery of other children’

Posted on by

Protection groups call for urgent action to help pupils understand risks of making images that legally constitute child sexual abuse

Children in British schools are using artificial intelligence (AI) to make indecent images of other children, a group of experts on child abuse and technology has warned.

They said that a number of schools were reporting for the first time that pupils were using AI-generating technology to create images of children that legally constituted child sexual abuse material.

Continue reading...

Peter Dutton backs age verification for viewing online pornography

Posted on by

Opposition leader says graphic videos are ‘playing into the minds’ of young Australians, particularly boys

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has backed calls to implement age verification for viewing pornographic material online.

Dutton says graphic pornographic videos are playing into the minds of young Australians.

Continue reading...

China supplies data to WHO about clusters of respiratory illness

Posted on by

Epidemiologists say wave in north, particularly among children, may be partly caused by ‘immunity debt’

Chinese health authorities have provided the requested data on an increase in respiratory illnesses and reported clusters of pneumonia in children, and have not detected any unusual or novel pathogens, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

The WHO had asked China for more information on Wednesday after groups including the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases reported clusters of undiagnosed pneumonia in children in north China.

Continue reading...

School leaders in England feel lockdown ‘broke spell’ of bond with parents

Posted on by

Education experts agree with Ofsted chief that many parents now disregard rules previously taken for granted

Lockdown “broke the spell” that bound parents and schools together, according to school leaders and experts who have endorsed the Ofsted chief’s view that many parents now disregard rules on behaviour and attendance they once took for granted.

Delivering her last annual report as chief inspector of schools in England, Amanda Spielman said: “The social contract between parents and schools has been fractured by lockdowns and closures.” And she warned: “That social contract took years to build and consolidate and it will take time to restore.”

Continue reading...

Soaring special needs school transport costs ‘unsustainable’, say councils

Posted on by

Local authorities fear service cuts or even bankruptcy as costs jump from £400m to £700m in five years

Soaring costs of school transport for children with special educational needs is causing councils in England to warn of service cuts and potential insolvency, according to local authority leaders.

The County Council Network (CCN), which represents mainly rural local authorities in England, says its 37 members are spending more than £700m a year on school transport for 85,000 children with special education needs and disabilities (Send), compared with less than £400m five years ago.

Continue reading...

‘Nobody cared’: Victim’s ‘betrayal’ over revelations at Victoria’s school child sexual abuse inquiry

Posted on by

Victim-survivor shocked by education department’s admission it moved accused paedophile teachers to other state schools

When the dark history of Victoria’s education department was laid bare this week in public hearings, Glen Fearnett sat metres away from bureaucrats as they divulged the state’s failings to protect children.

Fearnett is a victim-survivor of abuse and has been central in pushing for a formal apology for the abuse he and other victim-survivors suffered at Beaumaris primary school, in Melbourne’s south-east.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...