Category Archives: Children

National tutoring scheme failing disadvantaged pupils, say MPs

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Consultancy firm Randstad’s contract ‘must end’ unless it delivers learning missed during Covid

A national tutoring programme is failing to help the children who need it most, according to MPs, who say ministers should terminate their contract with the consultancy firm running the scheme unlessit “shapes up”.

A report by the education select committee gives a scathing account of the government’s £5bn national tutoring programme (NTP), which aims to help children in England catch up on learning missed during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.

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UK has ‘sleepwalked’ into dysfunctional children’s social care market, says regulator

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CMA finds local authorities are being forced to pay excessive fees for substandard privately run services

The UK has “sleepwalked” into a dysfunctional market for children’s social care with local authorities forced to pay excessive fees for privately run services that often fail to meet the needs of vulnerable children, an official report has concluded.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) called for an overhaul of the £6.5bn UK market for children’s residential and foster care, saying it had found “significant problems” with the provision of the privately dominated services.

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Be open, be honest and listen: how to talk to children about Ukraine

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Hearing parents say ‘It’s OK to feel scared and I’m here to listen’ might provide comfort

How should we deal with children’s anxiety over what’s happening in Ukraine?

I wonder if the question should be: how do we deal with our own? Our kids will pick up on how we are feeling and are likely to mirror our own emotive state. Even if you don’t mean to expose them to news, children will realise that something is going on. It may not concern younger children at all but those who are a bit older or old enough to have a smartphone may well be worried, and even work themselves up into a bit of a frenzy.

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Revealed: money for educating excluded children funded Bolton bar owner’s social life

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Call for ‘seismic change’ in social care system after Robert McGuinness’s use of funds

The owner of a children’s home in Bolton shut down for “serious and widespread failures” spent thousands intended for educating marginalised children on drinking, foreign trips and his pub business, the Guardian can reveal.

Between 2015 and 2021, £1.5m was paid by two local authorities to a “community interest company” (CIC) run by Robert McGuinness, the main director of the children’s home. The CIC was set up to provide vocational training to children from years 9 to 11 (ages 14-16) excluded from mainstream schools.

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Patients dying as conflict prevents supplies reaching Tigray hospitals

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Medics unable to keep babies alive, says doctor, as Ethiopia’s civil war creates desperate shortages of drugs, oxygen, fuel and food

People in Tigray are dying due to a lack of oxygen and medicines, a doctor at the region’s largest hospital has said, as medics struggle to care for the sick amid frequent electricity blackouts and fuel shortages.

As the 16-month conflict between Tigrayan forces and Ethiopian government forces drags on, the isolated northern region of 5.5 million people continues to suffer under what the UN has called a de facto blockade.

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Polish charity to take in 2,000 Ukrainian orphans

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Caritas says most of the children will come from heavily hit eastern Ukraine amid fears ‘humanitarian catastrophe approaching fast’

The Catholic charity Caritas Poland says it will take in 2,000 children from Ukrainian orphanages, with the first group of 300 arriving on Wednesday.

“Our eastern neighbours are talking about a humanitarian catastrophe that is approaching fast,” charity director Marcin Iżycki said.

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Viewers of online abuse at high risk of contacting children directly, study finds

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Darknet survey finds 42% sought contact after watching sexual abuse online, with escalating porn habits driving users to illegal material

The largest ever survey on the thoughts and behaviours of people who watch child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online has found significant evidence that those who watch illegal material are at high risk of going on to contact or abuse a child directly.

Nearly half (42%) of respondents to the survey, the first of its kind, said they had sought direct contact with children through online platforms after viewing CSAM, and 58% reported feeling afraid that viewing CSAM might lead to them committing abuse in person.

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Lena Zavaroni: fame, anorexia and the tragedy of a 1970s child star

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Zavaroni was in the charts at 11 and died after years of illness aged 35. Her father talks about their family life as a new stage show about her is about to open

There are a few recordings of television interviews with Lena Zavaroni around online. One with Russell Harty where he comments that her eating disorder must save on restaurant bills and another when Terry Wogan tells her to eat up so she can get back to “your chunky self”.

The little girl with the big voice was 10 when she appeared on Opportunity Knocks – television’s predecessor to Britain’s Got Talent and Pop Idol – singing Ma! He’s Making Eyes at Me, 11 when it was a hit and 13 when she was diagnosed with anorexia, a barely known illness then called the “slimmer’s disease”. Before she died in 1999 the girl from Rothesay on the Scottish island of Bute had hosted her own TV shows, performed at the White House and shared a stage with Barbra Streisand, Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball. She remains the youngest artist ever to have a record in the Top 10 UK albums chart. Lena was huge.

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They have agents, do auditions and can still steal a scene after filling their nappies – meet the baby actors

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Rafael, star of The Ferryman, has been paying taxes since the age of one, while Adiya received glowing reviews for her portrayal of Lyra in The Book of Dust. Say coochy-coo to the babies treading the boards

When their son was seven months old, strangers used to ask Kat West and Jaime Vallés if they fed him sedatives. “No, I don’t drug my baby!” West recalls with mock incredulity. “That was the weirdest question.” But it wasn’t: as Vallés reminds West, someone once asked if their son was animatronic.

West and Vallés were subject to this line of questioning because, for about six months in 2019, their baby boy Rafael played Bobby Carney in The Ferryman. Bobby, as you might have gathered, is also a baby – the youngest character in the Olivier-winning Troubles drama by Jez Butterworth. For the show’s production team, and ultimately its audience, a real baby was miles better than a doll. “The live baby added to the verisimilitude of the production,” said Tim Hoare, associate director at the time. During its Broadway run, four different babies became Bobby, with Rafael playing him four times a week.

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Children ‘breathe out fewer aerosols’, which may reduce Covid risk – study

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Primary-aged children produce about four times fewer particles than adults, which may help explain their lower transmission risk

Primary school-aged children produce about four times fewer aerosol particles when breathing, speaking or singing compared with adults, which could help explain why they seem to be at lower risk of spreading Covid.

Various studies have suggested that young children are about half as susceptible to catching Covid as adults, and, despite carrying a similar amount of virus in their noses and throats, appear to pass it to fewer people if they do become infected.

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Zimbabwe’s striking teachers told to return to work or lose their jobs

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Government sets deadline for 135,000 teachers to end pay strike, ignoring court order, after year of school closures due to Covid

The classrooms of Kambuzuma high school are deserted, with no staff to be seen and Tanaka Mupasiri*, 16, and his friends are milling around the school yard. It is 9am on a Thursday, normally a time when the school, in a high-density suburb or township on the outskirts of Harare, would be a hive of studious activity but Zimbabwe’s national teachers’ strike has thrown the education system into crisis.

Teachers in state schools have not been at work since 7 February and face a government deadline of Tuesday to return or lose their jobs.

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US parents of under-fives clamor for off-label use over Covid vaccine delays

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Authorities warn against surreptitious use of authorized vaccines for younger children due to no safety and efficacy data

As news broke recently that the Covid vaccine for children under five would be delayed in the US amid ongoing clinical trials, a call to make the vaccines off-label for use among those children gained force – but officials caution against vaccinating young children without any safety or efficacy data for this age group.

When providers sign an agreement to provide Covid-19 vaccine shots, they also agree not to give the vaccine off-label, or use it for purposes other than what it was approved to do.

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Five- to 11-year-old children in England to be offered Covid vaccine

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Pfizer/BioNTech jab to be offered to younger children as experts decide benefits outweigh risks

Children aged between five and 11 in England will be offered a Covid vaccine, the UK government has confirmed, after similar announcements from Wales and Scotland this week.

The move was recommended by the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which decided that the vaccination programme should be extended to younger children after lengthy discussions on the benefits and risks.

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Plans to delay Covid jabs for UK children aged five to 11 criticised

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JCVI advised vaccinating the age group last week, but government is still ‘reviewing’ the evidence

Plans to offer Covid vaccinations to all children aged five to 11 have been delayed by the government because the jabs have not been deemed urgent.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) decided more than a week ago to expand the vaccination programme to all that age group and handed its advice to ministers.

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Ex-Cheer star Jerry Harris pleads guilty to child sexual abuse image charges

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Harris, a Chicago native, was first arrested in September 2020 on a charge of production of child sexual abuse images

Jerry Harris, the former star of the Netflix documentary series Cheer, pleaded guilty on Thursday to federal charges of receiving child sexual abuse images and soliciting sex from minors that could keep him in prison for decades.

During a change of plea hearing in federal court in Chicago, Harris pleaded guilty to one count of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and one count of receiving child abuse images, a US attorney’s office spokesman said.

In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International.

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‘A slap in the face’: uproar in Virginia as governor relaxes school mask rules

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Most families want masks in schools – so why did Virginia’s new governor make them optional?

Emily Paterson was finally feeling able to relax. Her two sons were now fully vaccinated, and with mask policies in place at their school in northern Virginia she felt safe sending them every day, even as the Omicron variant surged.

Then Virginia’s new governor, Glenn Youngkin, took office on 15 January of this year – and, with his second executive action, he made masks in schools optional.

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Scared, hungry and cold: child workers in Kabul – picture essay

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As temperatures fall below freezing, children as young as four trying to make a living on the Afghan capital’s streets are all that stand between their family and starvation

Amid the roadside restaurants and bustling crowds in one of Kabul’s busiest markets, a 10-year-old girl is trying to sell plastic bags to shoppers squeezing past her. “If I don’t work, we will go hungry,” Shaista says. Shops in the Afghan capital are stacked with food, but her family cannot afford any of it.

Each morning, Shaista buys a few shopping bags for 5 afghani (4p) each, then goes to the market to sell them for double that. As the UN predicts that 97% of Afghans could be living below the poverty line by June, the number of child labourers and beggars has tripled in Kabul, aid workers say. Many are fighting just to survive.

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Playing with dolls helps children talk about how others feel, says study

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Research suggests playing imaginary games can aid development of social skills and empathy

Playing with dolls encourages children to talk more about others’ thoughts and emotions, a study has found.

The research suggests that playing imaginary games with dolls could help children develop social skills, theory of mind and empathy. The neuroscientist who led the work said that the educational value of playing with Lego and construction toys was widely accepted, but the benefits of playing with dolls sometimes appeared to have been overlooked.

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Pfizer seeks US authorization of Covid vaccine for children under five

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FDA decision could come within weeks but big obstacles remain to getting all children inoculated

Children under five, the last group of Americans still ineligible for vaccines against Covid-19, may soon receive emergency authorization for the shots, but getting all children vaccinated remains a serious challenge in the US.

Pfizer and its German pharmaceutical partner BioNTech announced on Tuesday that they were requesting emergency-use authorization of their vaccine for children aged six months to four years.

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Cuba leads the world in vaccinating children as young as two against Covid

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With confidence in public health system high, 95% of kids aged 2-18 are fully vaccinated and Omicron infection rates are low

The Swedes have rejected it, Dr Fauci says the US may soon approve it, the Chinese have started, but the Cubans have already vaccinated almost all young children against Covid.

The island is the only country vaccinating toddlers as young as two against the disease, and more than 95% of two- to 18-year-olds have now been fully vaccinated, according to the ministry of public health.

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