Policy of secrecy leaves authors with ‘no inkling’ works are being set for NSW’s year 12 exams

Delia Falconer and Nikki Gemmell latest writers to find out their works were selected for the HSC – after the exams

When roughly 60,000 year 12 students sit down to do their final English exam in New South Wales each year, they have no idea what texts they’ll be asked to analyse.

Likewise, the authors of those texts are neither asked nor warned by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) – an increasingly controversial policy as students sometimes take to social media to vent their post-exam frustration directly at them.

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Four out of five pupils in England say progress suffered due to Covid

State school pupils twice as likely to feel they have fallen behind than peers in private schools, landmark study finds

Four out of five teenagers say their academic progress has suffered as a result of the pandemic, with state school pupils twice as likely to feel they have fallen behind than their peers in private schools, according to initial findings from a landmark study.

Half of the 16- and 17-year-olds questioned said the Covid disruption had left them less motivated to study, while 45% felt they have not been able to catch up with lost learning.

There was a lot of chaos in my life at the time and then we went into lockdown quite unprepared. There was a lot of confusion about schooling. I didn’t really have access to technology. I didn’t have online lessons, things like that. There was work that went on every week, but I couldn’t access it because I didn’t have the internet. I remember talking to one of my friends and they were like, ‘Oh have you seen the work that’s been put for English’, and I was like, ‘We have work?’

It was only in the September when we came back I finally got more support. I got a laptop and I got better access. A lot of people in my school had issues like me. A lot of people didn’t have technology or they didn’t have structured lessons, so we’ve had a lot to try to catch up on. A lot of the lessons have been quite content-heavy because it felt like we were trying to do two years in one, so that was quite stressful. And I felt like I had to work harder to do my GCSEs. I felt I had to do more to recover to my peers’ level.

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Carbon monoxide leak in Pennsylvania daycare sickens dozens, including kids

Unconscious children rushed to hospital but are now stable, weeks before new CO detector law goes into effect in Allentown

A malfunctioning heater sent a dangerously high level of carbon monoxide into a Pennsylvania daycare center early Tuesday, sickening dozens of children – some of whom were unconscious as they were rushed to the hospital – and several adults.

More than 30 people were hospitalized. All were listed in stable condition.

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Teaching assistants quitting schools for supermarkets because of ‘joke’ wages

Headteachers fear impact on children of unfilled vacancies as support staff say rising bills force them to leave jobs in education

Headteachers across the country say they cannot fill vital teaching assistant vacancies and that support staff are taking second jobs in supermarkets to survive because their wages are “just a joke”.

Schools are reporting that increasing numbers of teaching assistants are leaving because they will not be able to pay for high energy bills and afford food this winter. And with job ads often attracting no applications at all, heads fear they will be impossible to replace. They warn this will have a serious impact on children in the classroom, especially those with special educational needs, and will make it increasingly hard for teachers to focus on teaching.

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Early interventions ‘missed’ as NSW struggles with shortage of school counsellors

Figures show there is one counsellor for every 650 students, despite inquiry recommending ratio of 1:500

A dire shortage of school counsellors means New South Wales students are going without disability assessments and early interventions as staff scramble to triage the most serious cases, including suicide risks, sexual assaults and teen pregnancies.

Department of Education figures obtained by Guardian Australia reveal there was one counsellor for every 650 students across the state in August, not accounting for staff on uncovered leave – meaning the reality was far worse.

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Sudan faces ‘generational catastrophe’ as millions of children miss school

Floods, militia raids and hunger mean a third of children are not in school at all, while the rest have too few teachers, aid groups warn

Nearly every school-age child in Sudan is missing out on education, either completely or facing serious disruption, aid organisations have warned.

Schools in some states reopened this week after delays due to severe flooding but millions of children are still unable to go, leaving the country facing a “generational catastrophe”.

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Behaviour adviser urges English schools to crack down on pupils’ vaping

Headteachers say more children are using vapes, forcing them to take action to tackle the problem

The government’s school behaviour adviser has called on headteachers to crack down on vaping among pupils, calling it “a huge health hazard” and an “enormous distraction”, amid reports that more children are using the devices, including some of primary age.

Tom Bennett said vaping was now as big an issue in schools as cigarettes once were, with children becoming “addicted to the practice and the chemicals involved”.

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Labour promise of free breakfasts ‘first step on the road to rebuilding childcare’

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson to announce plan to fund breakfast clubs in every primary school

Labour will rebuild a new childcare system to ease the pressure on parents from the “end of parental leave right through to the end of primary school”, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said, starting with a pledge on free breakfast clubs.

Phillipson will announce on Wednesday that fully funded breakfast clubs for every primary school in England would be funded by the revenues raised by restoring the top rate of income tax to 45p, if Labour were elected.

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Schools urge parents to help plug funding gaps as costs soar

Some parent bodies helping with core costs, raising fears of growing gap between rich and poor areas

Days into the new academic year, headteachers have raised the alarm about a looming funding crisis in schools, with some parents urged to make donations and parent-teacher associations on standby to plug funding gaps for classroom essentials.

As energy bills and wage costs rise, school leaders say money from PTA fundraising efforts will be needed to cover core costs rather than “nice to have” extras. In affluent areas where PTAs are able to raise huge sums, it could even be used to save jobs and help pay bills.

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Teachers at ex-Tory minister’s academy chain set to strike

Staff at Future Academies claim they are being overworked and children have been left demoralised

Teachers at an academy chain founded by the former Conservative schools minister John Nash and his wife are preparing to go on strike, claiming the trust is “blighting the life chances of the children”.

The curriculum used by Future Academies, developed by Caroline Nash, a stockbroker, is said in a letter to governors of one the chain’s schools to be among the most narrow in the country.

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Irish teacher jailed for breaching court order to stay away from school

Enoch Burke, who had also refused to refer to pupil as ‘they’, spent 11 days in prison

A school teacher in Ireland who refused to call a transgender pupil by the pronoun “they” has spent 11 days in prison for ignoring a court order to stay away from the school.

Enoch Burke failed to obtain a court injunction on Wednesday that would have paved his release and return to school, leaving him in Mountjoy prison in Dublin.

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‘Campaigning to keep the lights on’: the desperate plight of England’s schools and universities

Despite their costs going ‘through the roof’, education leaders fear they will be a low priority for the next occupant of No 10

Education leaders in England fear one thing: that schools, colleges and universities will be hammered by the cost of living crisis but will not be enough of a priority to get the help they need from government. And they see little hope from a change in leadership at No 10.

“Our costs are going through the roof, our staff badly need pay rises and are going to strike, our students are suffering, but our income is stuck,” said one vice-chancellor, echoing their peers in schools and colleges around the country.

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Leading Tories call on new PM to tackle crisis facing schools over soaring costs

Exclusive: warnings of damage to children’s education for years to come without major intervention

‘It’s heartbreaking’: England’s school leaders on budget shortfalls

Leading Conservatives including two former Tory education secretaries have urged the incoming prime minister to address rising cost pressures on schools as a matter of urgency, as head teachers struggle to pay soaring energy and wage bills.

With the start of the new academic year just days away, many schools in England are already overwhelmed by energy price rises in excess of 200% – with worse to come – plus the additional cost of unfunded pay rises and mounting inflation.

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Sunak says it was a mistake to ‘empower scientists’ during Covid pandemic

Ex-chancellor admits being furious about school closures, adding trade-offs of lockdowns were not properly considered by experts

Rishi Sunak has claimed that it was a mistake to “empower scientists” during the coronavirus pandemic and that his opposition to closing schools was met with silence during one meeting.

The Conservative leadership candidate believes one of the major errors was allowing the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to have so much influence on decision making such as closing nurseries, schools and colleges in March 2020.

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GCSE results expected to confirm widening of north-south attainment gap

Tory leadership candidates called on to commit to fixing growing regional disparities in education

This year’s GCSE results for England and Wales are expected to confirm a widening north-south education gap, prompting a prediction that the government will miss one of its key levelling-up targets if it continues to hold back pupils in the north of England.

A coalition of school leaders, charities and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership has written to the Conservative leadership candidates urging them to commit to fixing growing regional disparities in education.

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GCSE results will reflect varying impact of pandemic, says headteachers union

Association of School and College Leaders predicts grades will be uneven across England and Wales due to Covid disruption

GCSE results will be uneven across the country due to the varying impact of the pandemic, according to the headteachers union, which described the government’s Covid recovery programme as “lacklustre and chaotic”.

The number of top grades at A-level fell sharply this year and a similar decline is anticipated for GCSE grades as the government seeks to reverse the grade inflation caused by teacher-assessment during the pandemic.

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Fail grades predicted to rise as GCSEs return to pre-pandemic levels

Expert says exam results will likely mirror A-levels and remain above what they were in 2019

More pupils will fail their GCSEs this year and top grades are expected to fall as results return to pre-pandemic levels, an education expert has predicted.

There could be 230,000 fewer top grades in the UK compared with 2021, but 230,000 more than 2019, according to Prof Alan Smithers, director of the centre for education and employment research at the University of Buckingham.

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‘Why does the school hate me?’: how former MI6 spy’s Scottish dream turned sour

At security debriefings, Aimen Dean and his family fell in love with the Highlands. Three years later, they feel rejected

Aimen Dean remembers the moment he and his wife, Saadia, decided to make their home in Scotland. They had toured the Highlands and were standing on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle, looking out over the city’s skyline.

Dean already knew Scotland: as one of the UK’s key spies, operating in the highest levels of al-Qaida, he had visited the country in secret six times before, to be debriefed by MI6 officers at safe houses deep in the Highlands or, on one occasion, a hotel on the island of Iona.

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Father who spied on al-Qaida accuses Edinburgh school of discrimination

Inquiry opens into St George’s after Aimen Dean claims it singled out his daughter over fears he was a security risk

One of the UK’s leading private schools is under investigation after being accused of discrimination against the daughter of one of the west’s most important spies, a former al-Qaida bomb-maker credited with saving thousands of lives.

Aimen Dean, who spied for British intelligence inside the terrorist network for eight years, has made a formal complaint against St George’s School in Edinburgh, claiming it singled out his five-year-old daughter because other parents feared he was a security risk.

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Mexico’s ex-attorney general arrested over disappearance of 43 students in 2014

Jesús Murillo held on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in notorious Guerrero case

Mexico’s former attorney general has been arrested in relation to the disappearance of 43 students in 2014, the most prominent individual held so far in the notorious case that has haunted the country ever since.

Jesús Murillo was arrested at his home in Mexico City home on Friday on charges of forced disappearance, torture and obstruction of justice in the abduction and disappearance of the student-teachers in the south-western state of Guerrero, now seen as a “state-sponsored crime”.

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