Julie Morris, who was head of safeguarding at primary school, admitted 18 child sexual abuse offences
A deputy headteacher and her partner have been jailed for child sexual abuse offences after they filmed themselves abusing and raping a girl.
Julie Morris, a teacher who was also head of safeguarding at a primary school in Wigan, was sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison after she pleaded guilty to 18 child sexual abuse offences, including two counts of rape.
Continue reading...Some schools said to have up to half their teachers off due to Covid, and there are fears parents will keep pupils at home
Headteachers are warning of “chaos” in England’s schools as Omicron sweeps across the country, with high levels of staff and pupil absences and reports that parents are planning to keep children home to avoid the virus before Christmas.
School leaders and unions urged the government to introduce more protective measures, including masks in classrooms, better ventilation and tougher isolation rules to try to slow the spread of the virus before the holidays.
Continue reading...Frontline workers warn how children as young as seven are being bombarded with harmful online sexual material
Barnardo’s works directly with children who are victims of abuse or display signs of harmful or risky sexual behaviour. In 2020-21, they worked with 382,872 children, young people, parents and carers.
In a recent survey of their frontline workers across England and Wales, staff reported a rise in the number of children participating in acts they have seen in pornographic videos, despite feeling uncomfortable or scared. They describe porn as having a “corrosive” effect on child wellbeing.
Continue reading...After Adele’s tearful reunion with a former teacher, four readers recall their own school memories
“So bloody cool, so engaging.” That’s how Adele described her English teacher at Chestnut Grove school in Balham, south-west London, Ms McDonald, when asked who had inspired her.
Answering a question from the actor Emma Thompson during ITV’s An Audience With Adele on Sunday, Adele said: “She really made us care, and we knew that she cared about us and stuff like that.”
Continue reading...Eton and Harrow among those whose ‘character-building’ qualities were admired by German educators in 1930s and 1940s
Nazi Germany’s elite schools, which were set up to train future leaders of the Third Reich, used British private schools such as Eton and Harrow as their models, a new book reveals.
The historian Helen Roche has written the first comprehensive history of Nazi elite schools, known as Napolas. Drawing on research undertaken in 80 archives in six countries as well as testimonies from more than 100 former pupils, Roche discovered just how keen the Nazis were to learn from the “character-forming” example of the British system.
Continue reading...Experts alarmed as NHS data shows one in four children in England aged 10 and 11 are obese
Thousands of children are facing “serious” and even “devastating” consequences as a result of weight gain during the pandemic, experts warn, as “alarming” figures reveal one in four 10- and 11-year-olds in England are obese.
Health leaders are calling for a “relentless drive” to boost child health as official NHS data lays bare for the first time how child obesity levels have soared during lockdowns.
Continue reading...Pilot scheme launched in what is thought to be the last country to reopen schools since March 2020
Thousands of children have returned to their classrooms after more than 18 months of home study in the Philippines, thought to be the last country to reopen schools since the start of the pandemic.
On Monday morning, 120 schools began on-site lessons through a pilot project. Footage by the broadcaster ABS CBN showed children at a school in Alaminos line up outside to take their temperatures, complete a health form and wash their hands before entering class.
Continue reading...Children ate less healthily, took less exercise and had more emotional problems, say researchers
Children in the UK ate fewer vegetables, took less exercise and experienced worsening emotional difficulties following the Covid outbreak, according to a research study.
A biennial survey conducted by investigators at Cardiff University found that primary school-age children reported a sharp increase in “elevated or clinically significant emotional difficulties” in early 2021, compared with the same survey conducted in 2019.
Continue reading...After months of home schooling, more and more children are ditching their tech and heading outdoors
After more than a year of lockdowns, with limited access to nature, Magdalena Begh was delighted when her six-year-old daughter came home from forest school and informed her she had found three rat skeletons. One of them, Alia told her, was “pretty fresh”. “These little observations are very crucial to their learning – it’s amazing,” says Begh.
Since Alia and her sister Hana, nine, started going to the Urban Outdoors Adventures in Nature after-school club in north London in June, they have used clay, learned about insects and made campfires, marmalade and bows and arrows.
Continue reading...Despite government narrative of a return to normality, schools in areas with high Covid rates lack support
Schools in England hit by high numbers of Covid-19 cases among staff and pupils have been forced to reinstate mask wearing, send whole year groups home to study online and in some cases close early for half-term as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc in education.
Despite the government narrative of a return to normality in classrooms, schools in areas with high coronavirus rates say they have struggled to function, with many staff off sick and problems securing supply teachers because of high demand.
Continue reading...With schools struggling to vaccinate before winter arrives, ministers are urged to allow children to receive vaccines at different venues
• Coronavirus – latest updates
• See all our coronavirus coverage
Ministers are facing demands to allow younger teenagers to attend Covid vaccination centres, amid concerns that jab rates among this age group are three times lower in England than Scotland.
The vaccination rate among 12- to 15-year-olds in England currently stands at just 14.2% according to official data, compared with 44.3% in Scotland. The huge disparity has led to complaints that England has been held back by administering vaccinations solely through schools.
Continue reading...Many private schools may not reopen after staff laid off during lockdown say they will not return to the profession
The last message Mary Namitala received from the private school in which she taught was in March last year, the day all schools in Uganda were ordered close due to Covid-19. The message read: “No more payments until when schools open.”
“My husband and I decided to leave our rented house in town and shifted to the village, to our unfinished house. We could not afford to continue paying rent,” says Namitala, from her home in Bombo in central Uganda, about 20 miles north of the capital Kampala.
Continue reading...UK’s four chief medical officers decide to set aside view of vaccine watchdog that benefits of jabs were too minimal to justify them
Children aged 12 to 15 can be offered Covid vaccinations, the UK’s four chief medical officers have decided, saying the likely impact in reducing disruption to schools meant such a plan could be clinically justified.
All children in the age group will be offered a first Pfizer jab as soon as possible, with the programme led by in-school vaccination services. A second injection will be potentially given once more evidence is gathered, so not before the spring term at the earliest.
Continue reading...Addiction to pornography has been blamed for erectile dysfunction, relationship issues and depression, yet problematic use is rising. Now therapists and tech companies are offering new solutions
Thomas discovered pornography in the traditional way: at school. He remembers classmates talking about it in the playground and showing each other videos on their phones during sleepovers. He was 13 and thought it was “a laugh”. Then he began watching pornography alone on his tablet in his room. What started as occasional use, at the beginning of puberty, became a daily habit.
Thomas (not his real name), who is in his early 20s, lived with one of his parents, who he says did not care what he was doing online. “At the time, it felt normal, but looking back I can see that it got out of hand quite quickly,” Thomas says. When he got a girlfriend at 16, he started having sex and watched less pornography. But the addiction was just waiting to resurface, he says.
Continue reading...Hundreds of millions of children fell behind around the world as schools closed during the pandemic. We look at four countries as pupils try to resume their education
Children’s mental health suffers as schools remain shut
Continue reading...Covid, climate breakdown, poverty and war threaten return to school after pandemic kept 1.5bn children out of classes
The education of hundreds of millions of children is hanging by a thread as a result of an unprecedented intensity of threats including Covid 19 and the climate crisis, a report warned today.
As classrooms across much of the world prepare to reopen after the summer holidays, a quarter of countries – most of them in sub-Saharan Africa – have school systems that are at extreme or high risk of collapse, according to Save the Children.
Continue reading...Outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant have led to closures in some countries, while others push to keep classrooms open
As countries across Asia battle worsening Covid outbreaks, schools face particular challenges in keeping children and teachers safe. Some countries – determined that classrooms stay open – are relying on measures like masks, smaller groups and even bans on talking in class to limit infections. In others, schools remain shut.
Here’s a look at what countries around Asia and the region are doing to prevent Covid spread in schools:
Continue reading...
The Guardian’s world affairs editor, Julian Borger, is monitoring the latest updates on Afghanistan.
Responding to repeated questions about civilian casualties from a drone strike on Kabul on Sunday, the Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby said: “We are not in a position to dispute it right now, and ... we’re assessing, and we’re investigating.”
The US health department is preparing to launch an office focused on the climate crisis as a public health issue, something it outlined in a January executive order.
The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, said resources for the new Office of Climate Change and Health Equity are being assembled now. The WSJ reports:
The new office is likely to spur initiatives touching on many aspects of healthcare, according to people briefed on the planning and White House releases. It is expected to offer protections for populations most at risk—including the elderly, minorities, rural communities and children—and could eventually lead to policies compelling hospitals and other care facilities to reduce carbon emissions, the people said.
Continue reading...Machines to be used to clean up after Covid outbreaks part of £5.9m initiative to improve air quality
A £3.3m scheme to provide schools in Wales with machines that disinfect classrooms after a Covid outbreak has prompted calls for reassurance over their safety.
The Welsh education ministry said on Monday that all schools, universities and colleges in Wales would be supplied with ozone disinfecting machines for cleaning up Covid-hit classrooms.
Continue reading...Pressure grows to begin booster jabs for the vulnerable and extend vaccinations to younger teenagers
Coronavirus infections in England are now 26 times the levels that were experienced this time last year, according to the Office for National Statistics. Scientists described the figures as “sobering”.
They warned that the reopening of schools in England this week was likely to trigger further rises in Covid cases – with more to follow when students return to universities and colleges. A fresh wave of infections could, in turn, lead to new social restrictions being imposed as winter approaches.
Continue reading...