25,000 grave violations were committed against children in conflict in 2019, says the UN, which hopes to highlight issue with new international day
When Islamic State fighters rolled into Mosul, Iraq, they made promises.
“When they arrived they promised us salvation, a better life, but within months our schools were closed and we were living in fear, prisoners in our own city,” says Usama Salem, 11.
Continue reading...Educators in the disputed region are fighting to keep pupils on track amid repeated lockdowns, curfews and internet blackouts
Asmat Jan, 15, practises her singing in a meadow, against a backdrop of Kashmir’s towering mountains. In front of her, around 50 other children squat in perfect, straight lines. A couple of adults hover nearby.
Education has gone open-air across the valley in Indian-administered Kashmir and this is one of the many makeshift community classes that have sprung up in response to the repeated closure of schools under two separate lockdowns, alongside a communication blackout in this hotly disputed territory imposed in August last year. While political restrictions have eased a little in Kashmir since India revoked the region’s special status and degree of autonomy, a brief reopening of education in February lasted only until April’s Covid-19 lockdown brought classes to yet another grinding halt.
Continue reading...Researchers call for age-based symptom checklists as virus presents differently in children
Fatigue, headache and fever are the most common symptoms of coronavirus in children, with few developing a cough or losing their sense of taste or smell, researchers have found, adding to calls for age-specific symptom checklists.
The NHS lists three symptoms as signs of Covid-19 in adults and children: a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, and a loss or change in the sense of smell or taste.
Continue reading...Children packed in like sardines, few face masks ... an English secondary teacher records pupils’ return
I wake at 4am, two hours before my alarm is due to go off, with sneezing fits and stomach cramps – cramps are one of my symptoms of anxiety.
Continue reading...As a new school year begins across Europe, governments are balancing the need to get children back in the classroom against the risks of a new spike in covid infections
Continue reading...Parents and teachers fear face masks and other measures not enough to prevent second wave
Tens of millions of pupils, most wearing face masks, have headed back to class in France, Belgium, Poland and Russia, as schools across Europe cautiously reopened amid spiralling numbers of new coronavirus cases in several countries.
Parents and teachers around the continent have expressed fears that strict physical distancing and hygiene measures such as hand cleansing stations will not be able to prevent a second Covid-19 wave, maybe coinciding with the autumn flu season.
Continue reading...Party in despair, senior MP says, as Labour draws level in wake of exam chaos and Covid U-turns
Boris Johnson is facing a showdown with furious Conservative MPs over his government’s chaotic handling of Covid-19, as a new poll shows the Tories have surrendered a massive lead over Labour in just five months.
As MPs prepare to return to Westminster on Tuesday, Charles Walker, who is vice-chair of the 1922 committee of Conservative backbenchers, told the Observer that a recent string of U-turns had left many colleagues in despair, with some struggling to support and defend their government to constituents. Governing by U-turn in this way, he said, was unsustainable.
Continue reading...As government guidance continues to change over mask-wearing in schools, many are anxious about the risk to families
Eva Harratt, 13, would love to go to the park to meet her friends but it is forbidden because she lives in Oldham, the town in Greater Manchester facing restrictions due to a rise in Covid-19 cases. And yet, in five days, she is expected to return to her 1,370-pupil school and sit in classes of 30.
She likes school, misses her friends and wants to go back, but her mother is in the most vulnerable category because of an autoimmune disease. “Returning to school, I feel, is just not an option for me. They don’t appear to have given much thought to families with shielding members, or how that may affect them. Personally, I would prefer for things to go back to normal as soon as possible, but in the current situation, it is just not plausible for me,” says Eva.
Continue reading...As schools in England prepare to reopen, we examine the situation around the world
As schools in England and Wales get set to reopen amid continued controversy over safe conditions, attention has focused on potential evidence of coronavirus transmission in the classroom and on the experiences of other countries.
Research on the ability of children of different ages to catch and transmit the virus is contradictory, and differences in education systems and social conventions make comparisons difficult.
Continue reading...Prime minister makes another coronavirus U-turn days before return to classrooms
Pupils in England will no longer be advised against using face masks in secondary schools after Boris Johnson made an 11th-hour U-turn days before classrooms reopen.
In lockdown areas such as Greater Manchester, which have greater restrictions to stop the spread of the virus, wearing face coverings will become mandatory in school corridors where social distancing is more difficult.
Continue reading...Nearly 550,000 pupils in England receive GCSE results awarded entirely by assessment for first time, but BTec students face further disruption
My colleagues Pamela Duncan and Tobi Thomas from the Guardian’s data unit report discrepancies in today’s GCSE results:
A rising tide lifts all boats and this year’s algorithm-to-teacher-graded-U-turn has resulted in an increase in top grades across every subject. However, some subjects’ boats were lifted higher than others.
After all the uncertainty of the exams fiasco, head teachers across the country are celebrating their pupils’ GCSE success, but they say recent experiences have damaged relations with the Department for Education (DfE).
Jules White, head teacher of Tanbridge House secondary school in Horsham, West Sussex and leader of the Worth Less? education funding campaign, was with pupils this morning, watching with delight as they found out their grades.
Continue reading...Education secretary forced into humiliating reversal on A-level and GCSE grades in England
Gavin Williamson has tried to lay the blame for the exams fiasco at the door of the regulator Ofqual after a humiliating climbdown that overturned up to 2.3m grades but left thousands of pupils in limbo.
Two days after saying there would be “no U-turn, no change”, the education secretary apologised and ordered a complete reversal whereby pupils in England will be able to revert to the A-level grades recommended by their teachers, if those are higher.
Continue reading...Exams regulator Ofqual announces all A-levels and GCSEs in England will now be graded according to teacher assessment following similar moves in Wales, NI and Scotland
One of the groups that had been planning to take the UK government to court over exam grades has said it is dropping its legal action, following the U-turn. Jo Maugham QC, the director of the Good Law Project, tweeted:
Statement on Government A Level U-turn pic.twitter.com/wEWYElgCil
Mary Curnock Cook, the former chief executive of Ucas, said the government must announce immediately that the cap on university admissions will be lifted to accommodate the new grading system.
Many universities will have already filled their courses based on the grades published last Thursday. Speaking on BBC News, she said:
Decisions have already been made by universities about who they accept, who they don’t accept, who goes into clearing and so on. This change will mean that universities have to rethink completely.
Continue reading...Children’s groups call for meal provision to extend to families barred from UK state support
Thousands of children from migrant families are at risk of hunger when schools reopen in the UK unless the free meal provision is extended, according to a group of 60 organisations.
The Children’s Society, Action for Children, Project 17 and Unison are among the organisations that have written to the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, calling on him to extend free school meals to pupils from low-income migrant families classed as having “no recourse to public funds”.
Continue reading...First minister apologises after predicted awards downgraded more heavily in poorer areas
Nicola Sturgeon has apologised to tens of thousands of Scottish teenagers whose exam results were downgraded last week and promised urgent changes to their awards.
The first minister attempted to defuse a growing crisis for her government by confirming that her deputy, John Swinney, would lay out proposals to regrade results in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday.
Continue reading...As schools around the world prepare to reopen, new scientific evidence about children and coronavirus is coming to light
Back in April, the French epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet found himself leading an investigation in the town of Crépy-en-Valois, a small community of 15,000 inhabitants just to the north-east of Paris. In February, the town’s middle and high schools had become the centre of a new outbreak of Covid-19.
Fontanet and colleagues from the Pasteur Institute in Paris were tasked with conducting antibody testing across Crépy-en-Valois to understand the extent to which the virus had been circulating. As they surveyed the town, they noted an interesting pattern. While the virus had spread rampantly through the high school, with 38% of students being infected, along with 43% of teachers and 59% of non-teaching staff, the same was not true for the town’s six primary schools. While three primary-age pupils had caught Covid-19 in early February, none of these infections had led to a secondary case. Overall, just 9% of primary age pupils, 7% of teachers and 4% of non-teaching staff had been infected with the virus.
Continue reading...Prime minister says it is a ‘national priority’ and ‘moral duty’ to get all pupils back into classrooms
Boris Johnson has spoken of “a moral duty” to get all children back in class amid indications he would force pubs, restaurants and shops to close ahead of schools in the event of severe coronavirus flare-ups.
The prime minister is understood to favour only closing schools as the last resort after scientific advisers warned more restrictions may be needed to reopen classrooms in England next month.
Continue reading...Language decline among newly qualified teachers could undermine goal of reaching 1 million Welsh speakers
A “striking” decline in the number of newly qualified teachers able to teach in Welsh could undermine the country’s ambition to have a million speakers of the language in 30 years’ time, a report warns.
The Welsh language commissioner, Aled Roberts, expressed concern about the trend and called for the devolved government to take urgent action to reverse the fall.
Continue reading...Exclusive: from schools to policing, 50 people share their experiences of growing up in the UK
Following the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK and across the world, the Guardian interviewed 50 young black Britons, many of whom have been at the heart of the recent anti-racism protests, to ask what changes they would like to see in their lifetime.
Three demands came up repeatedly: decolonising the curriculum; divesting funds away from police forces in favour of a public health-focused approach to crime; and better representation of black Britons across a wider section of society.
Continue reading...Governor Gavin Newsom said public schools will not be allowed to hold in-person classes if their county is on a monitoring list
California’s governor has announced strict rules for school reopening that would prevent the vast majority of students from returning to classrooms in the fall as coronavirus cases hit their highest levels yet in the state.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the new guidance on Friday, which mandates that public schools in California counties that are on a monitoring list for rising coronavirus infections cannot hold in-person classes, and will have to meet rigorous criteria for reopening.
Continue reading...