Sites will accommodate 4,000 children as part of ministers’ plan to improve childcare, Bridget Phillipson to announce
About 200 school-based nurseries will open in England this September as part of the government’s plan to improve access to childcare for working parents.
The milestone will be announced on Monday by Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, who will say that the sites will accommodate 4,000 children under school age.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Report from Independent Schools Australia calls for data collection on student school refusal to better tackle rising absenteeism
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A new report has urged the federal government to collect national data on chronic absenteeism and embed layers of support in schools to tackle Australia’s growing student attendance crisis.
The report, provided exclusively to Guardian Australia by Independent Schools Australia (ISA), drew from interviews with academics, mental health clinicians and teachers. It called on the government to implement a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) to better support children struggling to stay in school.
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Continue reading...Disciplinary hearing finds two police officers’ search of Child Q, 15, was disproportionate and humiliating
Two police officers who were involved in the strip-search of a black teenager at her school have been found to have committed gross misconduct.
The search at a school in Hackney, east London, was “disproportionate, inappropriate and unnecessary” and made the girl, known as Child Q, feel degraded and humiliated, a panel concluded at the end of a four-week misconduct hearing.
Continue reading...Rosemary Gamble, owner of Taz-Zorb which set up the equipment in Tasmania, had pleaded not guilty to failing to comply with workplace safety laws
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The families of the six children killed in a primary school jumping castle incident are angry after the operator who set up the castle was found not guilty of a workplace safety charge.
Chace Harrison, Jalailah Jayne-Maree Jones, Zane Mellor, Addison Stewart, Jye Sheehan and Peter Dodt died after the incident at Hillcrest primary school in Devonport in December 2021.
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Continue reading...Shadow chancellor says Badenoch ‘is the person to lead us’ and compares her to Thatcher, who ‘in the end, got it together’
Stride stresses the need for politicians to consider policy carefully, saying this is harder in the era of social media.
The digital age has many advantages, but in some ways, it has ushered in the death of what we might call the age of thoughtfulness, by which I mean, the careful consideration of arguments in order to establish the truth …
Audiences are increasingly attracted to the fleeting sparkle of the novel or shocking or celebrity, or in some cases simply the fake, and that risks allowing attractive but shallow arguments to take hold.
The fact is, for a large swathe of the population, our economy simply has not been working for them for some considerable time.
Incomes have stagnated. Many feel that the system only works for the benefit of others, for large corporations or people from other countries, but not for them and their families.
Continue reading...ECJ advocate general condemns ‘stigmatising’ law that bars such content from schools and primetime TV
A Hungarian law banning content about LGBTQ+ people from schools and primetime TV has been found to violate basic human rights and freedom of expression by a senior legal scholar at the European court of justice.
The non-binding opinion from the court’s advocate general, Tamara Ćapeta, issued on Thursday, represents a comprehensive demolition of the arguments made by the Hungarian government defending its so-called childprotection law, passed in 2021.
Continue reading...Country at top of education charts aims to equip students and teachers with ‘world-class artificial intelligence skills’
While many schools in England have banned smartphones, in Estonia – regarded as the new European education powerhouse – students are regularly asked to use their devices in class, and from September they will be given their own AI accounts.
The small Baltic country – population 1.4 million – has quietly become Europe’s top performer in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s programme for international student assessment (Pisa), overtaking its near neighbour Finland.
Continue reading...New study found a drop in enjoyment, trust and feelings of safety after year 7 and a largely positive primary experience
One in four pupils in England “disengage” when they move up to secondary school, with enjoyment, trust and a sense of feeling safe declining sharply, according to a new report.
After a largely positive experience at primary school where children report high levels of enjoyment, there is a “steep and lasting” drop in engagement after year 7 when pupils transfer to secondary at the age of 11, the survey of 100,000 pupils in England reveals.
Continue reading...Sutton Trust ‘opportunity index’ measured factors such as children on free school meals passing key GCSEs
The top 20 constituencies with the best social mobility in England are all in London, according to research from a leading education charity that underscores the stark regional divide in children’s life chances.
In a report published on Thursday, the Sutton Trust has put together an “opportunity index” by analysing six measures of mobility. These include the share of children on free school meals who achieve passes in GCSE maths and English; who complete a degree by age 22; and who make it into the top 20% of earners by age 28.
Continue reading...State becomes 16th to allow public funds to be used for private schools, which opponents say will benefit mostly wealthier children
The Texas governor Greg Abbott on Saturday signed a law making more than 5 million students eligible to use state funds for private schools, a watershed moment in the conservative campaign to remake public education in the US.
Texas is allocating $1bn for the first two years of the program to offer parents vouchers to pay for school. It is the 16th state to make all students eligible to receive public funds for private education.
Continue reading...Funding will not be continued next year after bill signed in 2022 helped schools hire more mental health workers
The Trump administration is moving to cancel $1bn in school mental health grants, saying they reflect the priorities of the previous administration.
Grant recipients were notified on Tuesday that the funding will not be continued after this year. A gun violence bill signed by Joe Biden in 2022 sent $1bn to the grant programs to help schools hire more psychologists, counselors and other mental health workers.
Continue reading...Oklahoma case is part of a broader push to erode separation of church and state, and a test of role of religion in schools
The US supreme court’s conservative majority seemed open to establishing the country’s first public religious charter school as they weighed a case Wednesday that could have significant ramifications on the separation of church and state.
The Oklahoma state charter school board approved the application for St Isidore, a Catholic virtual charter school. The ACLU and other groups filed suit, as did Republican attorney general Gentner Drummond. The state supreme court sided with Drummond, ruling that the US and Oklahoma constitutions “prohibit the state from using public money for the establishment of a religious institution”.
Continue reading...Secondary school pupil numbers also likely to outpace government’s recruitment goals, watchdog warns
A key government pledge to appoint 6,500 extra teachers in England by the end of this parliament will be difficult to achieve and is likely to fall short of demand, the UK’s public spending watchdog has warned.
The education secretary Bridget Phillipson’s promise to recruit thousands of extra teachers in state schools, which has been funded by adding VAT to private school fees, forms one of the cornerstones of the government’s education policy.
Continue reading...PM says supporters of both groups are being misled and a tie-up would be a ‘disaster’ for Britain. This live blog is closed
Downing Street has described the alleged comments by the band Kneecap in the ‘kill MP’ footage (see 12.10pm) as “completely unacceptable”.
At the morning lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson described the comments as “completely unacceptable”.
We do not think individuals expressing those views should be receiving government funding.
That’s up to the group, but clearly the PM rejects the views expressed … does not shy away from condemning them.
I don’t want to see strike action, I don’t think anybody wants to see strike action.
And certainly here we are in a healthcare environment with all the staff working really hard. The last thing they want to do is to go into dispute again.
Continue reading...Department for Education criticised over funding rise from £2.58 to £2.61 per child per meal in September
Primary schools in England will be forced to subsidise free school meals for infants from their own budgets after the government’s “pitiful” 3p increase in funding, according to school leaders.
The Department for Education announced that its funding for universal infant free school meals would rise from £2.58 to £2.61 per child in September, with the 3p rise well below expected inflation and wage increases facing schools.
Continue reading...Appointment of leftwinger with no teaching background is controversial in traditionally moderate NASUWT
The leadership of the NASUWT teaching union has been thrown into doubt after a legal challenge was issued over its appointment of a new general secretary.
The application for an injunction, filed with the courts on Wednesday, came after a potential candidate was barred from running for the post, denying members the chance to vote in an open election.
Continue reading...Minister for women and equality makes statement after supreme court ruling on gender recognition
Some MPs and peers are calling for President Trump not to be invited to address parliament when he visits the UK. In 2017, during Trump’s first presidency, the then Speaker, John Bercow, vetoed a proposal for Trump to address parliamentarians in Westminster Hall.
In an interview with Times Radio this morning, Stephen Morgan, an education minister, said Trump should be allowed to give a speech in parliament. Asked if Trump should be allowed to address MPs and peers, Morgan said:
I look forward to the US president addressing parliament in due course.
Continue reading...NASUWT conference votes to launch strike ballot if spending review does not top up school budgets in full
A second teaching union in England has vowed to strike if the government fails to compensate schools in full for next year’s teachers’ pay award.
The NASUWT union’s annual conference voted to reject any pay offer from the government that did not top up school budgets in June’s spending review, and to “move immediately to ballot members for industrial action”.
Continue reading...A survey of more than 14,000 staff also found schools having to step in to provide basic household items
A third of school staff have seen “physical underdevelopment” in students due to poverty, with schools in England stretching their budgets to buy basic household items such as cookers, bedding and clothes for pupils whose families are struggling.
A survey of more than 14,000 school staff, published at the National Education Union’s annual conference in Harrogate, found that this rose to more than half of those teachers working in deprived areas, with warnings that things “can only get worse” after recent benefit cuts.
Continue reading...Data shows 200 independent schools devote fraction of fee income to support disadvantaged pupils based on family income
England’s wealthiest private schools devote only a fraction of their income towards means-tested bursaries, according to research that undermines claims that adding VAT to school fees would decimate support for poorer pupils.
The Private Education Policy Forum (PEPF), a thinktank campaigning for greater equality and transparency among independent schools, gathered data from more than 200 leading schools and found they spent less than 6% of their total fee income on supporting pupils based on family income.
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