Category Archives: Education

Europe’s medical schools to give more training on diseases linked to climate crisis

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New climate network will teach trainee doctors more about heatstroke, dengue and malaria and role of global warming in health

Mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and malaria will become a bigger part of the curriculum at medical schools across Europe in the face of the climate crisis.

Future doctors will also have more training on how to recognise and treat heatstroke, and be expected to take the climate impact of treatments such as inhalers for asthma into account, medical school leaders said, announcing the formation of the European Network on Climate & Health Education (Enche).

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Private faith schools in UK lobby for VAT exemption on fees under £7,690

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Group says government policy would force many to close and leave deeply religious families with no alternatives

Independent faith schools have held talks with ministers over a proposal to exempt small private establishments from VAT if their fees are far below those charged by elite schools such as Eton.

The group, representing more than 270 Jewish, Muslim and Christian independent faith schools that often rely on donations and volunteers to survive, say the government’s policy of adding 20% VAT to fees from this January would force many to close and leave deeply religious families with no alternatives.

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School starters born during pandemic lack communication skills, Ofsted says

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English primary schools having to help infants catch up on speech and language to cope with lessons

Primary schools are having to teach infants how to communicate, as they struggle to make friends or cope with lessons because of speech and language difficulties, according to a report by Ofsted.

The research by Ofsted inspectors, based on visits to schools in England rated as good or outstanding, found that the Covid pandemic “is still having an impact on children’s behaviour and social skills”.

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Doubts grow over Labour’s VAT plan for private schools

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The Treasury refuses to confirm 1 January start date as unions, tax experts and school leaders say it is unworkable

Government plans to impose VAT on private schools from 1 January next year may have to be delayed because of warnings from unions, tax experts and school leaders that meeting the deadline will cause administrative chaos and teacher job losses, and put pressure on the state sector.

The Treasury on Saturday night refused to confirm that the plan to impose 20% VAT on private school fees would go ahead from 1 January, as confirmed by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in July, instead saying it would be introduced “as soon as possible”.

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Private London college taught students by showing videos, investigation reveals

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Business students at £9,250-a-year Regent College London raised series of complaints with Office for Students

Students at a private higher education college charging £9,250 a year were taught by staff reading out bullet points and showing videos, according to an investigation that found one tutor held an online class while appearing to be on public transport.

The students attending Regent College London told investigators from England’s higher education regulator that teaching staff changed frequently, including one cover tutor who “arrived almost half an hour late” to host an online class and “was clearly travelling or in a public place”.

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Children in youth offender institutions in England denied access to education, report finds

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Joint review by chief of Ofsted and prisons chief inspector discovers children kept in cells to avoid conflict

Children in youth offender institutions (YOIs) are being denied access to education, with too many being kept in their cells as staff struggle to keep warring youngsters apart, a damning new report has found.

It documents a worrying decline in the quality and quantity of education provided to 15 to 18-year-olds in YOIs over the last decade despite a sharp drop in the number of children being held in custody.

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Teachers in England vote overwhelmingly to accept pay rise offer

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NEU snap poll shows 95% of members voting for 5.5% pay rise, ending months of industrial action

Teachers in England have voted overwhelmingly to accept a 5.5% pay rise but warned ministers that without further “corrections” pay would remain uncompetitive and teacher shortages would persist.

Of those members who responded to the National Education Union’s snap poll, 95% voted to accept the 2024-25 offer, which would give schools an additional £1.2bn to cover the pay rise.

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Major fears over Labour’s nursery plan for 9-month-olds in schools

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Early years experts warn of lack of staff, playgrounds and toilets

Primary schools may not have enough space, specialist facilities or staff to deliver the 100,000 new nursery places in England that the government has promised, early childhood experts have warned.

Labour is under intense pressure to create enough places to fulfil its promise of 30 hours of free childcare a week for eligible parents of children from the age of nine months to three years from next September – a commitment inherited from the previous government.

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Italy revives policy of failing badly behaved pupils to ‘bring back respect’

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‘Grades for conduct’, similar to a law introduced by Mussolini, aims to tackle rising aggression towards teachers

Italy has reinstated a measure to fail badly behaved pupils as concerns grow over aggression directed at teachers.

The “grades for conduct” policy, similar to a measure first introduced by Benito Mussolini’s fascist government in 1924, is part of an education bill that was approved in parliament on Wednesday, and gives schools the power to fail students based purely on their behaviour.

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‘Chucky goes north’: Rochdale reacts to arrival of ‘creepy’ giant baby

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Lilly, an 8.5-metre tall puppet designed to help children talk about the environment, provokes mixed response

They say it is rude to comment on a baby’s appearance but that has not stopped the residents of Rochdale, who awoke on Wednesday to a “freaky” new arrival.

Lilly, an 8.5-metre tall puppet designed to help children talk about the environment, went on display in the town centre to a somewhat bewildered response.

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Ofsted cannot be allowed to reform itself, say teachers’ unions

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Sister of headteacher Ruth Perry, who killed herself last year, joins call for ‘complete reset’ of schools inspectorate

Education unions are to warn that Ofsted cannot be trusted to reform itself, as headteachers ­continue to report that school inspections are leaving their staff feeling distressed.

Prof Julia Waters, sister of the Reading headteacher Ruth Perry, who killed herself last year after an inspection downgraded her school from outstanding to inadequate, will call on the government to make deeper reforms of the inspectorate at the Labour party conference on Sunday. While welcoming the government’s recent confirmation that Ofsted’s single-word judgments will be scrapped, Waters, along with all four teaching unions, said the inspector still operated with a culture of “fear and terror”.

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‘He felt absolutely lost’: the crisis behind the rising number of UK children being homeschooled

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Anxiety is the most common reason why parents choose to take pupils out of school

Steve Bladon has been a headteacher for a decade. Yet when he found himself temporarily home educating his 11-year-old daughter, who had such severe anxiety that she couldn’t leave the house, he admits he felt “absolutely lost”.

“Initially we had no idea what to do,” he said. “All we knew was that she needed time and space, so we weren’t compounding her anxiety.”

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EU to offer new youth mobility scheme in test of Labour ‘reset’ with Brussels

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Officials warn repeat of Tory rejection could dent new government’s hopes of pacts on defence and agriculture

Fresh proposals to allow young people to move between the UK and the EU will be presented to the British government within weeks, in what is seen as a key early test of Labour’s “reset” in relations with Brussels.

Informed sources say the first draft of a new version of Ursula von der Leyen’s April proposal has already been discussed by member states and will be put to a working group in Brussels next week.

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Swedish children to start school a year earlier in move away from play

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Compulsory preschool year for six-year-olds to be replaced with extra year in primary school from 2028

Children in Sweden are to start school at six years old from 2028, a year earlier than at present, in an overhaul of the country’s education system that signals a switch from play-based teaching for younger children.

The government has announced plans to replace a compulsory preschool year for six-year-olds known as förskoleklass with an additional year in grundskola (primary school).

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Teachers in England offered lie-ins to make job more appealing

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Other perks including nine-day fortnight and more planning time at home offered to attract recruits

Teachers in England are being offered a range of incentives to make the job more appealing, including two free periods a week to give them a lie-in, a nine-day fortnight and more planning time at home to help with work-life balance.

An escalating crisis in teacher recruitment and retention is forcing schools and academy trusts to come up with novel ways to attract new recruits into the profession and keep experienced staff in front of classes.

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Nurseries in England say new rules have reduced care to ‘crowd control’

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The first study into Tory shake-up of childcare shows staff are overwhelmed

The first major study into the Conservatives’ controversial shake-up of childcare has revealed that nursery staff are often doing more “crowd control” than education, because of the increased number of children they are looking after.

Since September last year, nurseries in England have been allowed to increase child-to-staff ratios, so one adult now looks after five two-year-olds rather than four. The change was intended to help deliver the party’s pledge of 15 hours’ free childcare a week from this month for working parents of children aged from nine months to three years.

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Experts raise concerns over ‘unreliable’ marking of GCSE English

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Some high-achieving pupils in England received lower than expected grades that rose after being re-marked

Concerns have been raised about the reliability of the marking of GCSE English this summer, after complaints that normally high-achieving pupils in schools in England were awarded lower than expected results, which then went up after being re-marked.

In some cases, marks for individual questions doubled after a review, and at least one pupil’s grade jumped from 6 to 9. GCSEs are graded on a scale of 1 to 9, with 9 the highest grade.

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UK English curricula should focus on ‘inclusive and diverse’ stories, author says

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Ex-children’s laureate Malorie Blackman says no student should feel English is irrelevant because they do not see themselves reflected in the literature

The English literature curriculum ought to include more “inclusive and diverse” contemporary stories that are “relevant and relatable” to young people’s lives, Malorie Blackman has said.

The author of the Noughts and Crosses novels said in the foreword to a Lit in Colour campaign report that it could encourage more children to read for pleasure. She also said that no child should feel that studying English at school is irrelevant because “they never see themselves” reflected in the literature.

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Religious groups ‘spending billions to counter gender-equality education’

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Report reveals how US Christians, Catholic schools and Islamists fight sex education, LGBTQ+ and equal rights

Extreme religious groups and political parties are targeting schools around the world as part of a coordinated and well-funded attack on gender equality, according to a new report.

Well-known conservative organisations aim to restrict girls’ access to education, change what is on the curriculum, and influence educational laws and policies, according to Whose Hands on our Education, a report by the Overseas Development Institute.

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Sex ed Paraguay-style: condoms are unsafe, silence on LGBTQ+ people

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Country awash with teenage pregnancies to launch new school curriculum on sex – but is it worse than none at all?

Paraguay, which has the second highest rate of teenage pregnancy in South America, is about to approve its first national sex education curriculum.

But activists, students and parents have expressed concern about the new guidelines, which warn that condoms cannot be trusted, masturbation leads to loneliness and make no mention of LGBTQ+ people.

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