Brown's education shake-up

New prime minister Gordon Brown has scrapped the Department for Education and Skills and brought in a new Department for Children, Schools and Families.
Headed by his closest ally Ed Balls, the new department will cover child poverty and youth justice as well as schools, children's social care and family policy.
Universities will go to a new Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.
Mr Balls said, "It is a great honour and a great responsibility to be the first ever Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. Children and families are the bedrock of our society and for the first time this new department will bring together all aspects of policy affecting children and young people.
"Every parent wants their child to get the best possible start in life and have the best chance to do well in school. Our responsibility will be to support families and ensure that all children and young people are safe and healthy, that they secure the highest standards of achievements, that they enjoy their childhood and that they can make a positive contribution to society free from the effects of poverty."

Plan for specialist primary schools

Thirty-four UK primary schools are to become specialist in the way many secondary schools are now, in a pilot scheme beginning next term.

The will each focus on either music, modern languages, science, sport or art, with the aim of raising test results.

Clusters of suitable schools were identified to the Department for Education and Skills (DFES) by local authorities, and each group will receive an initial £10,000, plus £65 per pupil for four years, £25,000 in sponsorship and £50,000 in capital funding.

A spokeswoman from the DFES said: “Having a specialism provides a school with a strong focus that raises standards across the whole curriculum and offers children new opportunities to realise their potential.”

School is failing poorest children

Education is failing to enable children from poorer backgrounds to improve their quality of life, a report has found.

Children in the UK are now less likely to be socially mobile than a generation ago, and UK children fared the worse of all developed countries surveyed in the study.

The report, produced by education charity the Sutton Trust in conjunction with the London School of Economics, called for a cross-party commission to be set up to address the issue.

Founder of the Sutton Trust, Sir Peter Lampl, said that education opportunities had gone disproportionately to the more well-off, and that the problem was so deeply rooted it went ‘beyond party politics’.

The Sutton Trust also said there should be improved provision of early years education to prevent children falling behind by the age of three.

"Halal" meat concern

Muslim pupils in Lancashire have been urged to reject school meals containing meat, following concerns it may not be halal.

The Lancashire Council of Mosques has advised parents to give their children packed lunches or to choose vegetarian options at school.

The warning was issued after the meat supplier for school meals was switched.

Scottish doctors call for alcohol education in primary schools

More should be done to teach primary school children about the dangers of alcohol, doctors’ leaders have said.

The British Medical Association (BMA) Scotland is calling for a special focus on young people in an attempt to tackle Scotland’s high alcoholism rates, as part of a five-point plan.

“The BMA would like to see more done in primary schools to educate children about the dangers of drink before they are drawn in by industry advertising,” said Dr Peter Terry, chairman of BMA Scotland.

Family doctors are reporting children as young as 11 being brought into A&E as a result of alcohol misuse and increasing numbers of young people have been seeking NHS help for the problem.

Dr Dean Marshall, chairman of BMA Scotland’s GP committee said: “We want to get to them as early as possible to try to stop this kind of thing developing into a problem into adulthood.”

Six alcohol related deaths take place every day in Scotland, the highest figure in the UK, and alcoholism is estimated to cost the economy £1.1bn annually.

New groups to be banned from work with children

A new list of offences for which someone can be banned forever from working with children has been issued by the government.
Anyone convicted, or cautioned, for a range of sexual and other crimes will be on a list which employers will be able to access. Some of the offences mean an automatic lifetime ban. With others, those listed will be able to make representations to an independent committee in a bid to show they pose no current danger to children.
The second group of offences includes indecency between men (an offence repealed in 1967), harbouring someone sectioned under the Mental Health Act , and possessing forged medical documents.
The government is consulting on the proposals.
Online consultation document on barring proposals under the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006

White boys "most likely to fail at school"

White British children from low income families fare worse at school than low income children from other ethnic groups, according to a new report.
Nearly half of "persistent low achievers" are white boys, says the research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Compared to other groups, white children who start their school careers as low achievers are more likely than children from other ethnic groups to finish as low achievers.
Low income is an important factor, but among children eligible for free school meals, white British children are more likely to be persistent low achievers than other children.
Chinese and Indian pupils are the most successful in avoiding low achievement. Afro-Caribbean pupils have the worst exam results over all, though their results have been improving faster than the national average, and when compared with white British pupils of similar economic backgrounds, they do no worse, say the reports authors.
Tackling low educational achievement

'Let children hurt themselves' say safety experts

Adults shouldn’t prevent children from playing outside and taking risks, says the accident prevention charity RoSPA. “Bumps, bruises and grazes are not serious injuries and are part of growing up. When children spend time in the great outdoors, getting muddy, getting wet, getting stung by nettles, they learn important lessons - what hurts, what is slippery, what you can trip over or fall from,” said a spokesman.

In urban areas, “wild” spaces for play could be created within parks, with opportunities for paddling in streams, building dens and climbing trees.

RoSPA encourages parents to talk to their children about risks and how to cope with them, for example they might discuss why not all trees, such as those by roads or above concrete or railings, are good choices for climbing.

TA loses religious discrimination case over Harry Potter

A teaching assistant who said she was a victim of religious discrimination has lost her unfair dismissal case.

Sariya Allan, a Pentecostal Christian, said she was forced to resign after she refused to listen to a child reading Harry Potter.

When a seven year old pupil at Durand primary school in Stockwell south London chose a Harry Potter book to read aloud to her, Miss Allen, 44, told her it was a book of witchcraft.

When the child’s mother complained to the school she was given a written warning. She later resigned, claiming she had been harassed since she complained that gloves had not been provided for giving first aid to children.

She told the Croydon employment tribunal that she believed “the girl reading the book would be cursing me by reading the spells”. But the tribunal rejected her claim of religious discrimination.

Durand is a non-denominational foundation school so staff are employed directly by the governers rather than the local authority. The school said it would be pursuing Miss Allan for its legal costs in the case. Miss Allan said was considering an appeal against the tribunal’s judgment.

Free meals trial

School meals will be will be free in Scotland’s most deprived areas for a trial period, Scottish Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop has announced.

The £5million scheme will be piloted for six months from October.

Child poverty in Scotland is estimated to affect 23 per cent of children.

Ms Hyslop said: “The pilot itself will bring its own short-term benefits in terms of health and nutrition for some of our poorest children.

“The main aim is for our youngest children to develop a taste for healthy foods and the social skills that come from sitting down to eat with friends every day.”

Testing for happiness

Primary school children will face ‘happiness tests’ to assess their well-being as part of the government’s £20million emotional literacy initiative.

Children will be asked to respond with ratings to questions such as whether they have been feeling ‘close to other people’, ‘optimistic about the future’ or whether they have been ‘dealing with problems well’.

The process will be simplified for younger children.

The questionnaire is being developed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), an independent body producing guidance on public health, along with Warwick and Edinburgh universities.

NICE say that five to ten-year-olds are at an eight per cent risk of being diagnosed with a mental disorder, rising to 12 per cent for 11 to 16-year-olds.

Since the Education and Inspections Act 2006, primary schools have a specific duty to promote the well-being of pupils.

"Invisible" children

Schools have been urged to look out for “invisible children” who are failing to reach their potential.

A government report has identified so-called ‘invisible’ children in Key Stage 2 who don’t mind not getting attention, and are neither very bad nor very good.

It includes ideas for ways to lure children out of their ‘comfort zones’, highlighting the example of quiet children who avoid answering questions in class.

It suggests individual children should sometimes be asked to answer questions in class, instead of a general invitation for “hands up”.

Children can also be asked to discuss questions in pairs before answering, or be given 30 seconds thinking time.

Some pupils end Key Stage 1 with good results in English and Maths, yet during Key Stage 2 their rate of progress slows down.

The report is the first in a major new series for teachers and learners, and was produced after interviews with hundreds of teachers and pupils.