Academies are turning away children with special needs in order to ‘cherry-pick’ pupils who are likely to get the best results, the head of a leading charity has warned. Anna Feuchtwang, of the National Children’s Bureau, told The Independent the charity had heard repeated reports of children with special educational needs being rejected by academies because they did not have an education, health and care plan. Read more
A school is more likely to remain inadequate if it becomes a sponsored academy, new Ofsted data suggests. The watchdog has released statistics on the outcomes of the latest inspections for schools previously rated inadequate. It shows that where the schools were sponsored academies that had replaced maintained schools, 12 per cent remained inadequate. But only 2 per cent of non-academy state schools received the bottom rating when Ofsted returned. Read more
Deaf children are being let down by the education system, with growing numbers of specialist schools closing and too many vulnerable pupils struggling in mainstream settings, according to campaigners. The Royal School for Deaf Children in Margate, Kent, which was the oldest deaf school still operating in the UK, dating back to 1792, is the latest to close its doors. Read more
There has been a transformation in English education in the last decade – the academies programme has brought private trusts and corporate sponsors into the schools system. These have included a steady trickle of the country’s universities as they seek a business advantage, a better corporate image, and perhaps even a revenue stream. What has been the impact on academy schools? Read more
Poor white boys are being ignored by education policy despite the gap in educational attainment increasing, the head of UCAS has warned. Mary Curnock Cook also questioned whether the fight for equality in women’s education could have become so ‘normalised’ that ‘the need to take positive action to secure equal education outcomes for boys’ may not have been recognised. Read more
Many UK parents find it easier to get their children to do homework, go to bed or have a bath than turn off their phones, laptops and TVs, a poll finds. A survey for the charity Action for Children found almost one in four mothers and fathers struggle to control their children’s screen use. The charity has published a series of tips to help families reduce the amount of time children spend watching television and using screens. Read more
The man behind the Pisa global education rankings is predicting a big shift in the way its results are viewed, when the next set are published in 2016. Andreas Schleicher told TES he expected the 70 participating governments to pay close attention to Pisa’s first ever test of pupil teamwork. Education ministers are going to find out if good learners are also good collaborators, through the results of a new Pisa test in ‘collaborative problem-solving’. Read more
In non-faith schools, collective daily worship must be ‘wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character’, while at faith schools, the worship must be in accordance with the religion or religious denomination of the school. Yet the legal requirement in England and Wales for daily worship appears to be honoured more in the breach than in the observance at non-faith schools. So, asks the BBC’S Caroline Wyatt, does daily worship count for anything? Read more