The PSHE Association has launched ‘A curriculum for life’, a new report setting out the latest compelling evidence for making PSHE education a statutory part of the curriculum. The Association hopes Ministers will consider this evidence as they prepare to respond to the Commons Education Committee’s recommendation that the subject should be given statutory status. The Government has committed to making a decision on this issue by the end of the year. Read more
Kilgarth School in Birkenhead reached new heights earlier this year. Ofsted inspectors rated it outstanding, crowning a series of awards for staff. The inspectors said students made remarkable progress, with some achieving five GCSEs after being failed throughout primary school. Their behaviour was judged to be outstanding, with staff praised as ‘exceptionally skilled and sensitive’. It was at this point that Kilgarth School decided to take an extraordinary step: it abolished punishment completely. Read more
Widespread cuts to children’s centre budgets are likely to have a damaging effect on hundreds of thousands of families, a charity says. A 4Children survey of managers responsible for 1,000 children’s centres in England suggests two-thirds faced budget cuts this year. It is the fourth year running that a majority of centres have reported cuts when responding to the annual survey. Read more
Marcus Powell was a cheerful, happy-go-lucky child with a circle of good friends in the reception class at Trinity primary school in Hereford. His classmates seemed not to notice the side of Marcus’s disfigured face. Everything changed, though, when Marcus moved up a year and the children became more conscious of his disfigurement. Read more about how appearance bullying can affect a child’s education and the work of the charity Changing Faces.
Most arguments for ‘saving’ the humanities focus on the fact that employers prize the critical thinking and communication skills that undergraduate students develop. Although that may be true, such arguments highlight the value of classroom study, not the value of research. But humanities research teaches us about the world beyond the classroom, and beyond a job. So why is groundbreaking, life-changing research being ignored? Read more
More than £500m should be taken from UK universities in the Spending Review and given to further education colleges. Universities are sitting on vast reserves of £12.3bn while in contrast the National Audit Office has warned that more than one in four further education colleges could be bankrupt within a year, the report by the think-tank Policy Exchange says. Read more
Schools should consider paying governors if they want to improve the quality and diversity of their governing bodies, according to a new report. Chairs of governing boards, particularly in multi-academy trusts and larger schools, should be suitably remunerated in return for their time, the research suggests. The document was co-authored by MP Neil Carmichael, chair of the Commons education select committee. Read more
Almost one in five young people lives with high levels of anxiety, according to figures on wellbeing published by the Office for National Statistics. The study looked at the wellbeing and mental health of 7.5 million young people in the UK aged 16 to 24. The figures also show a rising proportion of young people who felt dissatisfied with their health. Read more