Learning Exchange: news centre

24 April:   'Titan' schools   Some primary schools in cities like London are growing to a huge size.

23 April:   Fresh air is free: play study     Research undertaken for food manufacturer Arla's Kids Closer to Nature campaign suggests parents spend less on entertaining their children than they did two years ago; three quarters said they knew that a trip to the local park or green space is a cheap day out; four out of ten said they would choose a cheap trip to the coast to entertain their children.  

23 April:   Child neglect definition: include emotional and educational issues     Children’s charity Action for children wants the 1933 Children and Young Persons Act, England and Wales to also reflect concepts of emotional and educational neglect so that interventions can be ‘triggered earlier in neglected children’s lives’. At present it is a criminal offence under the act for a parent to fail to provide their child with adequate food, clothing, medical aid or lodging.

22 April:   School meals: Tell academies what to provide    So says Jamie Oliver. The government says it trusts academies to give pupils healthy food options.

22 April:   Network of ‘happy’ academies planned   Well-being will be at the heart of the curriculum offered at the network of academies being planned by Anthony Seldon, Master of Berkshire's Wellington College. Wellington College offers a curriculum that includes lessons that develop pupils’ mindfulness, optimism, emotional resilience and self-confidence and Seldon believes other schools would benefit from this approach.

20 April:  Intervene earlier to ensure under-fives are ready for school   In draft guidance, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence says early interventions are needed to ensure that children under five are able to socialise with other children, take instructions from a teacher and go to the toilet without help.

19 April:   Pupil Premium: online tuition for academy disadvantaged pupils   An academy chain has decided to use the Pupil Premium funds allocated to its disadvantaged pupils to offer pupils online tuition. 

19 April:   Free school meals: Linking eligibility to parents' income   There are fears that around 120,000 families may find themselves on a ‘benefit cliff edge’ once low-income benefits are merged into the Universal Credit next year. Linking free school meals to income would catch parents in a trap where work doesn’t pay says the Children’s Society, which is campaigning for free school meals to be offered to all children living in poverty in England - including low-income working families - by October. 

19 April:   Scout leadership: a boost to young people’s employability?   More teenagers than ever have signed up to be Scout Leaders, according to a Scout Association, which may indicate that young people see leadership opportunities as a way to enhance their chances of gaining employment later.  

19 April:   David Cameron’s aspirations for young people    The PM wants to see ‘children who stand up when their parents or teacher walks in the room. He wants to see 'real discipline, rigorous standards, hard subjects. Sports where children can learn about success and, yes, sometimes failure too.’

18 April:   £500,000 training programme for SEN support staff   A new £500,000 programme will allow school support staff to access degree-level and specialist training in helping children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)  

18 April:   Ill? You’re not ill – hurry up and get in the car!   Whether to keep a child who says they are sick at home poses huge dilemmas for parents. Jojo Moyes writes in the Telegraph that a great number of working parents find it difficult to keep their children at home for the odd sniffle.

18 April   Free schools: Is there enough money in the pot?    In this Guardian Mortarboard Blog (though not strictly news), Jeevan Vasagar urges Michael Gove not to let the head of steam built up around the establishment of free schools fizzle out.

18 April:   Water for brains under exam pressure    A study of 447 psychology students at East London University has shown that, across the cohort studied, drinking water during exams improved grades by 4.8 per cent. The study controlled for ability from previous coursework results.

16 April:   Pupil Premium: Is it going where it should?   Analysists at David Lammy MP’s office have looked at where the Pupil Premium is being spread. 
 
16 April:  Truancy and persistent absence from school: 'Swift certain' sanctions   No more taking children out of school for holidays in term time. Schools may also be judged on the number of four-year-olds being absent.

16 April:   School music: cuts threaten extra-curricular opportunities    Music funding for schools will drop from £82 million to only £60 million over the next three years. The Henley review of music education has recommended that local authority-run music services be replaced by ‘hubs’ or partnerships of schools, arts organisations, charities and other education providers. Local authority music services may bid for the right to continue their work.

16 April   Harsher penalties for parents of persistent truants    Child benefit cuts could be the next step for parents whose children persistently truant. Unpaid truancy fines may start to be recovered from child benefit cuts imposed on the parents of children in England who persistently truant.

13 April   Pupil premium: schools to work to targets?   A social mobility strategy will be announced by the government next month. Nick Clegg wants schools to be accountable for how they spend the Pupil Premium funds so that the attainment gap can be tackled in a more systematic way. Some are concerned that this approach may have a detrimental effect on higher-achieving pupils due to attention and resources being channelled towards lower-achieving pupils.

13 April   Play: parents in crisis of confidence   A survey undertaken for the drinks brand Ribena questioned 2,000 parents and found disturbing results. Just one of these is that 59 per cent of dads and 42 per cent of mums are able to play with their children for fewer that five hours a week because they are so busy. 
   
13 April   Exclusions: Schools will be financially penalised    In September, headteachers will have the final say over exclusions of pupils; however, if their exclusions are upheld, they will be required to pay £4,000 to fund the cost of moving the excluded pupils to other provision.

11 April    London schools: extra funds for primary places    Some local authorities in London will receive extra funds for primary school places.
   
10 April    School revolution in England: progress report   Arguments continue, and so does the revolution in the way schools are being managed. Here is a round-up of what’s happened so far.

8 April   Phonics test could fail the brightest   The use of made-up words in the phonics test, which are designed to see if children can decode words when reading, is causing teachers in primary schools concern.

30 March:   Pupil behaviour survey    Attention seeking by pupils and poor home role models are blamed in a survey of 814 teachers by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.

30 March:   Report: Children losing contact with nature   A National Trust report says ‘online games and videos, over-anxious parents and traffic are the main factors that keep children indoors and away from opportunities where they can experience and understand nature.

30 March:   Make-believe: an answer to closing the gap?   An Institute of Education study which tracked 3,000 pupils says that early learning activities are crucial in giving children a three-year academic leg up. Differences between richer and poorer children are evident at age 3. Stimulating home-learning environments are vital and should include being read to, playing with numbers and letters, craft activities, playing with friends at home and elsewhere, and dressing up and ‘make believe’ games.

29 March:   Raising achievement through homework    A study published by the Department for Education says that over two hours a night of actually doing homework can help raise results in English, maths and science. The Oxford University study looked at what 3,000 children actually do rather than what schools have set them to do at home. The homework aspect of the report contradicts other studies of its effect on achievement. 

29 March:   Teachers’ strike: London    Sixty per cent of London schools were apparently affected by Wednesday’s Teachers’ strike.

29 March:   Troubled Families Programme      Ten councils have agreed to take part in the government’s new £448 million payment-by-results Troubled Families Programme. The programme aims to get families with problems back on track, children back to school, parents back into work and reduce youth crime and anti-social behaviour. 

28 March:   Attendance: skipping school without permission    As much as a whole month off school is what around 400,000 pupils are missing each year. However, there has been a drop in the overall number of absences. 

28 March:   Academies: keeping links to local authorities   While the biggest rationale for adopting academy status by many schools has been to acquire more financial autonomy, a new Reform think tank report says there has not been a rush to make drastic changes, innovate or take risks. Rather. academies are maintaining links with local authorities and,  in some cases, working more closely. Respondents to the survey have questioned how much real flexibility is available to academies in the light of pressures from league tables, the English Baccalaureate and Ofsted’s changing approaches to raising standards. The Anti-academies Alliance says the report is ‘partial and selective’. 

28 March:   The Riot Panel’s report is published   The Independent Riots Communities and Victims Panel has now published its report on the causes of the riots in 2011 and its recommendations about how to address the causes. 

27 March:   Does inadequate maths teaching hamper social mobility?   Tory MP Liz Truss claims the Young People’s Learning Agency, which funds Sixth form subjects, gives less to maths teaching than to money media studies, psychology, physics and biology. Truss favours a ‘subject premium to boost funding of maths teaching. 

27 March:  Riot Panel’s final report: headteachers respond    Headteachers view many of the recommendations made in the Riot Panel’s final report as unrealistic. Brian Lightman of the Association of School and College Leaders says the report also fails to recognise the positive measures already happening in schools.

27 March:  School attendance records: best and worst (England)    Lord Storey asked which local authorities have had the best and worst school attendance records between 2005 and 2011. Lord Oareford, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Schools answered. 

23 March:   London schools: strategic oversight proposed   Boris Johnson in his bid to be re-elected as London’s mayor, says that educational underachievement can only be tackled through a systematic approach to tackling social exclusion issues. Mr Johnson believes that social exclusion is the main cause behind last year’s unrest.

23 March:   Learning Exchange member's project attracts attention      Nowt2Do? is a highly successful extra-curricular programme for young people in Wigan. It's co-ordinated by Learning Exchange member Andy Wright and has now attracted the attention of former Olympic gold medalist, Jonathan Edwards.

23 March:   Behaviour: Children's Commissioner says stop ejecting 7 year-olds   England's Children's Commissioner, Maggie Atkinson says that children as young as 7 should never be expelled from school. She maintains there must be a policy that 'presumes against' expelling any child from junior school and is calling for statutory guidance to enforce this.

23 March:   Behaviour improvent and values: Schools have a big role    Delegates at the ASCL's annual conference in Birmingham were told that schools are where some young people have perhaps their only chance to learn traditional values such as respect and care for others, and skills such as being able to sort out differences in a rational manner rather than fighting.

23 March:  Hackney Boxing Academy praised   Dubbed a 'boot camp' by some, the Hackney Boxing Academy is nevertheless having remarkable success in turning around recalcitrant young people with 90 per cent of its pupils going on to further education, training or employment.

23 March:    Free Schools: more of the CofE brand   The Church of England hopes to develop 200 free Anglican schools in the next five years. 

22 March:   Headteachers: survey shows low morale   The ASCL and Times Educational Supplement surveyed over 1,800 school leaders with disturbing results.

20 March:   Literacy standards: No 'luxuriating in outstandingness'    Ofsted's Sir Michael Wilshaw would like to see head teachers of successful schools partnering with struggling primaries and secondaries in their neighbourhoods to improve literacy standards. Those that drag their feet may be downgraded from 'outstanding'.

18 March:   Manchester: £10m investment in youth mental health   There are plans to build a £10m centre where young people with mental health problems can be helped.  NHS Trust has revealed plans to build a £10m centre to help young people with mental health problems in Greater Manchester.

16 March:   Pupil premium for looked-after children: hiccups  More and better communication about the pupil premium and its relevance to looked-after children is necessary.

16 March:   Top marks for UK headteachers   An OECD report rates UK headteachers as the best in the world. The report, Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century showed UK headteachers to be more involved 'in the details of education and teaching than their counterparts in any other industrialised country.'

16 March:   Hand-picked interim board to run school   Downhills school, which has been the focus of attention around a decision convert it into an academy, will now be run by an interim executive board. The former governing body of the school has been disbanded.

16 March:  Summer/transition programmes: keep an eye on Nottinghamshire  Controversially, summer holidays for Notthinghamshire schools will probably be shorter, and schools will be open for five terms each year. Organisations planning summer schools or transition projects in the county will need to keep their eyes on developments.

16 March:   The RHS Campaign for School Gardening   This campaign offers a benchmark scheme to encourage, motivate and support schools to create gardens, providing information and support for new school gardeners. People who are not teachers can also get involved.

16 March:   Wales: support staff take strain   A union survey has found that cover supervisors are taking on increased work burdens as well as being asked to teach pupils although they are not qualified to do so.

15 March:   Dream jobs… but how to get there?   The Royal Institution’s L’Oreal Young Scientist Centre conducted a poll of 1,000 young people aged between 6 and 16. The poll showed that the top ten dream jobs for young people include: astronaut, vet and pilot – all of which are science-based. But careers advice cuts mean young people cannot easily find out what they need to study to work in these fields.

15 March:   School literacy: Ofsted's damning judgement - or useful map?   A new Ofsted report, Moving English forward (Ref: 110118) examines inspection evidence of English between April 2008 and March 2011 in 268 of England’s maintained schools. The report analyses ten areas of weakness and recommends action to improve practice in each. It identifies that writing skills are the least well developed of all literacy skills. 

15 March:   Ofsted’s literacy report: a rebuff    Adrian Prandle of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers thinks Ofsted’s report is too damning of schools and feels it sends a less than supportive message.

15 March:   Back to Basic Code? Or back to basics?   School reporters have surveyed 100 pupils about the Department for Education’s proposals around ICT education, finding some confusion and mixed responses.

15 March:   Foreign languages move up GCSE choice list   According to some, the introduction of the new English Baccalaureate is causing more pupils to take French, Spanish and German at GCSE level. 

14 March:   Maths improvement: practical applications earlier   Look at where maths learners are starting from and use maths in real life situations earlier. Those are the views of maths expert Peter Lacey, Professor Dave Pratt and the National Numeracy charity.

14 March:   Primary schools: will 'bigger be bad'?   The birthrate is rising and some primaries will have up to 1,000 pupils soon. Some fear the supersized primary schools, saying ‘Big is bad. However, the Local Government Association says that schools will be able to cope and the government will provide £4 billion for those areas that are under the most pressure.

13 March:  Student voice: anyone listening?  Research undertaken for the Children’s Commissioner by the National Foundation for Educational Research found a mixed picture. Among the criticisms that have emerged: not all pupils feel they are heard, elections seem more like popularity contests, and communication between pupil councillors and other students is seen as a weak link.

13 March:  Early Intervention Foundation    The government will shortly announce procurement plans for a new Early Intervention Foundation. The new Foundation will provide advice and support to local commissioners on evidence, social finance and payment by results relating to early intervention in order to assist their own procurement and evaluation; and it will build the evidence base on what early intervention approaches work best in the UK.

12 March:    Meet little Wei. He speaks Mandarin...    The Lingo Show on the BBC's CBeebies is using Wei to start children learning Mandarin at a very young age through songs and games. Here is the CBeebies Lingo Show.

12 March:   Attendance: a year out of school   Some pupils in Wales are missing up to a year of school through truancy and poor attendance records.

12 March:   Health: Better access to school nurses    After consulting 300 pupils the government has drawn up plans to improve pupils’ access to school nurses. Text messages, mobile phone apps and emailing will be encouraged so that pupils who feel embarrassed about contacting a school nurse through their teachers can do so directly.

8 March:   New behaviour report: Improving Alternative Provision   Charlie Taylor’s report on alternative provision is now available. 

7 March:   Behaviour improvement: expert teachers and better PRUs   Behaviour improvement tsar Charlie Taylor says that to improve the outcomes for pupils who attend PRUs, the best must be permitted to become academies so they can develop and innovate as well as take over other PRUs that are failing. A workforce of teachers specialising in behaviour improvement is also needed, he says.

7 March:   Report: protect the child benefit   The Child Poverty Action Group, in its Report called Save Child Benefit, says the Child Benefit policy should be dropped as  tweaking it will be too costly and complex, and will not solve the problems it will unleash.

7 March:   Junk the junk food ads, say parents   The Children's Food Trust surveyed 1,000 parents and found over half of them say that junk food ads make it more difficult to keep their children on the healthy food straight and narrow. 
 
7 March:   Big Society: remember the army of 5,000?    Here’s what it’s been up to. Community organisers are working at making the Big Society vision real – with mixed success and the goal posts are moving. They now have to meet targets. 

6 March:   Primary schools will convert to academies   Primary schools that are deemed to be failing to deliver adequate education to their pupils will be forced to convert to academies, ministers have announced.

6 March:   Ofsted says a third of schools must improve   The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) disagrees, saying that more frequent Ofsted visits to lower-achieving schools has ‘skewed the data’.  

6 March:   Councils to run parenting skill improvement trial   Councils that can improve parenting skills, including getting more mothers breastfeeding and improving outcomes for children through children's centre services, will have extra funds to do so.

5 March:   Academics worry: students unable to write adequate essays   ‘Drilling’ children into formulaic writing techniques is not a good grounding for being able to articulate their ideas in academic essays at university.  

5 March:   Scared of looking stupid   A survey of 1,000 10- to 16-year-olds has found that pupils would rather ask friends or their families for maths help They fear venturing an answer in class in case they are deemed stupid by teachers and their peers.

5 March:   Church school are not reflecting their communities   The Guardian analysed the latest government figures and has identified that many Catholic primary and secondary school pupils come from more affluent backgrounds than other pupils in their schools’ local communities. 

2 March:   Poor maths skills = poor outcomes   National Numeracy is a new organisation campaigning for nothing less than the the rebirth of a love of numeracy in the UK. It cites research which shows that poor numeracy levels have are linked to poor outcomes such as being in prison, unemployment, exclusion from school, poverty and long-term illness. 

2 March:   Music lessons... but no music?    Ofsted inspectors say there isn't enough music in music lessons. Also girls in primary schools are twice as likely to be involved in extra-curricular music lessons.

2 March:   Breakfast clubs' plight   Many schools are receiving food from charities to keep their breakfast clubs running. 

1 March:   £50 million summer school fund   From today, secondary schools can apply for £500 per disadvantaged pupil who takes part in a two-week summer school. Pupils on FSM going into Year 7 qualify and so do pupils who have been in care for six or more months.

29 February:   Pay the governors   Effective school governance is more important than ever since school leaders are now at the helm of most of what they do. Governors should be paid for their valuable services, says new Ofsted head – especially if the schools need strong improvement. The National Governors Association does not agree with this view.

28 February:   Network of arts and design Saturday clubs    £15m of pump-priming cash from the Department for Education, over three years, will help form the first national youth dance company plus a national network of art and design Saturday clubs.

28 February:   Darrren Henley report: study arts until 16   There are concerns that the focus being emphasised in the English Baccalaureate will cause pupils to drop arts subjects too early.

28 February:   PFI funded academies in Yorkshire: who picks up the tab?   How PFI funding contracts are managed and by whom is still causing delays in implementing the academies programme. Here is the picture across Yorkshire.

28 February:   Teenage pregnancies falling   New data show that teenage pregnancies in England and Wales are at their lowest since 1969

27 February:   Stop trashing the past and make history local    The Secretary of State for Education wants schools to focus history education on the historical past in their immediate vicinities.

27 February:    PRUs advised to convert to academies   Government behaviour tsar Charlie Taylor believes this will enable them to build better partnerships with other schools, vary their provision develop new expertise and help other PRUs improve.

24 February:   Make maths relevant or risk the economy   Rod Bristow, president of Pearson UK Rod Bristow, warns that ‘widespread cultural apathy’ towards maths is a risk to the UK economy. (Pearson UK owns the Edexcel board.) 

23 February:   Neets up again   Official figures show that the proportion of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) went up when the education maintenance allowance ceased - by one percentage point on the same period in 2010., official figures show.

22 February:   Improving school standards the John Lewis way    Think Tank Policy Exchange is recommending that schools adopt the John Lewis social enterprise model to improve standards. The National Association of Head Teachers has condemned the idea.

22 February:   Homage to a dear teacher   School pupils in Birmingham mourn the loss of a teacher they loved. ‘Mr Rip’ Peter (Rippington) was tragically killed in a coach crash in France this week. 

19 February:   Attendance: No more term-time holidays   Even authorised absences will be curbed to improve attendance and there’ll be tougher fines for truancy.

17 February:   RE in Schools: will it stay?   MPs (115 of them) want the inclusion of religious education under the humanities category in the English Baccalaureate to be debated in parliament.

16 February:   FSM: are parents being confused?   The pupil premium money attached to children signed up for free school meals follows pupils even if they change schools and even if they don’t eat the free meals. But the School Food Trust says poor children should really eat the meals supplied under FSM. 

15 February:   Children’s services cuts: grand scale failure     Michael Marmot, key government adviser on well-being and fairness says cuts to children's services combined with increased taxes on the poor will fail British children ‘on a grand scale’. 
 
13 February:   The rise of mega primaries   Parents are concerned that the size of primary schools in some areas has reached the point where children are overwhelmed by the sheer number of pupils in them. Parents are worrying that a shortage of places is creating "supersize" primary schools, according to the Netmums website.

13 February:   Uniforms, unanswerable questions and blonde carpenters   Education news in brief from guarding.co.uk.

11 February:   More schools needed: Bristol City goes to Westminster   An extra 3,000 children in primary schools by 2015 could spiral to 5,000; Bristol City Councillors have been to London to lobby Nick Gibb, Schools Minister, increase funding to cope with this increase.

11 February:   Young people: their strengths and weaknesses    An Ernst and Young report on research into 1,000 students' strengths found that students scored best in problem solving, pride in their work, being true to themselves, building relationships and having a sense of humour. Their weak spots are overcoming fears and being resilient. Only 25 per cent of the young people interviewed had the skills required to work for the firm.  

10 February:   Attainment: wave arms to improve   Forty schools in north-east England will have their nine-year-old pupils testing exercises set to nursery rhymes in order to boost their results by allowing their central nervous systems to mature. With funds from the Education Endowment fund, the Primary Movement project will further research which has so far shown that pupils who did these exercises gained 15-20 months’ reading progress compared to a control group that did not do the exercises.

10 February:  Culture starved children   A recent study commissioned by Visit Birmingham says that millions of British children are ‘culture starved’. It found that four out of ten children had never been to an art gallery; sadly, too, a quarter of parents interviewed said they thought their children would not be interested in such visits. 

10 February:   Scrap GCSEs   That's the view of the head of Eton College, Tony Little, who believes school pupils should be examined once, at age 18. 

10 February:   Maths improvement: could the Scots teach the English?   To keep up with the best in education around the world, England may need to go no further than north of its border. The Royal Society of Arts reports that Scotland’s level of maths performance is higher that England’s, which is unfit for purpose and poses a risk to its economy.
  
9 February:   OECD: invest more in disadvantaged schools   A new report from the OECD recommends that for everyone to get a fair chance at education, governments must invest more in disadvantaged schools. This would also boost economic growth and lead to a fairer society.  

9 February:   A quarter of schools face downgrading   The key to gaining an outstanding rating from Ofsted will lie in the standard of teaching.

8 February:  Apprenticeship boost for young people   Major high street banks are creating new apprenticeship schemes for  young people. 

7 February:   School sport: austerity update   Since the national network of school sport partnerships came to an end, Jeevan Vasagar of guardian.co.uk takes a look at what is happening to school sport opportunities across the country, including those in extra-curricular time. 

7 February:   Educational development risk factors: what are they?   The results of analysis by the Institute of Education of the risk factors affecting 18,000 families suggests that 28 per cent of families deal with two or more of these: stress, teenage parenthood, depression, low skills and substance/alcohol abuse.

7 February:   Will competition encourage love of books?   Schools Minister Nick Gibb wants to launch a contest in England to give children's literacy a competitive spur. 

5 February:   Is Dickens too difficult?   Claire Tomalin, a Charles Dickens biographer says children's reading attention span these days cannot cope with reading Dickens' books. 

5 February:   Young people's contacts with the workplace are vital   The more young people have contact with employers while at school, the less likely they are to become NEETs.

5 February:   Do young people know how to fail?   'Failure week', planned at Wimbledon High School, aims to teach pupils to be more resilient in relation to taking risks and coping with failure. Pupils will be encouraged to 'have a go'. 

4 February:   Numeracy Campaign   To foster a love of maths among British young people and encourage more to take the subject beyond the age of 16, The Daily Telegraph has started a campaign, Make Britain Count, to give parents help to boost their children's love of maths.

2 February:   Shouters get more attention   A study shows that pupils who 'blurt' their responses to teachers in class do better in maths and English. 

31 January:   School league tables: a 'bonfire'   The government is to reduce the number of qualifications included in school league tables will, in future, no longer include a number of vocational qualifications. The government is removing 94 per cent of these. Listen to this report on the BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 

31 January:   Twitter hotseat    5,000 questions were tweeted by the public to the Commons Education Select Committee. Listen to the Education Secretary Michael Gove answer some.

31 January:  School improvement pledge   Here is Mr Gove pledging to improve schools.

27 January:   Work smarter, pool resources, aim for quality   Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, Tim Loughton’s messages to the youth sector at the National Youth Agency/LGG Conference include: work smarter, pool resources, target the funding that prioritises the most vulnerable, focus on quality outcomes and achieve greater diversity of service providers to get best value for money and to support growth in the voluntary sector.
 
27 January:   Are some parents pushing children too hard?    A headteacher (and some readers who have responded to this article in the Telegraph) claim that some parents risk taking all the fun out of their children’s early childhood by pushing them too far to achieve – in addition to 40 hours of school work and extra-curricular activities, some parents add in extra tutoring for their children. Some are ditching extra-curricular activities in the quest to help their children keep up academically.
 
26 january:   School improvement: 2011 School Performance tables   These are now available on the Department for Education website. (The tables include data on grades of pupils in care and on free school meals.)

26 January:  School improvement: School league tables: 107 secondary schools are failing   These schools may face closure and conversion to academies. 

26 January:   Success at Thomas Telford School in Shropshire    The school's success is down to its extended school day and longer lessons, which means pupils can focus in more depth on what they are learning. The school also has an extensive extra-curricular programme supported by good transport for pupils, many of whom travel long distances to get to school.

26 January:   Is disadvantage a barrier? Headteachers and pupils explain       Only 6.5% of pupils who are deemed to be ‘behind’ when they start secondary school go on to achieve five good GCSEs (including maths and English). Listen to headteachers and pupils explain why the pupils are doing well - and why others are not. You can also watch more related items here.

26 January:   School improvement: it takes time    The academy in Poole may be at the bottom of the GCSE League table but it is also seeing a marked improvement in attendance and behaviour and there were no exclusions in 2011.

24 January:   Pupil premium: more aggressive policy action in education needed      While inequality at the bottom end of society stabilised during the 2000s, Jonathan Portes, Head of the National Institute of Economic and Social Policy Research concludes, in a recent Institute report that it is ‘not plausible to assume that the pupil premium [will] do more than mitigate the impact of other government policies.' Income inequality will rise, he says, due to a combination of austerity measures and wider labour market trends.

24 January:   Behaviour improvement: Nurture groups in Leeds school   An Ofsted report has highlighted the use of anger management classes in a Leeds school, which it it says is breaking the cycle of poor behaviour among its pupils. The school is using a joint-working approach with a learning support unit and an educational psychologist to offer some pupils counselling to improve their social skills and manage their social skills.

23 January:   Any burning questions for Mr Gove    The cross-party Education Select Committee has invited you to pose your burning questions to Michael Gove. Send your questions to Twitter using the hashtag: #AskGove. Deadline is 11 am on 27 January.
 
23 January:  Pupil Premium: good idea, but more needed says OECD   In a recent report, the OECD calls for social inequalities to be mitigated by distributing tax burdens and social opportunities more fairly across society in Britain. The pupil premium receives some favourable comment, but the OECD report says more should be done to support disadvantaged groups of students.

23 January:   Fewer pupils choosing modern foreign lanuages   Data published by the Department for Education data shows that fewer young people leave school having studied a modern foreign language. German and French are least favoured.

22 January:   Who’d be a geek?   Dr Alice Roberts believes that if pupils engage in a wider choice of subjects, rather than specialising too soon, they have a better chance of being attracted into serious science careers. A choice of alternative subjects is more likely to produce ‘more rounded individuals’ she says. 

20 January:   London shines in top ten local authorities   Once adjustments are made for factors that can skew exam performance (such as poverty, ethnicity, a child's first language and gender), nine boroughs in London are on the list of top ten best performing local authorities compiled by think tank CentreForum. 

20 January:   Citizenship: ‘Tent city university’   The Occupy protest movement is engaging in a new education outreach programme to schools. 
 
19 January:   Literacy: Phonics still unpopular   Despite extra funding available to teach reading using the phonics method, the Department for Education says too few are adopting the method. 

18 January:   Health and well-being: young people are not being involved    As the health system undergoes changes, a YoungMinds survey shows that Health & Wellbeing Boards are not prioritising the needs of children and young people as they move forward to set up their new structures and systems. 

18 January:   Summer schools work, says Sutton Trust   University summer schools aimed at 17- and 18-year-old pupils do appear to encourage young people who might not otherwise do so to go to university.

20 January:   Large outdoor play initiative to recruit volunteers   Seventeen national and local organisations are enlisting 20,000 people to help children play safely outdoors.

18 January:   Barclays Bank to support free schools   The banking giant is setting up a £1.25 million fund  to help groups setting up free schools, as well as offer them free banking.

17 January:   School improvement: new Ofsted labels to force change   Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted's chief inspector, wants to change the 'satisfactory' rating so that schools strive to cater better for their pupils. Listen to the interview with Sir Michael on BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

15 January:   School improvement: ten years away   Education Secretary Michael Gove told the BBC Sunday Politics Show that he would judge the success of his education policies in the short term by how many students take subjects such as maths, science, history and geography. He says deeper school improvement such as improving league tables, will take longer. 

15 January:   Free schools: teach established scientific theory   Free schools must teach theories that are backed by established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations, or lose DfE funding.

14 January:   Twigg says Labour would trim school building funds   Stephen Twigg, Shadow Education Secretary, stated that under Labour, funds for building new schools would be cut.

13 January:   Teachers: a term to improve   Headteachers in England will be able to sack underperforming staff more easily from September 2012. (Also, read the NASUWT view)

11 January:   'Wiki curriculum'   Education secretary, Michael Gove is proposing a collaborative approach to designing curriculum content along the lines of the wiki approach used in the US military. He wants schools to tap into the ‘dispersed wisdom of the best teachers’ to create a curriculum that is current and meets changing needs. The area of teaching computer science will pilot the approach.  Also, read the Department for Education news story about this.

11 January:   Digital literacy campaign   Here is Michael Gove’s speech and you can read comments and reactions from various experts in a Guardian Live Q&A.

10 January:   No notice inspections    Schools could find an inspector on their doorstep at any time.

8 January:  Extra-curricular and academic activities: balance needed    In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Dr Elizabeth Sidwell, senior adviser to Mr Gove, and leader of the academies expansion programme, says extra-curricular activities that independent school pupils enjoy should be offered more widely.
More telegraph education reports and opinion pieces here and here.

5 January:   Preparing pupils for employment     A longer school day could play a role in preparing pupils for the world of work says Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg in a lead up to the 'School to Work' review which will be led by Labour MP Barry Sheerman.

4 January   Achievement: English baccalaureate - GCSE results   Last year, schools started being rated according to how many pupils achieved a GCSE C pass in the E-Baccalaureate subjects (English, maths, two sciences, a language and history or geography). According to a Conservative Party survey, only three per cent in some areas achieved the C pass.

4 January:   Disadvantage: families and children to feel the pinch most   The Family and Parenting Institute (FPI) predicts a drop of 4.2 per cent in income for families between 2010-11 and 2015-16, the equivalent of £1,250 a year, due to cuts and austerity measures.

3 January:   Achievement: Routine, regular mealtimes and structure    Pupils whose days lack structure and routine are less likely to do well in exams, according to a study of 2,136 16 to 25-year-olds undertaken for the Prince's Trust 

3 January:   Health and achievement: The more they jump the more they learn   A recent Dutch review, which looked at fourteen studies involving more than 12,000 children,indicates a possible link between the level of physical activity a child engages in and their academic performance.

31 December 2011   Inner city headteacher honoured   The Cathedral School of St Saviour and St Mary Overy in Southwark from has moved from being a failing school to outstanding in just five years. Dame Sylvia Morris has led the way.

Healthy eating: offer pupils more 'meal deals'   Schools need to offer cut price meals to encourage pupils back to their canteens. are being encouraged to offer more cut-price meals in a bid to entice more pupils back into their canteens.

28 December:   Failing schools: call in local troubleshooters   This is the view of Ofsted's new chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw. Often, by the time Ofsted deems a school to be failing it's too late to turn back. 'Local troubleshooters' could spot the problems early to prevent this.

28 December   Face-to-face careers guidance under threat   A view from Carol James, Vice-president of Association for Careers Education and Guidance on how the cuts are affecting young people's access to face-to-face career advice.
 
26 December   Cuts: it's bleak on the frontline   A Guardian investigation shows that schools are having to hack back on amounts they spend on a range of services to pupils and families. Among these are after-school clubs, reading and maths improvement interventions, sports, arts, drama and careers services for pupils.  

23 December    ESOL support for pupils could be curbed   The government is considering limiting the amount of time that pupils who speak English as a second language receive support in learning English.

19 December:   Review of the national curriculum published   The review includes recommendations that art and music should be studied at key stage four, and that league tables are released every two years.

19 December:   Positive For Youth   The government's Postive for Youth paper calls for a new partnership approach in local areas between businesses, charities, public services and the public to ensure that our society does not leave this generation of young people in the lurch.Find out more about Positive Youth on the DfE website.

16 December:   Norfolk vows to turn around its failing schools   Education leaders are determined to bring Norfolk’s weakest schools back from the brink of failure.
 
15 December:   DfE release Primary School statistics    1,310 schools are below floor standard, according to the latest Primary School statistics. The government want to target the lowest performing schools to help them improve. The new-look tables now also show which schools are getting their pupils to a point beyond the level expected by age 11. 

15 December:   New academy themed around space exploration   The National Space Academy in Leicester will be supported by numerous academic institutions and emphasise science, technology and maths.

14 December:   Twelve more studio schools approved   The schools, which base their curriculum around enterprise projects, will open in 2012 and include backers such as the BBC and Sony.

13 December:   Child poverty reduction target: it's receding     Former Labour Health secretary, Alan Milburn, says inequalities will widen in a stalling economy. Ministers say they want to review the targets to address perverse incentives; for example, they want to get rid of the 'child poverty plus £1' aspect, in which targets are addressed through raising benefits.

12 December:   Pupil premium: £600 per pupil in 2012    From April 2012, schools will have access to £1.25 billion to support disadvantaged children to catch up through various interventions, including extra-curricular activities. Children who have been registered for Free School Meals (FSM) in the past six years qualify for the premium. 

12 December:   Look after the pennies and the pounds...    A group of MPs has produced a report urging that personal financial skills be incorporated into maths lessons, which would make personal finance education compulsory for all pupils.
 
10 December:    Attainment: new floor standards from 2012   Government proposals regarding schools admissions code could mean weaker schools will be financially pressured into becoming academies in order to survive. The ‘floor standard proposed for secondary schools is 40 per cent of pupils achieving five good GCSEs including English and Maths.

9 December: Gifted & Talented: falling through the cracks    The TES has obtained data showing that council cuts have left support for gifted and talented high and dry; 26 per cent of councils have made cuts to the number of staff employed to support schools with their gifted and talented pupils; 52 local authorities interviewed are offering no more support. 

8 December:   Engineering not rated by schools as a career   Engineering UK has released a study that shows 21 per cent of science and maths teachers do not see engineering as a desirable career for their students. 

8 December:   Six-year olds: reading ability test confuses     Pseudo words in the test (included to ensure that schools are using the phonics method to teach reading) have confused stronger readers in 72 per cent of the schools in the pilot. Critics are worried that the test may cause pupils to be wrongly classified as poor readers and that schools may teach to this test.

8 December:   Wales: almost 25 per cent of councils have no top-banded schools   Education Minister Leighton Andrews says the government needs to know which schools these are in order to better support them to improve.

7 December:   School standards: Are England’s schools really slipping?    Apparently not, according to the Insitute of Education’s John Jerrim, who says the PISA test is not the only test that education policy makers should look at. The TIMSS tests, for example, show that England’s schools have actually improved in relation to international competitors.

6 December:   Child poverty: The cost of Christmas   The lowest price for a family with two children to spend on Christmas, is apparently, £182 according to a report called Breaking the Bank: A Cut-Price Christmas from Family Action.

5 December:   Literacy: A quarter of children don’t own books   The National Literacy Trust says the proportion of children who don’t own any books is growing, with poorer childrenand boys  being the least likely to have books.

5 December:   Wales: school improvement – better buildings coming up   Councils and the Welsh government will share the £1.4bn cost of building new schools in Wales. 

5 December:  Six years to improve a school; long enough?    If schools labelled ‘satisfactory’ do not improve within six years, they should be labeled ‘inconsistent’ says a new Royal Society of the Arts report. (Such coasting schools are more likely to be found in deprived areas.) 

5 December: (Un) Satisfactory school? Depends on where you live.   The Royal Society of Arts studied  schools that were graded ‘satisfactory’ by Ofsted and looked at the link between socio-economic background and attendance of a ‘Satisfactory’ school. It’s repor can be found here.  
 
4 December:  Will Sir Michael Wilshaw's Ofsted proposals end ‘grindingly satisfactory’ teaching?  If schools are judged by Ofsted to be ‘Grade 3’ rather than ‘satisfactory’, will this give parents a better understanding of the standard of education a school offers? Mike Baker wonders about this in his latest blog. 

2 December   Cuts to optional school transport services    The Campaign for Better Transport (CBT) has found that around 75 per cent of English councils are thinking of making cuts to optional school transport services. 

2 December:  Boosting benefits won’t reduce child poverty    The work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith says classifying child poverty to exist in a family on 60 per cent or less than the median income simply creates ‘perverse incentives to lift  people just over the mark’. It’s a ‘poverty plus £1’ measure. David Cameron calls for a debate on the deeper causes of child poverty and how these can be addressed. (The number of children living in poverty in the UK fell during Labour's last year in power by 2 per cent to 2.6m.)

2 December:   Acklam grey power is heading towards cyber space   Newham Bridge Primary School in Acklam, Middlesborough, is working with the Make the Most of IT programme run by Age UK to help young pupils teach older people basic computer skills that will eventually get them online.
   
2 December:   Future education to be free school   The North Earlham school for excluded teenagers, Future Education is moving ahead to become a free school after it lost its county council funding.
 
2 December:   Apprenticeships: practical learning will be equivalent to academic study    £18.7m from the Higher Apprenticeship Fund will underpin around 19,000 new apprenticeships of the type that are critical for the UK's economic growth. Around 250 employers will benefit from world class, nationally accredited technical training delivered in the workplace.

2 December:   Family Futures: localised, life-changing solutions needed   Researchers from the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion spoke to 200 families in deprived neighbourhoods and found: the poorest health exists in these neighbourhoods; there’s still a great lack of things for young people to do; low skills and unemployment persist. Against that backdrop, Iain Duncan Smith, in this speech, says we need a new debate on poverty based on life change and localized solutions rather than maintenance of benefits. 

1 December:   Educational technology vs the ‘dead hand of the past’    How do we use educational technology to ensure UK children are not left behind and that their learning is ‘liberated from the dead hand of the past’? asks Mr Gove in his recent speech to the Schools Network. 

28 November:   Good schools for all – an impossible dream?     Sir Michael Wilshaw, new head of Ofsted, gives a flavour of things to come.

28 November:   Wales: Pupil Premium    Kirsty Williams explains. 

25 November:   A national plan for music education   The government will fund expansion of In Harmony; music ‘hubs’ will provide music education; new fairer funding system for music education. 

27 November:   Education gap will widen over time    Children from poorer families in the UK are over a year behind their peers compared to other developed countries; and the gap will widen over time, says Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of the Sutton Trust.

25 November:   £1bn to subsidise young people into work   With the numbers of NEETs soaring, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has announced a work and training placements plan that will give employers subsidies of around £2,275 to hire and train around 160,000 18-to 24-year-olds, for six months, over three years.

25 November:  Sausage rolls and turkey twizzlers marching back   Jamie Oliver and the Local Authority Catering Association are concerned that academies, now in charge of their budgets, will opt for cheaper less healthy school meals and snacks. 

24 November:   Neets: latest figures    1.16 million – and climbing.

24 November:   Children's centre 'cliques' putting off parents   A small study in Bristol has found that many parents avoided taking their children to centres because they were anxious about the perceptions of other parents.

24 November:   Mr Gove worries about history knowledge deficit   Rather than learning too much about Nazis and the Wild West, The Secretary of State for Education thinks GCSEs and national curriculum need to ensure that students come out of school with a better understanding of Britain's influence on the world and the world's influence on Britain. 

24 November:   BNP takes offence at school's sex education plans   Notwithstanding support from most parents to teach children aged four more about reproduction, the BNP has attacked plans and threatens to demonstrate outside the homes of staff.

24 November:   Children's centre 'cliques' putting off parents   A small study in Bristol has found that many parents avoided taking their children to centres because they were anxious about the perceptions of other parents.

24 November:   Wales: Children's art brightens up community   Instead of a grim hoarding around the construction site at Bronglais General Hospital in Aberystwyth, local charity Haul - Arts in Health has organised for children's art to be put on the walls instead.

22 November:   Wales: Beady eye on anti-social behaviour   Llysfaen Primary School in partnership with the police, the Arson Reduction Team and Conwy County Borough Council now has a 24/7 link with Conwy Counti CCTV to deter anti-social behaviour outside school hours.

22 November:   Poor inspection reports can spur failing schools    The 2011/12 report from the Chief Inspector of Education, Children's Services and Skills (Raising ambition and tackling failure) shows that receiving an poor inspection report can spur schools to improve. A fifth moved from 'inadequate' to either 'good' or 'better' and their next inspection.
 
22 November   Wales: 2020 vision: no child poverty?   Betsan Powys comments

21 November:  Welfare reforms: Child poverty:       Children’s commissioners warning   Cuts are harming key children’s services already argue the Commissioners: the government’s counter argument is: benefits changes should cut child poverty.

21 November:   Never mind the benefit trap...   Here's a sobering look at the traps people face between getting off a benefit and back into work - the first hour of a Tuesday at Bolton CAB.

20 November:   Welfare reforms: what the bishops say   Eighteen bishops signed an open letter criticising the government’s welfare reform proposals. In London, for example, high rents would mean around 133,000 households would be adversely affected, according to a London Councils report released on 10 November.

20 November:   Wales pupil premium: jjaw-jawing towards a deal?   Labour in Wales needs either Plaid or the Lib Dems to back its budget when it is voted in on December 6.  According to Matt Withers’ report in Wales Online, the Lib Dems want a deal with Labour that will allow the pupil premium to be introduced one way or another.

21 November:   An A for your squats; C for your lunges   Sports medicine specialist, Dr Andy Franklyn-Miller, says PE must be given similar priority to other subjects in the school curriculum; he's calling for mandatory 'physical literacy' tests. 

20 November   Milk won’t be snatched    Under 5s will continue to receive free milk, says government. The scheme costs around £10m a year.

18 November:   New IFS study: school fears over funding formula   The Institute for Fiscal Studies has found evidence that the government's current plans to revise local authority funding needs further consideration to ensure fairness. Listen to a discussion about the IFS findings from Radio 4's Today programme.

18 November:  Sign up for FSM in Norwich    Norwich South MP Simon Wright is rallying schools in Norwich to encourage more parents to sign their children up for FSM to help tap into the £2m payout this would mean.

17 November:   New child protection helpline with free legal advice   Coram Children's Legal Centre will also be launching an accompanying website next year.

17 November:   Achievement for All to be rolled out nationally   The government is providing £14 million for the scheme after it was found the two-year pilot fostered significant improvements in the attainment, behaviour and attendance of children with special educational needs and disabilities.

17 November:   Wales: Governors at heart of school improvement   Education Minister, Leighton Andrews, talked to a conference recently about the difference that governing bodies can make to a school’s performance.

17 November:   Recommendations to revise local authority funding   The Public Funding Accounts Committee has published a report that says the current formula, which dictates how maintained schools are funded, is too complicated and does not ensure fairness.

17 November:   RNCF drive for more assisted boarding   The Royal National Children's Foundation aims to have 1,000 disadvantaged children per year being awarded free places at boarding schools by 2018.

16 November:   Consultations on shortening school summer holiday   Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire are looking into reducing the break to four weeks, following Nottingham's lead to have the holidays spread out more evenly during the year.

16 November:   No academy, thank you   Teachers went on strike again at Prince Henry Grammar school to protest over plans to turn this school into an academy.

16 November:   Increase in ethnic minority pupils   The Kings College London reports that there has been an increase of 57 per cent in ethnic minority pupils in England's schools.

15 November:   Education bill becomes law   Royal assent has been given to the Education Act 2011 after months of debate and refinement.

14 November:   Apprenticeship schemes: do more   The Institute for Public Policy warns, in a recent report, that apprenticeship schemes need to do more to help young people into employment. Employers appear to be reluctant to offer apprenticeships to school leavers.

14 November:   900 per cent rise in apprentices over 60   Older people are taking up opportunties on a government skills programme, yet NEET number soar.

14 November:  Nasty pinpoint on Diabetes Atlas   World Diabetes Day in 2011 (November 14) saw the release of the 5th edition of the Diabetes Atlas; 116,000 children in Europe now have type 1 diabetes with 18,000 new cases in 2011 - the highest estimate of all IDF regions.

14 November:   First special and alternative provision free schools approved   The government has also named six public buildings that it believes free schools could be housed in.

14 November:   Fewer children's centre closures than predicted   Centre numbers are down 124 from April last year, although 118 of these were merged with other centres.

13 November:   Prime Minister writes about schools   Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, David Cameron gave his full support to Michael Gove and Ofsted's newest chief inspector.

12 November:    Wales: Big unemployment jump   Unemployment sits at 9 per cent in Wales with the numbers of young people out of work rising.

11 November:   Welsh schools await new ranking system   This will be the first banding system in Wales since league tables were abandoned in 2001.

11 November:   Disadvantaged tots: free nursery places   Details of plans to give 140,000 disadvantaged two-year-olds 15 hours of early education each week are now out. rom poo15 hours of free "early education" a week to all two-year-olds from poor homes were announced last year but details have now been set out. 

10 November:   Youth unemployment: Could we learn lessons?   Eleven apprentices per 1,000 employees in Britain; 33 in Austria;40 in Germany. What's wrong with this picture? In those country, apprenticeship schemes are unfunded by the government, yet here, the government funds the apprenticeship scheme.

10 November:   Hanging in there   Sure Starts, though beleagured and drained of vital funding, are not closing in droves, as predicted.

9 November:   Obesity: Stop seasonal clock change?   A London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and  University College of London study found that children do more exercise on longer days; especially as the summer starts to end.

9 November:   Obesity: Stop seasonal clock change?   A London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and  University College of London study found that children do more exercise on longer days; especially as the summer starts to end.

9 November:   Parent poll: Reading is highlight   Seventy-one per cent of parents say they love reading with their children; 41 per cent say it stopped being fun when their children got too tire.

8 November:   OECD reading study   If parents read to their young children, the beneficial effects are still evident at age 15. This study stripped out the effects of social differences.

7 November:   Speed read   The latest education news from the Guardian at a speedy glance.

6 November:   Move up Louis, make room for Jane   Contemporary writers such as Louis Sachar and John Boyne will need to shift along the school bench a little to make room for Jane Austen. Ministers want pupils to be more challenged in their reading; changes in English lessons will be central to the national curriculum review, which we'll hear more of in the new year.

8 November:   Specialist teachers will parachute in   To give state-educated pupils the kind of chances that pupils in fee-paying schools have, teh Education secretary says that teachers of maths, science and foreign languages will be giving primary pupils dedicated lessons.

4 November:   Free school and academy go head to head in Suffolk  Is the market town of Beccles too small for two secondary schools? 

4 November:   Arts heavyweights get in behind arts education   Lord Puttnam, Kevin Spacey and Sir Nicholas Serota do not want to see arts sidelined in the curriculum. They have all signed the Cultural Learning Alliance report, ImagineNation (see Gems) which showcases the importance of arts education.

4 November:   London gets £260m for extra school places    London needs more extra school spaces that anywhere in England so the government has used the money saved by halting the BSF programme to give several local authorities extra funding amounting to £260 million. This is half the amount allocated for extra school places across the country. The boroughs of Redbridge, Waltham Forest, Brent and Barking and Dagenham receive the biggest amounts.

3 November:   Party atmosphere, adrenaline, hype'    Add to that mix excitement, opportunism and dissatisfaction with the police – and there you have the triggers during the riots which caused more and more young people to take part. This is what 50 young people interviewed by researchers say.

3 November:   Sir Michael Wilshaw: preferred Ofsted head   Sir Michael Wilshaw is the Education Select Committee’s preferred choice for the post of Ofsted head – notwithstanding his image in the media as the Dirty Harry of school improvement. He is presently head of the East London Mossbourne Academy and also ARK’s director of education.  

3 November:   NEET blackspots    These are concentrated in North, in places such as Doncaster, Grimsby and Warrington where almost a quarter of young people under 25 are not in work, education or training.

2 November:   Be proud of young people’s vocational training choices   Stephen Twigg, the new Labour shadow education secretary is calling for a major cultural shift where parents will view their children’s choice of high-level practical courses with as much pride as they would degree choices.

1 November:   The August child   A new IFS study suggests that summer-born children appear to be at a disadvantage in relation to their test scores and their well-being.

31 October:   100,000 support financial education petition   Conservative MP Justin Tomlinson is sponsoring a petition signed by 100,000 in support of compulsory financial education in schools. The petition organisers say the issue must be considered for parliamentary debate. The Learning Exchange agrees.

31 October:   Academies: councils continue to worry   Education Guardian has calculated that academies could cost up to £820m over the next two years. They claim that money, which comes from services that councils are obliged to offer, is being wrongly allocated to academies. For example, Kent calculates that if 30 per cent of its schools become academies, this will leave no budget for services to support the remaining 70 per cent of schools. So far, 1,525 schools across the UK have chosen the academy route.

29 October:   Plan B    What we need is to find the brakes and press down hard to stop a headlong hurtle towards a double-dip recession say 100 leading economists. Plan B: a good economy for a good society was launched on Monday by the think tank Compass. 

28 October:   Phonics reading test: experts deeply concerned   Half of schools that piloted the test do not think it identifies pupils' reading problems early.

28 October:   Welfare cuts: concerns   The BBC's political editor, John Hess, reports on responses to a survey about benefit cuts.

27 October:   Rigour will count   New guidance from the Department for Education will ensure that only high quality rigourous vocational qualifications will be counted in schools' performance tables.

27 October:   Apprenticeships: George is cross with Vince   A leaked report seen by the Guardian says that the increase in apprenticeship take-up masks the 'rebadging of existing jobs into apprenticeships at supermarkets'. Mr Osborne is annoyed. The Mortarboard Blog takes a close look at Mr Cable's figures in Apprenticeship figures are not what they seem.

27 October:   Apprentice numbers up by 50 per cent   This sounds like good news. But is it? (See story above.) 442,700 apprenticeships were begun in the academic year 2010-11 (only 279,000 in the previous year). Many are in construction, manufacturing and engineering. But the government wants to see more degree-level apprenticeships.

25 October:   £50 million for VCS organisations   The Big Lottery Fund will provide the money to counter the numerous cuts affecting the voluntary and community sector.

25 October:   Education spend: falling... falling...   The Institute for Fiscal Studies says the UK's education spend, after historically large rises during the 2000s, is now plunging at the fastest rate over a four year period since the 1950s. Deepest cuts: higher education, school buildings, 16-19 provision and early years. But England's school funding has remains 'relatively protected.

25 October:   Fit for work... or not?   38 per cent of people undergoing the Work Capability Assessment have been found fit for work. There is an increase in the number of being being assessed who now qualify for the higher rate of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

21 October:   Guidance, not aspiration, holding back young people   A Glasgow University study of 490 disadvantaged pupils found that the majority had healthy ambitions for their life, but many did not know how to achieve their goals.

21 October:   Black boys' achievement: fears expressed by visiting Jamaican official   Adolph Cameron Secretary General, Jamaica Teachers' Association, believes that black schoolboys in the UK may be deliberately choosing to underperform because they fear being labelled as 'gay' or 'feminine'. 

21 October:   Family support services receive £11 million   Organisations taking part in a new national support initiative include Relate, Young Minds and the Family Rights Group.

21 October:   New teacher status considered   The committee in charge of a review of teaching standards is currently toying with the term 'master teachers'.

20 October:   Rating schools: new website for parents   Parent View, a new website to be launched by Ofsted, will allow parents to rate the schools their children attend.

19 October:   Fifth of secondary schools in deficit   A report from the National Audit Office has also found that 40 per cent of local authorities do not have the resources to monitor how schools manage their finances.

19 October:   Record level of primary school truancies   New DfE statistics show that on average 23,244 pupils were off school without permission during each day of the previous autumn and spring terms.

17 October:   New exclusion trials to take place in 300 schools   The new approach involves making headteachers responsible for ensuring excluded pupils continue to receive education.

16 October:   Free parenting classes for over 50,000 parents   After a survey that showed around three quarters of parents want more information and support, the government has announced trial classes in Middlesbrough, Camden and High Peak in Derbyshire.

14 October:   Northamptonshire supplementary schools campaign against cuts   Twenty schools receiving county council funding have started a petition to prevent it ending. Sign the petition.

14 October:   Supplementary schools campaign for new language GCSEs   Many community languages spoken throughout the UK do not have representative GCSEs, and with the new Ebacc measure which requires at least one language, supplementary education providers want more of them recognised by exam bodies.

14 October:   New disabled pupil duty could cost schools dearly   Despite headteachers' sympathy towards the new entitlement for aids and support, many fear the impact on school budgets.

14 October:   Charitable status rules for private schools to be rewritten   The Independent Schools Council had been fighting with the Charity Commission over their last set of changes since 2006.

13 October:   Call for more teacher training to identify potential runaways   The Children's Society estimates that 100,000 children run away every year, and insist that teachers need to be able to recognise the warning signs.

12 October:   Pupil premium to increase by £58   The increase to £488 is due to less children registering for free school meals than originally expected.

12 October:   Work academies to tackle youth unemployment   The new government initiative will offer training and a guaranteed job interview to up to 50,000 people aged between 16 and 24.

12 October:   New unit to support troubled families   After warnings earlier in the week that 120,000 families were likely to struggle due to cuts, the Prime Minister announced a new unit to help tackle their problems.

11 October:   Fear of mass breakfast club closures  One in eight breakfast clubs have been forced to close due to budget problems and a survey of 727 staff shows nearly half believe their clubs will also have to close. Kellogg's has begun a money-raising campaign to ensure clubs can continue their work.  

10 October:   79 new schools to open in 2012   Over 60 free schools and thirteen university technical colleges will begin teaching pupils in September 2012.

7 October:   Play therapy endorsed by ten-year study   Research which followed 10,744 children found that 73 per cent showed mental and emotional improvement because of play therapy.

7 October:   Many families suffering due to cuts   Despite pledges from the Prime Minister to protect the most disadvantaged families, the chief executive of Barnardo's has warned 120,000 families will be affected.

6 October:   Lords to amend Education Bill on children's services    The House of Lords is moving to drop the section of the Education Bill that removes the requirement for schools to work in partnership with children's services.

6 October:   Unofficial exclusions on the rise    Children's charity Barnardo's says that official statistics on exclusion end up being misleading due to pressured schools attempting to keep things off the record.

5 October:   Head warns of racial divisions between inner-city schools   David Levin, headteacher at the City of London School, believes that different children do not mix with others enough.

4 October:   Young people urged to fill apprenticeship vacancies   David Willets, Minister for Universities and Science, told the Conservative Party Conference that there are now as many places for apprenticeships as there are for university courses.

3 October:   What's in that lunchbox?   The School Food Trust looked inside 3,500 packed lunches in England in 2009. Forty per cent of these were found to be sadly lacking in fruit and vegetables. Parents are urged to put more fruit and vegetables into their children's lunches, or two switch to school meals, which contain more.

3 October:   Start language learning at five  Michael Gove wants to see five-year-olds starting to learn foreign languages.

3 October:   Let them go at 14   Sir Chris Woodhead, a former inspector, believes that keeping some young people at school studying maths and English untiil they are 18 is a recipe for disaster. It would be preferable to allow those that want to leave and learn a trade, to do so, he says.

3 October:   Manchester children's services likely to be cut by £22.1 million   Cost-cutting measures include replacing the area's children's centres with an outreach service which would visit children at home.

3 October:   Norfolk academics warn: perfect storm ahead  Led by Martyn Sloman, visiting professor at Kingston Business School living in north Norfolk, twelve academics have written an open letter to politicians outlining their fears that current education policies amount to a perfect storm that will harm disadvantaged pupils across the country, but particularly Norfolk.

3 October:   Most teachers feel they are treated poorly   A Guardian survey of nearly 2,000 teachers has revealed that the majority feel they are not being respected as professionals.

30 September:   Back to basics for teaching quality   Ofsted will inspect pupil achievement, teaching standards, behaviour and school leadership. However, some headteachers have challenged plans to allow parents to leave comments about schools on an Ofsted site. 

30 September:   Mental health warning   Doctors are warning that rising debt and a gloomy economic outlook are a threat to the mental health of the present generation of students

30 September:   NI: Catholic schools targeted in police recruitment drive   Catholic bishops in Northern Ireland are supporting a drive by the PSNI to visit catholic schools with a view to encouraging pupils to join the police force there as career option.

29 September:   Extended services improves life chances   Research funded by the DfE has found not only do pupils' grades and chances improve, but the career prospects of their parents also receive a boost. The report can be found here.

29 September:   NEETs: less lucrative foot in the door   Alex Aldridge (guardian.co.uk) looks at what Acculaw is offering.

29 September:   11-Plus: parents complain to MP    Parents are angry that Saturday's 11-plus tests went on longer than they should have and children didn't have enough water to drink. 

29 September:   Three R's: 7-year-olds struggle   Many children have poor reading skills after three years of education; around 106,000 have not reached Level 2 in writing.

26 September:   Thumbs up for Winkleigh   This small Devon village is, apparently, the best place to raise a family. A Family Investment report says more affluent areas aren't so great due to high housing prices.  

26 September:   NI: Raising standards, tackling underachievement top of list    Northern Ireland's Minister of Education, John O’Dowd, outlines next steps in education.

24 September:   School Olympics extends deadlines for sign ups   Less than a third of state schools have applied to join the national competition so far.

23 September:   Want to turn around schools?    Turn around their communities first. The two go together says Liz Sidwell, former headteacher who is advising Michael Gove on how to tackle underperforming schools. Coastal areas with largely white, homogeneous communities, pose the biggest challeges thinks Sidwell. But, some don't relate to what Ms Sidwell says. Read this story about Marine Academy in Norwich which is using its backdrop, the sea, as its greatest resource to inspire pupils. However, some headteachers in schools with similar intakes, and in similar environments, say their working class white children are doing well and in fact, do have high aspirations.

23 September:   Significant falls in council staff specialising in SEN   Despite the government's new reforms in special educational needs, tight budgets have forced councils to make cuts.

23 September:   Wales likely to return to league tables   Despite ending the ranking of schools ten years ago, the current Welsh government wants to return to a similar process in an effort to improve performance.

23 September:   'Fess up for lower penalty   HMRC has tax-dodging private tutors in its sites.  In efforts to close the 4bn drop in the tax take from businesses and individuals, HMRC is also looking in the direction of private tutors - for example, music teachers, teachers who tutor for extra income, horse-riding teachers, language teachers, fitness coaches. However, coming clean will mean penalties will be lighter, it says.

22 September:   Twenty local authorities chosen to trial SEN reforms   The so-called 'pathfinders' will receive £150,000 each for reforms that include personal budgets for parents of children with special educational needs.

22 September:   School federations show strong benefits   An Ofsted report has said that schools with shared leadership provide pupils with more opportunities, and staff receive greater professional development.

22 September:   Regular outside play in nature reduces ADHD symptoms   A study of 400 children also found children who play in built-up areas had more severe symptoms.

21 September:   Summer schools for pupils transferring from primary to secondary school   Nick Clegg wants to fund the proposal using money from the pupil premium budget.

21 September:   Not for turning; but we believe in the children   The coalition government is sticking to its guns on public spending cuts.

20 September:   Sixteen early years teaching centres revealed   The government hopes the teaching centre trial will improve standards. It will also be piloting payment-by-results in 18 more local authorities.

20 September:   Top mathematicians write to Prime Minister   It is dangerous for funding of only certain branches of mathematics to be favoured with funding, they say.

19 September:   National Citizen Service (NCS) contracts announced   Catch22 and Bolton Lads and Girls Club are among nineteen organisations that have won contracts to run NCS pilots in 2012.

19 September:   Children in care don't get the schools they deserve   According to the DfE's new local authority data tool, England has 64,500 children in care. Sixteen per cent of these attend the lowest-attaining primary schools compared with 10 per cent of their peers - with the resulting achievement gaps at GCSE level.

19 September:   Reading Recovery Project under pressure   Headteachers are unhappy that this successful reading recovery project can no longer be extended to as many pupils as before. 

18 September:   Pupil premium to double   The announcement was made by Sarah Teather MP during the Liberal Democrat conference.

16 September:   Acas becoming more involved in school employee disputes   The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service has reported an increase in cases involving schools since the expansion of the academies programme.

16 September:   Call for more rural class trips   A poll by the Countryside Alliance Foundation has found 92 per cent of parents polled believe their children would benefit from hands-on lessons in the countryside.

16 September:   Six year olds to be tested on synthetic phonics from next year   Despite arguments that the method is unrepresentative of reading ability, the government feels phonics testing is the most efficient method of checking which children may need extra reading help.

16 September:   Banks put hold on sixteen academy conversions   Banks have delayed school conversions because of questions of who retains liability of keeping up PFI repayments.

15 September:   One in five rioters under 18   Of the 1,715 people who appeared in court for offences during August's riots, 364 were legally children.

12 September:   Extending school day made easier   The DfE has relaxed rules about changing school hours for all schools in England, saying that previous rules were too bureaucratic and meant schools had to wait for any desired changes.

12 September:   Some schools excluding children illegally   A report from the Centre for Social Justice claims that some schools are using unofficial means to get disruptive pupils to leave and are failing to provide them with support.

9 September:   Free schools vs 'complacent coasting' other schools?   Prime Minister says free schools will expose complacency in other schools.

9 September:   Cut their parents' benefits   Well, that's a big stick. But will it work to get truanting kids back to school?

9 September:   Ofsted rates 72 per cent of nurseries and childminders good or outstanding   Ofsted visited 53,654 nurseries and childminders between September 2008 and June 2011. One per cent were deemed 'inadequate', 27 per cent 'satisfactory'. Overall, however, 72 per cent were rated 'good' or 'outstanding'.

9 September:   PFI schools unable to convert to academy status   Fears over the legality of switching contracts has put a hold on many academy conversions by schools paid for using the private finance initiative.

7 September:   Parents in debt over childcare   A survey run by the Daycare Trust and Save the Children shows that 58 per cent of parents have cut spending on essentials such as heating and clothing because the high cost of childcare has sent them into the red.

7 September:   Funding boost for innovators   The government has set aside £10 million to help get innovative Big Society ideas off the ground, which can 'unleash untapped community spirit' and make new ways of volunteering and charitable giving more possible as well as sometimes receive something in return.

5 September:  Academies: 1,000... and rising   The government says a record number of 'weak' schools have converted.

5 September:   Behaviour: use of force decision   On the basis of a report from expert advisor on behaviour, Charlie Taylor, the Minister of State has decided not to commence the legal requirement on schools to record and report the use of force and will seek to repeal this requirement at the first suitable legislative opportunity. However, the Taylor report recommmends that if this happens, it may be necessary to amend the use of force guidance to strengthen recording and reporting recommendations.

2 September:   But will it be a boot camp?   The Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), set up under Margaret Thatcher, will set up the Phoenix Free School in Manchester, believing that expecting children in inner-city Manchester to manage their own learning lies 'in the realms of fantasy'. 

2 September:   Apple iPads into classrooms   What can we say, except, lucky children!

1 September:   Childcare costs drive women back home   The ONS Labour Force survey shows 32,000 women have given up work to stay home and care for their families.

The figure is taken from the Labour Force survey by the ONS. 

1 September:   Free Schools: Norfolk excitement... and qualms   Two little bellringers herald the opening of Free School Norwich, built in time, on budget and for only £1 million. But is this the entire price? 

1 September:   First day for free schools   Twenty-four free schools will open during the next few weeks.

1 September:   Review of truancy sanctions: save a 'million missing lost souls'  Michael Gove said in a speech a the Durand Academy that he is  certain there is a link between education failure and the riots,

31 August:   EBacc: do we have lift-off?   A National Centre for Social Research poll of 700 pupils shows a 26 per cent increase in pupils choosing history in the new term (a similar rise for geography and 22 per cent up for modern foreign languages). The survey indicates that pupils are starting to drop vocational subjects. 

30 August:   Children's centres: Doncaster council will run 21 children's centres    Fears over future funding have caused Doncaster Council to opt to manage all the borough's children's centres. Right now, it runs only six.
The council's Integrated Family and Support Services department wants to maintain quality and consistency as well as make savings by taking all the children's centres under central control.

30 August:   Funding boost for vulnerable families   The government has announced an extra £6 million funding boost for foster carers and vulnerable families. Thirty seven local authorities must share it to expand the intensive intervention programmes they already offer. 

29 August:   More please mum! Lunch money, that is...   A recent Which survey has shown that school meal prices are up by as much as 17 per cent in some local authorities. The highest rise has been in Bolton, where prices have risen by 25 per cent, but Bolton remains the lowest in the country at £1.25 each. These price hikes raise concerns that headway made in changing pupils' eating choices to healthier options will start to falter.  

26 August:   A Peston Role Model: coming soon to a school near you   Robert Peston, of the financial dulcet tones, launches his new charity, Speakers for Schools in October. He's signed up 700 big names to visit schools - people like the Prime Minister and members of the Cabinet, comedian Arabella Weir, Actor David Morrissey, BBC's Jeremy Paxman and many others. He feels that speakers of this calibre at schools are too often a privelege reserved for private schools.   

26 August:   Double the breaks   The number has doubled between April 2008 and March 2011, according to the Department for Education.  

26 August:   Does a shorter summer holiday help?   At Nottingham's Djanogly Academy, GCSE results are up.  

26 August:   Labour proposes 'jobs-for-contracts' scheme   A Labour government would ensure that companies wishing to secure contracts from government would first need to prove they are offering apprenticeships.

26 August:  Robbing Peter, top-slicing Paul?    While the Department for Education analyses responses to a consultation on the issue of funding academies, council leaders continue to worry that the cost of funding conversions is unfairly top-slicing their funds and ability to support other services, including maintained schools that do not convert. 

26 August:   Obesity: fat future looming?   By 2030, the Lancet tells us that 40 per cent of Britons will be obese unless the government ups its efforts to pull the food industry into line. Action on many fronts is needed, it says, including taxing junk food.

26 August:   Social impact bonds: how will they work?  The government has high hopes for the success of its innovation in early intervention, 'social bonds'. Investors are being invited to share the risks and rewards of improving outcomes for the most vulnerable families in Britain with the most complex set of needs and problems. Westminster Council, for example, would like the social impact bond approach to help its family intervention programme. 

25 August:   Testing and labelling tots?   The government's plans for a slimmed down early years curriculum continues to cause concern. Critics say schools should be ready for children, rather than the other way round. A major concern is that narrowing the curriculum at an early stage and testing for 'school readiness' at different stages before a child starts school could have far-reaching, life-long implications.

25 August:    Maths and science subject choice soars   However, the numbers of students taking modern foreign languages at school has dropped considerably. This will seriously damage the chances of young Britons who need to perform in a global economy. Languages are perceived as 'hard' subjects, according to Kathryn Board from Cilt, the National Centre for Languages.

25 August:   GCSE results: girls steam ahead   Girls have outstripped boys in their exam results, but education experts caution that this is not a sign that boys are failing and not to read too much into the figures. 

25 August:   GCSE results: Elation in Peckham; Joy in Hackney  These videos say it all. Proud Peckham headteacher Serge Cefai says the results these young people gained in their GCSE exams compare to any private school in the country. Teachers in Hackney put their young people's great results down to the support they gave all their students - not just the A* students.

24 August:   Are SEN pupils being assessed properly?   '[SEN] young people need to be provided with meaningful programmes that enable them to progress to apprenticeships, employment, greater independence, further learning or community engagements,' says Ofsted Chief Inspector Miriam Rosen.

24 August:   University degrees: to do or not to do?    Despite Office for Statistics research showing a fall in the overall earnings gap between degree holders and those with just A-levels or GCSEs, degrees still have value. But for how much longer? In terms of pay, a degree still holds a premium value for people who gain them in comparison to workers who leave education at age 16. Jeevan Vasagar, in the Guardian, looks at the narrowing gap.

24 August   NEETs: the latest statistics announced   These figures show NEET statistics from three sources: (1) Statistical First Release (SFR): the authoritative national estimates of NEET and NET rates, which are published annually in the ‘Participation in Education, Training and Employment by 16-18 Year Olds in England SFR’.  (2) Quarterly Labour Force Survey (LFS): analysis of the LFS figures allow in-year estimates to be made of NEET and NET trends as well as estimates for other age groups, including 16-24, 18-24 and 19-24.  (3) CCIS data at regional level, which allow measurement of NEET at a local level.

24 August:   School absence statistics statement (Spring term 2011)   Schools Minister Nick Gibbs thinks absenteeism is still too high, despite the recorded fall. The Coalition government's reforms to the persistently absent threshold were announced on 12 July 2011.

19 August:   ACEVO sets up youth unemployment taskforce   The Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations has appointed David Milliband as the chair of the commission.

19 August:   Research says arts should be at heart of curriculum   US evidence backs up the Cambridge Primary Review's recommendation that the current review of the national curriculum must avoid a narrow focus.

19 August:   PFI deemed poor value for money   The Private Finance Initiative is used to fund the creation of many new schools, but the Treasury select committee has found that the scheme needs substantial reform.

19 August:   League tables misrepresent four in ten secondary schools   Research by the Institute of Education and the Institute for Fiscal Studies argues that it would be a more accurate performance indicator to publish children's academic levels before entering a school.

18 August:  A Level results: well done, lads   8.2% of boys achieved an A*, up from 7.9%; while girls have dropped a little, from 8.3% to 8.2%. Good news: maths entries are up 40.2% over five years, physics up 19.6% and chemistry up 19.4% over five years. Sad to say, entries for foreign languages continue declining.

18 August:   eCAF may be abolished   The DfE has written to councils asking them for their opinion on the effectiveness of the electronic version of the common assessment framework.

17 August:   Prince Charles insists children need more extra-curricular activities   His comments came during a visit to the Tottenham community where the recent riots began.

15 August:   School planning reforms to be watered down   The recent consultation on the government's proposals to let schools open in more types of buildings was met with a largely negative response. There are now concerns that weakened reforms could mean free schools will mostly appear in wealthier areas.

11 August:   Teacher training reforms will create shortage   A report by Buckingham University has found that the new demand for teachers to have obtained at least a 2:2 degree is likely to leave several subjects with a shortfall of teachers, including maths, physics and chemistry.

10 August:   'We are part of the solution not the problem'   This is the name of a new Facebook page set up by young people from the The Challenge Network (a charity involved in the National Citizen Service programmes). It's where young people can share thoughts about the recent riots and talk about the positive things they are doing in their communities.

9 August:   ASCL challenges parents over riots   A number of prominent voices have raised questions over why so many young people took to looting over the last week.

8 August:   Call to split GCSE maths to teach real-life applications    The report headed by Carol Vorderman also recommends the active encouragement of maths activities outside of lessons.

5 August:   Academy increase affects council's contract with private firm   In 2008, Walsall Council agreed a twelve year contract that would have seen Serco run their education services until 2020; but the council has recently decided to end the contract early in 2013.

5 August:   Academies funding agency struggles with £35 million deficit   The Young People's Learning Agency, the arms-length government body overseeing the expansion of the academy programme, was unprepared for the unexpectedly large number of conversions.

3 August:   National Support Team network scrapped   The NHS National Support Teams offered free in-house advice to deprived areas trying to tackle lifestyle problems. The Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) says there needs to be something else put in their place. Trusts got the advice free, but getting it from big corporate consultants will be much more expensive says. The government defends the cuts by saying the function will be devolved to a local level (Big Society again?). 

3 August:   Put away that Android...   Recent research is highlighting the detrimental effects on children of 'multi-screen viewing' - watching TV (in the background), fiddling with an iPhone, hopping over to the laptop to check out Facebook, and then, to top it off, having a go on the hand-held gaming device they were given for Christmas. 

2 August:   Reading levels still worry Schools Minister   The number of children leaving primary school in England with a good level of skill in reading, writing and maths has increased again. However, around one in 10 boys still leaves primary school with only a Level 2 or lower in reading. Girls do much better. But Nick Gibbs, Schools Minister, is still concerned about the level of reading skills overall. 

2 August:   Citizens Advice Bureaux under threat   Some CABs have had over 50 per cent of their funding reduced, while others have had their funding cut completely.

2 August:   Traveller communities affected by cuts   A survey of 127 local authorities has found 24 were scraping their traveller support teams, 34 were reducing staff, and another 20 were reviewing the provision.

1 August:   Lincolnshire considers turning all 360 schools into academies   Due to a large proportion of schools converting to academies already, the council feels it will not have enough budget left to support the remaining schools unless they also convert.

29 July:   Fewer pupils permanently excluded or suspended   But Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, says fewer schools resort to permanent exclusion these days because the existing powers to santion behaviour are strong enough to improve behaviour and reduce exclusions. However, he says many schools are forced to resort to exclusion because they lack the skills or capacity to help children who have mental health problems, are being abused and have 'turbulent lifestyles'.

29 July:   Music linked to literacy development   A Cambridge University study has found that exposing young children to music can prepare them for literacy issues such as dyslexia later on.

29 July:   UK's biggest academy sponsor allowed to expand   The United Learning Trust was banned by Ofsted from opening new schools, but the restrictions have now been lifted due to their schools improving.

28 July:   Early years professionals get empirical endorsement   A four-year study has found early years professionals make significant improvements to the development of children aged two-and-a-half to five.

28 July:   Cross-party inquiry: little evidence that Ebacc will close attainment gap   An Education Committee enquiry into the EBacc has talked to more than 360 teachers, academics and educationalists. Evidence examined suggests no link between prescribed academic subjects and improved attainment levels among poorer pupils.  BBC report: EBacc introduced without enough consideration

27 July:   Ofsted's new look   Ofsted has built a new easier-to-navigate website.

26 July:   Mental health services affected by cuts   A survey of health trusts and council by YoungMinds has found more than half are reducing bugdgets to mental health services for children and young people.

26 July:   A new idea: private tutors in state schools?  There are criticisms that a state-funded school allowing a private firm to use its premises to make money is unfair and an unethical use of public money. Others see the idea as a flexible, pragmatic way of extending access to private catch-up one-to-one tuition to pupils whose parents might not be able to afford it. However, little evidence exists, so far, that private tuition is effective.

25 July:   Studies look at community cohesion efforts   CfBT Education Trust has published two reports on community cohesion using a mix of schools across three local authority areas.

22 July:   Academy conversions needed in Suffolk to prevent closures   New proposals for a two-tier education system mean middle schools will be left struggling unless they become fully independent.

21 July:   Subjects deemed not rigorous enough will be axed   Vocational qualifications that don't lead on to further study after 16 will be taken out of what can contribute to school league tables.

21 July:   PSHE education review launched   People can submit examples of good practice for personal, social, health and economic education to help the government formulate their new proposals.

21 July:   MPs worry: will phonics kill love of reading?   Is phonics the best way to teach children how to read? A new report disagrees.

21 July:   Career advice for primary school pupils   Introducing the Hughes report today, Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes who advocates for access to education said primary schools should encourage the poorest pupils to apply for university scholarships and also offer them career advice.

20 July:   Education funding announcements   The connection and balance between the roles of Whitehall, schools and local authorities in education funding is addressed in the latest announcement by the Department for Education. Also, Eduation Secretary Michael Gove is taking schools down the PFI highway once again but there's talk of opting for cheaper school buildings of the prefabricated type. More money for school places is also announced. 

19 July:   School rebuilding programme announced   The Priority School Building Programme is being run by Partnerships for Schools and will use private finance to address those schools in the worst condition. Registration begins 25 July.

19 July:   Second stage of school funding consultation launched   The consultation will run until 11 October and can be found here.

19 July:   LACSEG consultation launched   The local authority central spend equivalent grant affects how local authorities distribute funding between mainstream, academy and free schools. The opportunity to give your views ends 16 August.

19 July:   Education capital review launched   The consultation looks at how capital investment in schools can get better value for money in light of the recommendations from the recent James review. Feedback is welcome until 11 October.

19 July:   EMA changes executed poorly   A new report from the Education Select Committee has deemed the changes to the Educational Maintenance Allowance as 'rushed and ill-thought through'.

19 July:   Warnings over Ofsted exemptions   The House of Lords is reviewing the Education Bill and has just had the seventh day of the Committee stage. Several lords have expressed concerns over new rules that prevent 'outstanding' schools from being inspected again.

19 July:   PFI contracts to be reviewed   Schools funded by private financial investment may be able to save money after a new code of conduct is published in the autumn.

18 July:  Early years: highly-skilled, graduate-led workforce needed   Children's Minister Sarah Teather announced that early years qualifications will be reviewed to ensure their rigour and high quality. The aim is to raise the status of professionals who work with young children.

15 July:   Bye bye food standards. Hello turkey twizzlers...?   A letter from Sarah Teather MP to the Local Authority Caterers Association has revealed that the goverment trusts new free schools and academies to meet nutritional standards without central intervention. These schools will not be required to meet government food standards.

15 July:   Surprise! It's the inspector!   Ofsted plans to trial 'no-notice' inspections of schools where behaviour problems exist and which have 'satisfactory' ratings. 

14 July:   Academies funding transfer: a rethink    Eric Pickles has agreed to the calculated £148m cut in council budgets to fund the academies programme. Twenty three local authorities have challenged the calculation in court. 

14 July:   Schools sell home-grown food through supermarkets   Is it extra-curricular activity? Is it social enterprise? The School Produce Sale 2011 is happening across London this week.

13 July:   GCSE choices being restricted due to new EBacc benchmark   A seminar organised by Andy Burnham MP has heard that some schools are restricting their pupils' GCSE choices, requiring that they change courses half way through in order to boost the schools' EBacc scores. 

12 July:   Truancy rules to change   From October, 'persistent absence' will be defined as missing fifteen per cent of lessons, rather than the current 20.

12 July:   Call for more nurture groups   The classes supporting troubled children have received high praise, but many are ending due to budget cuts.

11 July:   Public services white paper launched   The government wants feedback on its proposals to allow voluntary and private sector organisations to run services and will affect schools. You can give your views here.

11 July:   Government issues new physical activity guidance   Recommendations include that children under five should have at least three hours of active play per day, preferably outside.

8 July:   Spread of free school applications revealed   Statistics in a report from the Institute of Education show that a quarter of applications are from parent groups and that a fifth are from state school teachers.

8 July:   £165,000 for school singing scheme in Wales   The new funding has been awarded due to an evaluation that found the CanSing programme to improve confidence, motivation, literacy and language skills.

7 July:   Doubts over phonics tests for all six year olds   Critics have highlighted how an emphasis on literacy testing will reduce the pleasure of reading for children, and how financial incentives seem to be artificially creating a demand for certain phonics materials.

6 July:   DFE submits slimmed down EYFS   The government has released its proposals for early years learning and opened a consultation for feedback. The consultation can be found here.

6 July:   New GCSE targets may leave gifted pupils ignored   The increased requirement from 35 to 50 per cent of pupils achieving five GCSEs grade C or higher could mean schools will not have the resources to also give higher-achieving pupils the attention they need.

5 July:   Charities question worth of National Citizen Service   Looking at the losses in funding for established youth initiatives, Kevin Curley of NAVCA has told MPS to think about whether the government's summer scheme is 'worth all the pain'.

4 July:   Child deprivation: prevention better than cure   A report by Graham Allen MP has recommended spending some of the funds used for tackling social problems and crime on early intervention programmes.

1 July:  Alternative Provision appears to be failing vulnerable young people   Compared with 53.4 per cent of in all school in England, a news set of statistics show that only 1.4 per cent of children in Alternative Provision in 2009/10 have achieved five or more GCSEs at grade A*-C, or equivalent, including English and mathematics GCSEs or iGCSEs.

1 July:   Cambridgeshire County Council wins Stonewall Education Equality Index   Cambridgeshire schools lead the way with clear anti-bullying and in particular anti-homophobic bullying policies.

1 July:   One in five children have special educational needs   Around 1.7 million pupils in England have been given the SEN label, according to newly released statistics.

30 June:   Thousands of schools empty due to strike   Public sector workers, including teachers, are striking due to changes to state pensions.

30 June:   Put maths at the heart of the curriculum   Michael Gove sets out why he wants the City to support maths education. Also: Mr Gove's speech to the Royal Society about the importance of maths.

29 June:   The City needs to support maths education   The number of students taking A-Level maths has doubled since 2005. But the UK needs still more mathematicians. Charlie Stripp, CEO of Mathematics in Education and Industry (MEI) sets out the reasons.

29 June:   Community budget expansion: good for families with complex needs   The approach has worked in pilots and Sir Merrick Cockell, LGA Chairman is confident it will continue to increase savings and provide better services. More updates about community budgets here.

28 June:   Training bursaries to encourage more primary teachers   The government is also starting a £2 million scholarship scheme to help improve the qualifications of existing teachers.

28 June:   Study identifies vast disparaties in provision of youth clubs    This CYP Now survey also shows that universal access to youth services has largely been replaced by 'open access youth centres targeted in areas of high deprivation'.

24 June:   Pupils in alternative provision not monitored closely enough   A new Ofsted report has found that schools and local authorities do not check up enough on pupils sent away to special schools and pupil referral units.  

24 June:   Large rise in pupils on free school meals   The increase in FSM uptake is attributed to increasing unemployment affecting families combined with pressure on schools to maximise their pupil premium allocation. 

23 June:   Writing skills: less 'drilling and teaching to the test' = more creativity     That’s what Lord Bew hopes his recommendation to scrap the creative writing test will lead to.  

23 June:   Headteachers urged to keep schools open during strikes   The Secretary of State has written to every headteacher in the country about how to manage schools with limited staff during the strikes over pensions at the end of June.

23 June:   Report criticises spending on National Citizen Service   The Education Select Committee believes spending on the summer programme is unjustified in light of the significant cuts elsewhere in youth services.

23 June:   Single mothers to be hit hardest by cuts   A new report claims that due to benefit cuts and tax rises, single mothers will be amongst the least well-off.

22 June:   New government guidelines for nursery food   Sarah Teather MP said the School Food Trust will be drawing up the new standards and will be in charge of monitoring they are used.

22 June:   Criticism over claim that free schools will offer better extended services   The NAHT union has argued against the Secretary of State's claim that the new free schools being opened will be able to offer services that mainstream schools aren't capable of.

20 June:   Technical baccalaureate proposed   Ministers argue the alternative to the English baccalaureate would ensure a strong emphasis on vocational education.

17 June:   Teaching Agency to launch in April 2012   The DfE's new executive agency will support teachers as well as others in the education workforce.

16 June:   200 primary schools to be converted into academies   The Secretary of State has also announced that by 2015 schools need to have at least 50 per cent of pupils achieving 5 A*-C GCSEs or they will be branded as 'underperforming' and may be put into special measures.

16 June:   Academy budget mistakes   The DfE has said that despite working with a system flawed by reliance upon figures from local authorities, they had not been doublechecking the submitted numbers. They believe the problems will only affect a minority of schools.

14 June:   Councils to be told pupil premium allocations   Birmingham is likely to be given the most money due to the high number of children on free school meals, and Rutland the least.

13 June:   School leaders in Cardiff say it as they see it   Recent reports such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results put pupils in Wales behind those in other countries. School leaders are defending teachers over these negative reports, saying that more money per pupil would be an immense help in raising standards.  

12 June:   Unloved school streaks ahead   The proportion of pupils at an inner-city Birmingham school, Perry Beeches, who have achieved at least five A*-C GCSE grades, has risen by 53 percentage points over three years. The school is the most improved comprehensive in England. It had been put into special measures in September 2007.

12 June:   Concern that Ebacc will cause race divide   Research of last year's exam results has shown that pupils from several ethnic minority groups were less likely to achieve the new measure's requirements than their white counterparts.

11 June:   Council funding arrangements to be reviewed   The review has been announced due to concerns that the new funding system for mainstream and academy schools could be against guidelines known as the New Burdens Rules.

10 June:   Slamdunk summer in Shropshire   American basketball association (the NBA) will run five summer camps in Shropshire this year for over 1,000 young people. Young people will have access to leading NBA coaches.

10 June:   Numbers Count maths programme now cheaper   A method which boosts maths skills of children who struggle with the subject can now be delivered for half the cost - a drop from £4,000 to £2,000 per staff member. Ongoing costs will be £750 each year to refresh staff skills. The programme can now be delivered three times a week over a longer period and academics at Edge Hill University, which runs it, say headteachers will find it more viable.  

10 June:   Children with SEN: more parental involvement in their education    In the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt (Con, Portsmouth North) introduced a Bill through a ten-minute rule motion on increasing parental involvement in the provision of education for children with special educational needs. The Bill outlines five areas of reform in this area. The Bill will have its Second Reading on Friday 2nd December 2011.

7 June:   Prevent strategy updated   Home Secretary Theresa May has launched what the government says is a 'radically different strategy to prevent people being drawn into terrorism'. Rigorous evaluation to ensure effectiveness and value for money will be part of the approach.

7 June:   Private schools urged to sponsor academies    The Schools Minister Nick Gibb believes that independent schools have a 'moral purpose' to help others.

7 June:   New white paper to protect parks and playing fields   The Natural Environment White Paper includes proposals to make environmental considerations central to much of future government policy, from education to economics.

7 June:   School funding body to close   Partnership for Schools is to be replaced by the Education Funding Agency, which will be an executive agency of the Department for Education rather than an arms-length body.

5 June:   Some teachers view black middle class parents negatively   Racist attitudes are still alive but in more 'subtle and coded' ways. This is what some of the 62 surveyed black Caribbean parents have told researchers at the Institute of Education, University of London researchers about how they are perceived by teachers and how their children experience education.

3 June:   CVA may be abolished by ministers   The contextual value added measure, which takes account of pupils' background factors when comparing exam results, has been claimed to be a way of entrenching low aspirations.

3 June:   Government considers PFI to fund 100 new state schools   Private finance initiatives, an expensive form of borrowing, are seen as the best way of creating the 350,000 school places needed within the next three years.

3 June:   Academies forced to pay higher IT costs   Renewing the licence for Capita's school management system will cost academies around five times the amount a mainstream state school has to pay.

3 June:   Dads wanted by Department for Education   The government is looking to talk to fathers of children under five to help them gather information about services available to them.

2 June:   Scotland plans to get it right for young people   Every £1 invested in a child's early years can generate an eventual saving of £9 for the taxpayer - so Minister for Children and Young People Angela Constance wants the Scottish Governmnet to continue to focus on improving work in the early years as well as build on the successes of Curriculum for Excellence. 

2 June:   Family time key to language skills   A survey during National Family Week has found high awareness amongst families of the benefits communication gives children.

1 June:   Rural school closures halted in Scotland   The halt has come into effect to allow a new commission to assess rural education over the next year.

30 May:   Worries over school places   Lambeth council has told residents that many children may have to search outside the borough for schools due to an increase in demand.

27 May:   FSM pupils to get preferential admittance into academies and free schools   The newly-published admissions code also proposes to stop the use of lotteries when bestowing places. The consultation on the proposals runs until 19 August.

25 May:   Newly-opened children's centres forced to close   Haringey council in London has to close four centres and reduced budgets to those that remain.

25 May:   Truancy reaches record level   On average, 64,000 children skipped school each day during the autumn term of last year.

25 May:   Councils face court over children's centres   Local parents have filed legal action against Hampshire and Hammersmith and Fulham councils over breaching the Childcare Act 2006.

24 May:   Changes proposed for school governors   The new report 'Who Governs the Governors?' includes proposals for fixed terms and a new national database.

24 May:   Bureacracy around managing teachers to be reduced   Performance management arrangements and capability procedures, which are complex and cause overlap and duplication, are to be overhauled by the Department for Education. This is subject to a 12-week consultation, which the Association of School and College Leaders has welcomed.

23 May:   Government publishes Giving White Paper   The white paper includes proposals such as enabling charity donations at cash machines and a £30 million fund for local infrastructure.

23 May:   Free school to have income cap   A proposed sixth-form free school in east London will not accept pupils whose parents have a combined income greater than £26,000.

22 May:   New admissions code to help good schools expand   The Secretary of State hopes the code will prevent schools having to turn away children due to an excess of applications.

20 May:   Revealed: full extent of cuts to school library services   An investigation has found that 600,000 children will no longer have access to SLSs.

20 May:   Forces children require extra attention   A new report has highlighted that children of parents in the armed forces often have to change schools and can suffer from anxiety about their parents' safety.

20 May:   £800 million for academy rebuilding work   Over the next eighteen months, 71 academies will benefit from the funding.

19 May:   £30 million for youth projects   The Big Lottery Fund has granted up to £1.5 million to thirty projects around England that help young people in care.

18 May:   Warnings over creation of a 'youth underclass'   The Prince's Trust's survey has found nearly a quarter of young people from deprived backgrounds expected to achieve little and end up on benefits.

18 May:   Children's centres suffer from lack of visibility   A year-long study has found many families unsure of what Sure Start is and what services they are entitled to at children's centres.

17 May:   Councils urged to renew commitment to disabled children   The Disabled Children's Charter is hoped to ensure local authorities consider the needs of disabled children when making budget changes.

16 May:   Free school applications open up to 16-19 proposals   The DfE has also announced that it will also accept applications for schools that specialise in special educational needs or other alternative provision.

13 May:   New league table measures   As part of the government's response to the Wolf Report, ministers plan to ensure high and low attaining pupils are given equal attention.

12 May:   Government publishes response to Wolf Report   Ministers will be adopting several of the recommendations from the report on vocational education for 14 to 19 year olds and have outlined a timetable for their implementation.

12 May:   £60 million to take on youth unemployment   The government's new jobs drive will create 250,000 apprenticeships and improve vocational education.

11 May:   CAF early intervention effective for years   Research by NFER using 80 cases has found the Common Assessment Framework to be a valuable tool and excellent value for money.

11 May:   £3 million for disabled people's organisations   The government hopes the money will help user-led grassroots organisations improve their services and skills.

11 May:   Quarter of parents worried about child inactivity   The findings have been published to coincide with National School Sport Week.

10 May:   Munro report on child protection published   Recommendations include reducing targets and a new duty for local services to co-ordinate.

10 May:   Large reductions in services for deaf children   Vital services have been cut in 28 local authorities.

9 May:   Concern over new anti-social powers   Barnardo's has warned that 'police direction powers' could mean children and young people are forced to return to abusive homes.

9 May:   Save The Children launch childcare survey   The children's charity hopes that their large survey will help inform the government on family needs.

9 May:   Outstanding school threatened with closure   Harrowden Middle School in Bedford may be closed due to changes in another nearby school which will begin to take in more pupils.

8 May:   Schools struggle to offer field trips   Budget constraints mean many children are missing out on trips to museums, galleries and other attractions.

6 May:   Thousands of faith schools to become academies   Over 3,000 Church of England schools will convert over the next five years, with the church taking the role currently occupied by local authorities.

3 May:   81 per cent of UK children use pre-primary education   Save The Children has used various factors to rank 43 developed countries, including the UK, in terms of children's wellbeing.

3 May:   Children in northern England seen as performing worse   Is this just a 'lazy assumption'?

3 May:   Tiny rural school needs one more pupil to stay open   The Highland Council has said Kinlochbervie's primary school needs to have at least 20 pupils.

29 April:   12,000 teaching posts to be lost   Research by NAHT and TES has also found that the number of schools for which budgets will increase is almost the same as the number that will have reduced funding.

29 April:   Fears over funding for teaching school network   With around 500 schools to join the network over the next four years, unions have warned that schools will be unable to provide the extra teaching services for the proposed maximum of £60,000 per year.

26 April:   Wales education funding gap    It looks large for schools in Swansea. 

22 April:   TDA budget cut by £218 million   The Training and Development Agency for Schools will become an executive agency of the DfE in April 2012.

21 April:   Teachers lack confidence in new education policies   A survey of 2,199 teachers by NFER has found that less than one in thirteen currently think free schools and increasing academy numbers will benefit disadvantaged children's education.

18 April:   Girls' behaviour is getting worse     Girls seem to be behaving worse in class these days, a recent survey shows. But, 68 per cent of suveyed staff still find boys pretty tough to handle.

17 April:   Recommendations to split Ofsted   The Commons Education Committee has called for a restructure creating separate inspections bodies for education and children's care.

15 April:   ATL Survey: increase in child poverty   Over 40 per cent of teachers surveyed recently said they think children’s learning being affected by poverty has increased since the recession began.

15 April:   Children are getting bigger    Girls are around 2cm taller, with waists bigger by 8cm; boys are around 4cm taller with waists up by 7cm.

15 April:   Dad makes plea to Chancellor   A father, frustrated by his difficulty in raising his daughter on almost no money, has travelled to London to make a personal appeal to the chancellor to help children in poverty.

13 April:   Consultation launched on school funding reform   This is a six-week consultation on the rationale and principles for reforming school funding. The government's aim is to create a fair and transparent funding system that can support a diverse range of school provision. Closing Date: Wednesday 25 May 2011.

12 April:   Do you know any gay people?     Sir Ian McKellan gets behind the Stonewall campaign against homophobia in education. Recent YouGov research for Stonewall shows homophobic bullying levels are still high.

12 April:    Attendance and behaviour: is this the magic bullet?    Jenny Jenny Hill of the BBC visits Surrey’s West Ewell school to hear what pupils and teachers have to say. 

11 April:   Rotary Young Citizen Awards    The BBC has been featuring young recipients of Rotary Young Citizen Awards. Here is Ellie Crisell’s report about a girl in Suffolk who has started an anti-knife crime campaign after her brother was killed.

11 April:   Working Wonders    This is a scheme in Wales providing administrative support for Bridgend College staff. Students type letters, course programmes and assignments for tutors and are given various administrative roles, from clerical assistant to manager, depending on their level of experience and study.Unique approach to giving students on-the-job hands-on training  

11 April:   Wales: Only Boys and Girls allowed under threat   But, award-winning Rhondda valley author Rachel Trezise is helping to support this highly successful reading scheme which has relied on local authority funding to find other sources.

11 April:   Modern foreign languages: A-level offer to be trimmed by some schools    Cuts to school sixth-form provision over the next three years and the fact that A-level funding is no longer ringfenced will cause some schools to face budget shortfalls of up to 20 per cent. Modern languages (French, German, Spanish, as well as Latin, for example) are most at risk. 

10 April:  The pinch: more pressure on families    The Centre for Economic and Business Research estimates that the average family's income will drop by around £910 in 2011.

8 April:   Thumbs down for England’s school building system   In July 2010, the government commissioned a review of standards in school building in England, led by Sebastian James of Dixons Retail plc. The review consulted widely and has found that value for money has been consistently poor. Building Schools for the Future is severely criticised as being too expensive and not helping the neediest schools enough. Here are links to the news item on the Department for Education site and the Sebastian James report.

8 April:   Heads tell Sheffield parents: fight cuts   Heads at seven Sheffield schools have written to parents about proposed cuts of 20% for sixth form education, which the government says is a fairer and more transparent funding system for further education. They have told parents that there may be less time to teach some classes and that more will be delivered online.

8 April:   Building a new culture of social responsibility   Baroness Warsi's speech to the Catholic Bishops' social action conference on Wednesday 6 April, 2011.

8 April:   Northern Ireland: teachers' being cyberbullied   The Ulster Teachers Union says this practice is on the increase, causing distress and harm to teachers. Pupils are also using mobile phones to film teachers and to then put the films on Youtube.

7 April:   More academies in England than free schools in Sweden   In the Guardian, some progress details on the conversion to academies; who is doing it, who isn’t.     

7 April:   Experts' view: EBacc will create more Neets    Andrew Chubb, principal at Hull's Archbishop Sentamu Academy told the cEducation Select Committee inquiry into the EBacc: '...bringing in a metric that narrows and is more likely to lead to disengagement pre-16 is only going to increase the number of NEETs post-16'.

6 April:   Phonics funding   The government confirms that primary schools can claim up to £3,000 for materials that meet the Department for Education criteria for an effective phonics programme. However, they must match the funding amounts they receive.

5 April:   Will welfare changes aim children out of poverty?   The government says around 350,000 children will be better off because it is replacing six benefits with the Universal Credit. It says it will also take 200,000 out of the severest poverty.  However, the Institute of Fiscal Studies said in December 2010 that this would increase relative child poverty figures by 200,000 in 2012-13 and 2013-2014.

5 April:   Schools feel the pinch. So what's gone wrong?   Despite the promise from government that schools would be receiving more money in real terms, the reality at the ledger-face is different.

5 April:   Social mobility strategy launched   The government hopes this will ensure that the circumstances of one's birth does not determine one's destiny.

5 April:   Child Poverty Strategy   While the government says this is only a start, the cross-government Child Poverty Strategy is an important milestone in the fight to end child poverty in Britain, says Sarah Teather. The government has also added an indicator of severe poverty alongside the income targets in the Child Poverty Act in order to help determine whether the most disadvantaged children are being properly targeted.

5 April:   Behaviour: New guidance for teachers   Education Secretary Michael Gove has announced new and clearer guidance for teachers on how they should deal with bad behaviour. This video features Charlie Taylor, famed for improving student behaviour.

5 April:   EMA replacement: will it be enough?   Some college principals are worried.

5 April:   Apprenticeships: HSBC signs up   1,000 HSBC employees who are not university educated, including school leavers, who want to follow a profession in the financial sector will benefit. 

4 April:   Child poverty targets: will they be diluted?   Child poverty campaigners are concerned.

4 April:   Teachers to have the power to charge pupils   New guidance says headteachers can press criminal charges against pupils maliciously accuse teachers.

4 April:   Are Britain's school pupils poor losers?   Opinion Matters has undertaken a poll which shows that many parents and children sulk, swear, get angry and even cry when they lose at competitive games or activities. But... 96 per cent of parents have reported that their children were 'gracious in victory'.

4 April:   Surprise! The inspectors are here...    To tackle the problem of schools hiding poor performance by encouraging misbehaving pupils to stay at home during inspections, the government wants there to be more surprise inspections at schools where pupil behaviour is poor.

2 April:   School dinner price hike   From 4 April, school dinners will cost more. In some places the cost will rise by 17 per cent. Experts say this will mean thousands of poorer pupils will miss out on healthy meals. Here is the government's response.

2 April:   Mother power   A group of mothers have delivered a petition calling for a halt to Sure Start cuts to Number 10 Downing Street.

1 April:   Wales: Volunteering   Millennium Volunteers (MV) in Wales, which supports young volunteers, became part of the GwirVol initiative on 1 April 2011. GwirVol aims to increase the number and diversity of young volunteers in Wales. GwirVol is a spin-off from the Russell Commission.  

1 April:   New endowment fund to help address educational disadvantage   The Sutton Trust will work with the Impetus Trust to manage a one-off, arms-length £125m government-backed education endowment fund (EEF) to address underachievement caused by disadvantage. Teachers, charities, local authorities, social enterprises, public sector organisations and co-operatives will be able to bid for funds under the scheme. Selection criteria for bids will be announced in the early summer. The endowment fund is based on Barack Obama's Race to the Top programme in the US. A new charity will be set up to house the fund. (Read the Sutton Trust press release here.)

1 April:   New study: childhood eating disorders    Doctors say services are urgently needed to recognise and treat eating disorders in young children as young as 6 years. The British Psychiatry Journal has published the first study on the scale of the problem.

30 March:   Primary schools will now get the brightest graduates too   Teach First, the charity that has been recruiting and training top graduates to work in challenging secondary schools is to extend its programme now to primary schools.

30 March:   Arts cuts start to bite    Arts Council England will fund fewer organisations. Down from 849, 695 groups will still be funded from 2012 to 2015 and 110 new groups have been successful.

30 March:   Key recommendations of EYFS review    More emphasis on communication and language; personal, social and emotional development; physical development; also, different weight should be given to the six areas of the Early Years Foundation; it should stay mandatory for all early years providers; 69 early learning goals should be cut down to 17.  (Catherine Gaunt of Nursery World's exclusive interview with Dame Clare Tickell.)

30 March:   Children's centres left open with no children   Due to cuts and to avoid further losses Hull council has kept thirteen centres open but unused, the only staff remaining are either receptionists or cleaners.

30 March:   More than half of charities to make redundancies   The findings come from a survey by the NCVO.

29 March:   Truancy rates in England fall   Although Schools Minister Nick Gibb says truancy rates are still too high, the percentage of half days missed has fallen from 1.05 per cent last year to 1.04 per cent this year.

29 March:   Teaching school applications open from Monday   Schools can apply to join the new national training and development network between 4 and 29 April.

29 March:   Children would like to help recruit teachers   A survey by NFER for the Children's Commissioner for England spoke to 1,957 young people between the ages of 8 and 17.

28 March:   EMA allowance changes   The Education Secretary's announcement included confirmation that those who began courses in 2009/10 will continue to receive their payments and that around 12,000 pupils will receive an annual bursary of £1,200. Here is Mike Baker's summary.

28 March:   Business leaders warning over young people's lack of skills   Research by Pearson UK has found 80 per cent of the 408 business leaders surveyed think teenagers should be taught practical skills alongside academic subjects.

25 March:   School Games launched   The government hopes the programme will encourage more children across Britain to take part in competitive sports in the run up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

25 March:   Innovative after-school Wii club launched in Scunthorpe   The friday night video games activity for 12 to 18 year olds is being set up through a partnership between seven organisations.

25 March:   London Challenge scheme to end   The school improvement scheme, which concentrates on pupil mentoring and partnership working, helped give the London area the highest proportion of state schools rated outstanding by Ofsted in the UK.

24 March:   Legal challenge over Sure Start in Hampshire   A consultation over changes to the council's 28 children's centres has been accused of not being genuine.

24 March:   British Youth Council to run UK Youth Parliament   The council has been given £335,000 to oversee the UKYP for six months.

23 March:   Budget backs 11 to 19 year olds   The Chancellor has announced funding for extra university technical colleges and work experience placements. 

21 March:   Ofsted launches consultation on school inspections   The call for views comes on the back of proposed changes in the recent Education Bill. The closing date is 20 May 2011.

21 March:   Campaign to increase number of minority ethnic apprentices   Rathbone aims to get 300 apprentices recruited by targeting information to specific ethnic groups.

20 March:   Children's Commissioner for Wales criticises standards   Keith Towler is due to release a report later this year highlighting the problems across children's services.

20 March:   50,000 apprenticeships to be created   The Chancellor is expected to announce £300 million to fund the scheme in Wednesday's budget.

18 March:   New DfE site launched to give children in care a voice   The Tell Tim webpage invites children to give their views to Tim Loughton MP through a straight-forward online form.

18 March:   BBC creates 100 apprenticeships in Salford   BBC North hopes to train young people in various aspects of broadcasting at its new MediaCity headquarters.

18 March:   DfE offers funding for interventions for vulnerable children   Local authorities will be able to apply for up to £200,000 per year for intensive programmes.

18 March:   Proposals for high-performers to bypass GCSEs   A new 'advanced Bac' is also being considered by ministers.

16 March:   Call for children's centre network in Scotland   The Join the Dots report by Professor Susan Deacon urges more connected working.

16 March:   Warning predicting rise in truancy   The Association of Education Welfare Managers says that certain cuts from local authorities are likely to undermine truancy prevention.

14 March:   Parents encouraged to protest children's centre closures   Netmums, the popular parenting website, has posted a guide on how parents can create local campaigns.

11 March:   Recommendations for Welsh LAs to join services   The changes are hoped to save five per cent of education expenditure each year.

11 March:   Include vocational subjects in the English Baccalaureate    Association of School and College Leaders president, John Fairhurst, calls for a genuine 'knowledge plus skills' baccalaureate, which recognises the whole range of school and community involvement.

11 March:   Teaching qualifications review launched   The review group, mainly consisting of headteachers, will submit their recommendations in July.

11 March:   Some headteachers face reduced budgets   Many are starting to consult unions over voluntary redundancies and early retirement. Some may cut subjects from what their schools offer.

11 March:   Pupil premium guidance updated   The new update reveals that the premium will be paid to local authorities in quarterly installments starting 30 June.

11 March:   Free school founder's children may automatically gain places   Currently under consideration by the DfE, the policy may be problematic if large groups of parents are involved.

10 March:   Special Needs Green Paper: Parents to have more control   Children's Minister, Sarah Teather, explains the government's approach to the review of support for children with special needs and their parents.

9 March:   Councillors in Southend will give part of their expenses to youth projects   One tenth of councillors expenses will be handed over to youth projects. Southend's children's services cuts amount to  £3.36m this year.

9 March:   Green paper: Children And Young People With Special Educational Needs and Disabilities   The paper, published on 9 March, contains proposals that aim to replace 'statements' and will overhaul the least 'fit for purpose' part of England's education system. You can give your views on the proposals until 30 June.

8 March:   Personal budgets set to change council services   Families will soon have the power to manage their own specialist support through personalised budgets and councils will need to rearrange how they work to accommodate them.

8 March:   Youth Justice Board chief warns over future   John Drew has said the government's aim of dropping custody levels will be hard to reach due to the amount of cuts to youth offending teams.

8 March:   Health and Well-being Boards: will they help or hinder joined-up working?   Sector leaders have hailed health and well-being boards as the next step for joined-up children's services, after the removal of the duty for localy authorities to set up children's trusts no longer exists and some have feared this could be detrimental to joined-up working.

8 March:   Minority ethnic children being failed   Mhemooda Malek from the Afiya Trust claims that the increase of black and minority ethnic people in detention since 2005 is proof that early intervention services are not engaging them properly.

7 March:   Maths funding boost in Wales   Over 50 schools will take part in the £440,000 programme to widen access to further maths.

7 March:   Major education changes in Powys   The largest county in Wales may merge several schools together so a series of public meetings are being held to discuss plans.

4 March:    Wolf Review of Vocational Education released    Among other recommendations the government will adopt immediately, 14 to 19 year-olds will now be able to take any vocational qualification offered by a regulated awarding body - they will be able to start at school.  

4 March:   Essex to outsource children's centres   The council hopes to have 85 if its centres managed by other organisations by April next year.

4 March:   Online consultation for young people   The Education Select Committee inquiry into Services for Young People hopes that using an online consultation will increase the number of young people responding to the call for views.

3 March:   Biometrics in schools to require tougher permissions   New legislation for schools using information such as fingerprints is expected to come into law in September.

3 March:   Blackburn with Darwen schools gain £3.4 million for disadvantaged young people   But some headteachers are not sure what results the Department for Education expects to see for the pupil premium investment.

2 March:   Secretary of State may intervene in local authority budget decisions   Despite the government's agenda for increased localism, Eric Pickles stated during an NCVO conference that he may legislate to give himself powers to change council decisions over voluntary sector cuts.

2 March:   Financial skills programme launched   Barclays Money Skills will use £15 million over three years to help young people with their knowledge of money.

1 March:   Don't pull up the drawbridge   This is the speech Eric Pickles gave to the NCVO. Here's a quote: 'I think the way ... a council works with the voluntary sector through this testing time is a key test of whether they are really ready for independent, responsible leadership. I've made it very clear they must resist any temptation to pull up the drawbridge and pass on disproportionate cuts.'

1 March:   Councils must share more on front line services   A new report requires that councils take a more 'aggressive approach to sharing services'; they need to share more front office functions and prove why a service cannot be shared rather than why it can.

1 March:   Local authorities asked for school improvement proposals   The Secretary of State Michael Gove has also written to academy sponsors asking for their ideas.

28 February:   Veterans to become mentors   Former armed forces personnel will mentor young people through a £1.5 million scheme run by the charity SkillForce.

28 February:   West Midlands launches innovative social care offer   The offer places public libraries centre-stage as key partners for the health and social care sector.

28 February:   End of government contracts with Play England   The national play organisation was hoping for a renewed contract with the UK government, but its bid for new work has been rejected.

25 February:   Bookgifting scheme announced for school children in England   The government is investing £13.5 million over the next two years to ensure books are universally available for children up to the age of 11.

25 February:   VCS grant winners announced   The Department for Education has announced the names of the voluntary organisations that were successful bidders for the Department's Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) grant, which is around £60 million each year. Organisations that work at a national level with children, young people, parents and families with an emphasis on early intervention and tackling the needs of disadvantaged groups have won bids.

24 February:   Young bear the brunt   NEET figures are at a record high.

24 February:   Government responds to NEET figures    Alongside funding 75,000 more adult apprenticeship places the government's new Work Programme aims to provide personalised support and training to help unemployed young people into work.

24 February:   Better join-up needed: health, social care and education   The Department for Education's Director of  Early Years, Extended Schools and Special Needs says the forthcoming SEN paper will propose improvements in integrated working. 

24 February:   Rise in number of young people not in education, work or training   The think tank Demos has warned the number of unemployed 16 to 24 years olds will likely grow by 1.2 million over the next five years.

23 February:  Child poverty: a scandal   Save the Children finds 1.6m children in the UK to be living in poverty. Tower Hamlets in London and Manchester have the highest levels of children living in severe poverty.

23 February:   Early years code of practice review to start soon   The DfE will begin a consultation into whether changes are needed to the current regulations for the free entitlement available to three and four year olds.

20 February:   Youth participation groups struggle amid cuts   Several leading organisations such as the British Youth Council and the UK Youth Parliament are facing hard times.

18 February:   Locality wins community organisers programme   The £15 million government contract will fund Locality to train 5,000 community organisers.

18 February:   Stiff competition to become a 'teaching school'   The DfE wants 500 schools to join the teaching school network, the benefits of which include a share of £72 million.

18 February:   Campaign to increase school worker salaries   Low-paid support staff, such as teaching assistants and caretakers, were promised a pay rise of £250 last year but the government has now said their salaries are frozen.

18 February:   'Dream teachers' urged to inspire others   A new website is asking teachers to upload short films offering practical and inspiring advice, with prizes available for the top submissions.

17 February:   Plan to link schools to pupils' later careers   The government hopes that publishing post-school outcomes will inform parents how well schools prepare their children for the future and encourage accountability.

16 February:   Unemployment hits a new high   And one in five 16 to 24-year-olds are out of work after a rise of 66,000 to 965,000. (Also, see stories in News: Neets: news, events, reports)

15 February:   One in five children has been abused or neglected   The startling results of an NSPCC survey of around 4,000 people under 25 is being used to underline the importance of early intervention and child protection.

14 February:   PM takes questions on Big Society   David Cameron insisted that spending cuts would not undermine his vision and that the Big Society Bank will help other banks understand social enterprise.

14 February:   Youth services rally in Solihull   The demonstration demanded support for young people's services, much of which faces cuts of between 20 and 30 per cent.

14 February:   Mixed reaction to Welsh school reforms   Despite support for proposals such as increased teaching training, many are worried that Wales will return to the league table system abandoned in 2001.

11 February:   11,911 children missing from schools   Nearly 1,500 cannot be traced at all, leaving Ofsted and charities fearing many are at risk from abuse.

11 February:   BSF High Court ruling   Mike Baker's blog outlines the ins and outs.  

11 February:   Child worker checks to be reduced   The proposed change, which is part of the new Freedom Bill, would mean occasional volunteers would not need to be vetted any more. Checks may also be portable.

11 February:   Teaching support staff stage Westminster protest   People travelled from around the UK to protest the abolition of the Schools Support Staff Negotiating Body which ensures fair pay and conditions for all school workers.

11 February:   SEN costs likely to soar   The new Equalities Act makes headteachers liable for providing more support than previously for pupils with special educational needs.

11 February:   Blogging increases pupils' writing skills   Teachers at Heathfield primary school have been amazed by the improvements, particularly among boys.

10 February:   Birmingham City Council questioned over legality of cuts   The NCVO has queried whether recent reductions are compliant with the Compact, the public and voluntary sector fair play agreement.

10 February:   EYFS has improved childcare provision   The findings of the Ofsted report on EYFS will inform the EYFS review being conducted by Dame Clare Tickell.

10 February:   Welsh pilot scheme to help 16 and 17 year olds into work   The Welsh Assembly Government is putting £900,000 into offering 190 employment opportunities in the southern and western parts of Wales.

9 February:   Well-being: singing gives it a boost   Research based on 10,000 children's involvement in England's national singing programme, Sing Up, found clear links with improved well-being and a sense of belonging to a community.

9 February:   After-school childcare hard to find   Daycare Trust survey: A poll of 116 family information services across England, Scotland and Wales showed 60 per cent of parents say there is a lack of afterschool childcare in their areas.

9 February:    School Games and competitive sport    Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport outlined plans for the new School Games.

9 February:   Call for views on Education Bill   Having passed the second reading, the Public Bill Committee is now accepting written evidence about the bill until 5 April.

9 February:   Short consultation open on English Baccalaureate   The Education Select Committee is inviting views on the new qualification until 8 March.

9 February:   Government ditches EYFS league tables proposal   The DfE may still publish achievements at school level, but will decide in April.

8 February:   Connexions: closures risk legal challenge   Some councils propose closing their Connexions services before the all-age careers service is set up in April 2012. If they do, they could end up in court.

8 February:   UK children's centres improve reading into teens   An OECD study has shown that 15 year olds who had attended pre-school were on average still a year ahead in reading ability than those who had not.

8 February:   Up to 3,000 youth workers face job losses   A survey has found that more than a quarter of local authority youth services face cuts between 21 and 30 per cent.

8 February:   Junk food lowers toddler IQ   A study has found that the effects can carry on into later childhood, even if diet has improved.

8 February:   Fears over SEN cuts   A green paper on special educational needs is due out later this month.

7 February:   £82.5 million for music education   The Henley review is out. The Education Secretary has responded by pledging money to ensure music education reaches children in disadvantaged areas. However, there is no guaranteed funding beyond the end of 2011,  the 2011 music grant has been frozen and a national funding formula for music education will be put in place from 2012. Funds will be provided to find a way to sustain Sing Up and £500,000 for a further year will be allocated to the current In Harmony projects.

7 February:   Dame Elisabeth Hoodless still thinks the Big Society can work   But she says council cuts are not helping and there needs to be funding and a strategic plan.

7 February:   LAs expected to publish voluntary sector contracts   A new code of practice will require local authorities detail all grants and payments to charities, community groups and social enterprises.

7 February:   Frank Field warns government over Sure Start   The government's poverty adviser has announced that the prime minister needs to act now to save the UK's 'biggest agent of change for addressing poverty and increasing social mobility'.

7 February:   Questions over free school funding transparency   Despite the DfE announcing £50 million capital funding would be available for the initiative, one school is estimated to cost £15 million.

6 February:   Concern over pupil premium distribution   London Councils has calculated that due to cost differences around the UK, London is set to lose £16 million despite 23 per cent of the city's children being eligible for the pupil premium.

5 February:   Home Office: major overhaul of adult vetting and barring   This could halve the number of people requiring criminal record checks. Also, CRB checks will in future be sent to individuals first rather than employers to allow time to challenge concerns or errors.

4 February:   Schools alone cannot close the achievement gap   Professor Mel West, leading this research at Manchester University, says schools can play a role in narrowing the achievement gap between pupils from poorer backgrounds and those less challenged. But there must be 'parallel strategies in health, housing and employment'.

4 February:   Cooking raises pupil interest in science   The DfE report also found that pupils whose parents attended parent evenings were also more likely to take up a science.

4 February:   Concern over new teacher powers   Experts in criminology believe the new search powers, which the Education Bill proposes granting to teachers, exceed those of the police.

4 February:   Children's reading ability linked to their use of public libraries   The National Literacy Trust's research also found that the main reason some children do not visit libraries is because their family does not.

4 February:   Volunteering falling due to lack of suitable roles   Volunteering England has found an increase in people wanting to volunteer that cannot be placed anywhere.

3 February:   School effectiveness only half the story in improving children's attainment.   Nature is the other half. Researchers say this strenthens the argument for personalised learning.

3 February:   Needed: a National Curriculum that meets all pupils' needs   A Commons committee warns that if the proposed National Curriculum and subjects needed to achieve the English Baccalaureate do not include more vocational subjects, many pupils could be turned off learning. 

3 February:   Building the Big Society is a two-way street   Liverpool City Council has withdrawn from the Big Society Partnership with the government.

3 February:   Genetic study strengthens case for personalised learning   A report from the KCL Institute of Psychiatry recommends that education moves away from rigid instruction and towards giving children more choice.

2 February:   Poverty stigma prevents FSM take-up   Many pupils in Wales would rather go hungry than eat free school meals, a committee for the assembly has found.

2 February:   Will cuts harm child mental health?   Although improving access to counselling for children will be part of the government's £400m programme, announced today, campaigners are concerned that cuts will have a detrimental effect overall.

2 February:   Wales: shake up for schools   Reading tests to be introduced

1 February:   Is this the proof of the Big Society pudding?   Lord Wei needs to eat, his family needs to eat, and three days as the Big Society Tsar are cutting across his ability to be their provider. He explains his stance in his blog.

1 February:   Youth clubs improve mental health   The 'Somewhere to Talk - Someone to Listen' report has found youth clubs improve young people's mental resilience and reduce the risk of developing problems.

1 February:   Bookstart programme protected in Wales   The Welsh Assembly Government will use £3.6 million to protect Bookstart, Language and Play, Family Support Programmes and Letterbox until 2012.

1 February:   Interim report of child protection review published   Eileen Munro has emphasised that reform is needed to increase working between partners, reduce concentration on box-ticking, and streamline statutory guidance. You can watch Professor Munro talk about the review here.

31 January:   Free school approved with little local consultation   Ark Atwood will open in Queen's Park in London on a site currently used by family and play centres.

31 January:   Parents should not be blamed for speech problems   A new Communication Trust survey shows there are common misconceptions about what causes serious communication difficulties in children and the exact causes may often be unknown,  and difficult to pinpoint.

31 January:   Target culture keeps state pupils from Oxbridge   The head of admissions at Oxford University claims that capable pupils are not given enough attention due to pressure to elevate lower-achieving pupils.

29 January:   Eight new free schools approved   The locations of the schools include Norwich, Leicester and Camden.

28 January:   Children's centre managers fear closures   Daycare Trust and 4Children have found that more than half of 900 managers surveyed expected reduced services and 58 expected to be shut within a year.

28 January   Sure Starts in Stoke at risk    Stoke Council has to find £40m savings; The Blurton Centre is ear-marked for closure. Parents are defending its service and want it to stay open.

28 January:   Worrying news for Liverpool's voluntary sector   According to the city's council leader, almost 500 people in the voluntary sector could lose their jobs as the Council implements cuts.

28 January:   Large drop in teacher training applications   The 40 per cent drop is seen as a consequence of doubt over job security in the public sector and the absence of TDA's previous marketing campaigns.

28 January:   Catholic Church changes stance on academies   The church announced that it has ended its prior caution and will now allow its schools to become 'Catholic voluntary academies'.

28 January:   EBacc measure applied to academies   An analysis by TES found that academies performed worse than other secondaries using the measure. The DfE has said the figures are low because many academies have replaced low-performing schools.

28 January:   Schools quick to reorganise curriculums for EBacc   Subjects such as music are being sidetracked to get more pupils attempting the government's new English Baccalaureate achievement.

27 January:   The Education White Paper is now a Bill    In general, the Bill is expected to reflect what was in November's White Paper: a shake-up of the national curriculum, the exam and test system; changes in teacher training, school funding and school accountability; also the ability for the government to expand free schools and academies. Also, headteachers will have greater disciplinary powers and the government says the bill will cut bureaucracy. 

27 January:   Education Bill: here is a link to the document.   Also, links to sections particularly relevant to extended services: here and continued here.

27 January:   Questions over academy finance controls   A report by the Public Accounts Committee has found that the current system of checks for academy finances are not rigorous enough and pose a risk to value for public money. Here is Mike Baker's blog about this issue.

26 January:   Want your internet access sorted, sir?   Well, just ring this number in Atlanta please. Under the well-intentioned PFI scheme, schools locked into expensive contracts face absurd pitfalls, and the taxpayer picks up the tab for PFI schools that have closed before completion.

25 January:   Community budgets offer flexibility but funds are still too limited   The Treasury has written to the 28 authorities piloting community budgets suggesting that central funding streams be used in the budgets, including Work Programme, youth offending funding, primary care trust and early intervention grant funds. While there is support for the increased flexibility the community budgets offer, some say ringfencing of health and social care funding will hamper a linked-up approach, as will the overall limited funds. 

25 January:    Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) dilemma    The government has cut the EMA by £482 million, down to a vastly smaller £78 million 'discretionary learner fund'. It now struggles to decide how to allocate the cash. If the sum is divided equally between all young EMA recipients, each would receive the handsome sum of £2.40 per week to pay for books and other expenses. Connexions advisers want to see the money going to those who are most at risk of not continuing their studies.

25 January:   Wales: Estyn inspection says standards are not good enough in a third of schools Chief inspector, Ann Keane, wants Wales to raise its schools' standards relative to other countries.

25 January:  Is this a glimmer of employment hope for graduates?   This report says that while it's still an employers' market, a survey shows an 8.9 per cent increase in graduate jobs. 

24 January:   Will the academy programme save the government money?   Executive members of F40 group which is campaigning for fairer education funding believes there is an unfair and significant financial advantage to academy conversion. Its chief executive, Gillian Hayward, suggests that additional money for academies is being ‘top-sliced from the money which should be available for all schools’. Also, read the Telegraph version of this story here.

21 January:   Speech problems 'hamper children's reading ability'   Children who start school with poor speaking and listening skills may not develop good reading skills.

21 January:   Wales: Children’s rights measure will go forward for Royal Assent.   The Rights of Children measure in Wales builds on the existing rights based approach that the Welsh Assembly Government takes towards children and young people policy. 

24 January:   Only the wealthy will learn music, warn teachers   A survey has found 34 per cent of music tuition providers in English schools have already had to create redundancies.

23 January:   Private schools bid to become free schools   Some independent schools want to stop charging fees so that they retain their student numbers.

21 January:   Unexpected new cut announced for school budgets   The Devolved Formula Capital grant, normally used for maintenance and ICT, is to be reduced by 80 per cent.

21 January:   Libraries in northern Wales struggle to stay open   Council officers have proposed to close five in Flintshire, up to seven in Conwy and four in Anglesey.

21 January:   Teachers in Wales to predict NEETs   A new action plan is asking teachers to check pupils as young as 11 for warning signs of later not entering employment, education or training.

21 January:   Outdoor education in danger in Wales   A withdrawl of £142,000 is likely to have a knock-on effect leaving pupils unable to afford trebling prices for activities.

20 January:   Petition to save Birmingham Youth Service   Proposed cuts mean that two thirds of the city's youth work projects are likely to close.

20 January:   New review of National Curriculum begins   The first stage of consultation is now open until 14 April while a panel of five education experts consider the evidence. PSHE will be covered in a separate review.

20 January:   Fears over ending citizenship lessons   Reacting to the Education Secretary's expressed desire for a slimmer national curriculum, teachers have warned that ending compulsory citizenship lessons would harm the Big Society and set England back to being 'one of the least poltically literate countries in the developed world'.

20 January:   Youth Action Network likely to close   The network has around 100 member organisations and supports 400,000 young volunteers.

19 January:   Early Intervention: The next steps   A new report by Graham Allen MP for Nottingham says that success or failure in early childhood has profound economic consequences. He recommends that the private sector invests in early intervention programmes that work.  Also read the report from Nursery World: Allen's early intervention report calls for better-qualified workforce

19 January  £90 million for sixth-form colleges   The government's new funding package includes £57 million for building repairs.

19 January:   Hampshire and Norfok councils announce job cuts   The Conservative-led councils have to end a total of 2,200 jobs to keep their budgets balanced.

19 January   Proposals to include parenting skills in early intervention strategy welcomed    However, Shadow Education Secretary Andy Burnham would rather see present services that support good parenting being protected from cuts.

18 January:    A statement by Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Children and Families Tim Loughton    In which he makes encouraging mention of out-of-school hours learning and building on services like the Commissioning Support Programme.

18 January:   Ending EMA likely to cost government £40 million   The high cost would be due partly to cancellation fees for ending their contract with Capita prematurely.

17 January:   Nearly 2,000 young people write to PM over youth services   The co-signed letter was written to draw the Prime Minister's attention to the long-term economic and social benefits of investing in support for young people.

17 January:   Poorer teenagers likely to drop out if EMA cancelled   In a poll of 713 EMA students, 499 said that if the Education Maintenance Allowance was withdrawn, they would not be able to afford to continue their schooling.

15 January   South West may lose out under Pupil Premium   Cash under pupil premium scheme to be channelled to other parts of the country may result in nearly 90 per cent of pupils in the South West of England having less per head spent on their education.  will have less money spent on their education, it emerged last night.

14 January:   Pupil premium for SEN pupils   Department for Education considers paying the Pupil Premium for SEN children to parents. SEN groups have warned that schools could lose funding and this move may not help vulnerable children and their families.

14 January  Glasgow school lunch study  Truancy, bullying and accidents reduced when pupils stay at school for lunch.

14 January:   Every council likely to close at least one children's centre   Megan Pacey, chief executive of Early Education, added that she hoped creative ways could be found to preserve the excellent services.

14 January:   Difficulties found hiring new headteachers   1,971 primary schools sought new headteachers last year, but 796 had to re-advertise due to lack of applicants.

14 January:   Academy applications more successful if unions abandoned   The DfE has confirmed that schools are more likely to be granted academy status if they put an end to national pay and conditions for staff.

13 January:   Manchester City Council to cut 2,000 jobs   The council is one of the worst hit by local government funding changes and faces a 25 per cent cut over the next two years.

13 January:   Transition Fund deadline too tight; criteria too tough   Many charities remain unsure whether their funding will be cut and cannot therefore easily satisfy conditions to receive support from the government's 'transition fund'.

13 January:    On David Blunkett's wish list: a £multi-million youth volunteering fund   The former home secretary wants the Treasury and Big Lottery Fund to set up a multi-million pound endowment fund to increase youth volunteering in a time when young people are being severely hurt by the cuts and credit crunch.

12 January:   Petition to abandon EYFS league tables   Many people have reservations about the government's new plans to start publishing performance league tables for children in reception.

12 January:   Government publishes spending data from state schools   The DfE hopes it will encourage parents and the wider public to consider financial figures as well as academic performance. Spending data for academies has not been included.

12 January:   Children's centres should open to all ages, says report   The 'United or Divided?' report recommends children's centres could be sustained by being used as resource hubs for other activities within their communities.

12 January:   English Baccalaureate tables cause contention   The DfE has published GCSE and A- level league tables along with a hypothetical table which compares league table results with the standards of the English Baccalaureate that it hopes to introduce. First, listen to Schools Minister Nick Gibb outlining the EBacc. And here's a round-up of reactions:

• The state sector says the goalposts have been shifted.
• Private schools say they've done poorly on the EBac tables due to lack of iGCSE inclusion and overly specific requirements.
• Headteacher concerns: will the EBac will force schools to move away from vocational education?
• Ippr think tank's view: The EBac will encourage schools to focus resources on better off pupils who may more likely achieve the EBac. This could undermine the pupil premium. 

12 January:   Rural school attracts pupils with part-time scheme   Hollinsclough CofE primary school has begun to offer home-schooled children a flexi-time system, giving them the opportunity to mix with other children.

11 January:   Lincolnshire to cut up to 62 per cent from children's services   School improvement, youth services and Connexions are expected to take the brunt of the savings.

11 January:   Hardest cuts for councils with most children in need   Research by CYP Now has found local authorities with higher levels of disadvantaged children will fare worse after the funding settlement for councils comes into effect, causing already strained children's services into further difficulties.

11 January:   It costs more to be poor   A study by Save the Children and moneysavingexpert.com has found that, due to their circumstances, disadvantaged families tend to pay more for basic goods and services.

11 January:   Headteacher urges parents to apply for FSM   A letter from Sacred Heart School's Christine Carpenter told parents of the urgency of the pupil premium as well as how she too had free school meals as a child.

11 January:   Local authority funding reduced by £400 million   The amount, to be moved over two years, will now go towards paying for academies.

10 January:   Parents urged to apply for Child Trust Fund   The fund will pay £50 into the accounts of children in Wales born between 31 August 2004 and 1 September 2005, but parents and guardians must apply by 31 January 2011.

10 January:   New school commissioner for England   Elizabeth Sidwell, the chief executive of three London academies, is a strong believer in bringing the state and independent education sectors together.

9 January:   Environment lessons as important as maths and English   The TV presenter David Attenborough has said it is vital children learn how the natural world is changing and how much we depend on maintaining it.

8 January:   Council urges pupils to take up FSM   Middlesborough Council says that if the remaining eligible pupils do not sign up for free school meals, they will miss out on £1.2 million in pupil premium funds.

8 January:   Teachers in Scotland may lose wage ringfence   Local authorities may cut up to £13,000 a year from some teachers' pay in an attempt to save £5.3 million nationally.

6 January:   Professional rugby clubs to give free health courses   MEND is working with community teams at Premiership Rugby clubs to create healthy lifestyle clubs aimed at helping families and local communities.

6 January:   Coalition doubles academy numbers   There are now 407 academies open, over twice the 203 when the government came into power last May.

5 January:   Pupil well-being in danger of neglect   Sir Paul Ennals, head of the National Children's Bureau, believes schemes such as breakfast clubs will lose support as schools focus on exam results more and more.

5 January:   London council stops funding 60 per cent of Sure Start centres   Only six out of Hammersmith and Fulham's fifteen centres will continue to receive direct funding.

5 January:   NDNA releases factsheet on Equality Act   The free tool is designed to help nurseries understand their new obligations.

4 January:   Booktrust and DfE announce funding update   After a large public outcry, the government are working with the reading charity to find a way to continue its work.

3 January:   Free schools begin to recruit headteachers   So far, 25 proposals for schools have been approved by the Education Secretary

1 January:   Council staff increasingly switching to teaching careers   The dramatic rise is reputedly being caused by increased redundancies in the public sector combined with greater numbers of public bodies signing up to teaching programmes.

30 December:   Scheme rewards children for after-school activities   The Children's University gives children a learning passport which teachers and others use to verify that they have attended clubs and other out-of-school activities.

30 December:   Union calls for reduction in Scottish education authorities   EIS believes that education boards would be more efficient and cost-effective than the current council system.

27 December:   One in four councils issuing redundancies to music staff   The future of music in state schools is looking uncertain due to tighter council budgets.

24 December:   Child protection programme likely to be cut   The Safe In The City scheme, created by The Children's Society, helps vulnerable children and young people who run away from home.

22 December:   Free school meal pupils rarely go to Oxbridge   Other findings from a Sutton Trust study included that private school pupils are 22 times more likely to go to a top 25 university than their state school counterparts.

21 December:   Adoption procedures at risk from online searches   Due to sites such as Facebook, adopted children are able to reconnect with estranged birth families much earlier than is deemed responsible.

21 December:   Gloucester Academy gets £15 million   The money will allow the school to move from two sites to one.

21 December:   Map published to show council funding distribution   The Department of Communities and Local Government hopes the map will help local authorities see for themselves how funds are given across England.

21 December:   Charities and communities asked to give views on child poverty strategy   The consultation launched today by Children's Minister Sarah Teather will run until 15 February 2011.

21 December:   Funding ends for reading programmes   Booktr