Schools should not ban parents from taking photos of their children at sports day, a privacy watchdog has said.
Parents are not breaking the law by snapping their own children at school events, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said…

Children as young as five should be taught about sex, the Government’s controversial health watchdog said last night. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence…

Sarah Harris Mail
Thousands of ‘outstanding’ schools will never have to face an Ofsted inspection again, it has been revealed. Education Secretary Michael Gove says all schools with the top judgement from the education watchdog will be exempt from check-ups.The shake-up means that the top primary and secondary schools that are fast-tracked to become academies will be immediately cut loose from local authority control as well as Ofsted visits. Parent groups are likely to fear there could be a lack of accountability, with outstanding schools left to coast or deteriorate. …

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
06 May 2010
As many as half of schools in some areas will fail to administer tests for 10 and 11-year-olds amid claims they ruin children’s education and threaten teachers’ jobs. Up to 8,500 of the country’s 17,000 state primaries could take part in the boycott next week, although Labour has claimed the numbers will be much lower.
The industrial action – staged by the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Head Teachers – is set to cause widespread disruption. It is believed that the …

Parents’ groups support teachers who argue that the tests are not in the interests of children or schools. The final year of primary school becomes all about the tests, say teachers.
Parents today came out in support of a threatened teachers’ boycott of primary school tests this summer.The 300,000 teachers who…

Tim Ross London Evening Standard
Children must never be allowed to go paddling on school trips unless teachers have conducted a thorough risk assessment first, the Government said today. Ministers published new guidelines to encourage more schools to take pupils out for walks, activities and fieldwork. But the document urged teachers to resist when children ask to dip their toes in the sea on a hot day. Schools minister Diana Johnson published the 58-page guidance amid concern that health and safety fears were stopping teachers taking trips. Unions have …

Calling all concerned parents and teachers (especially those in the two unions NUT & NAHT who attended “The Future of Assessment” Conference on the 11th) to please let us know your view on the issue of SATs.
Why do we put our schools our children through these tests which cause stress to whole families and then just tell us what teacher assessments have already told us in past years ?
Teachers have always assessed children’s work and used it to progress learning. Even the Secretary of State has been …