Laura Clark, Daily Mail
David Miliband is facing charges of hypocrisy for sending his son to a sought-after Church of England school despite being an admitted atheist.
The Foreign Secretary rejected a non-faith school 80 yards from his North London home in favour of an ‘exceptional’ Anglican primary more than a mile away.
His five-year-old adopted son secured a place after Mr Miliband’s wife began attending a church linked to the school around two years ago. The family had lived in the area for about five years when American-born Louise Miliband began worshiping …

Sarah Ebner \Times School Gate blog
“I just want to get to school”, one teenager wrote to me yesterday. via email. “I can’t believe that my school’s been closed the week before my GCSEs start, but it needs to be open now so I can take the exams. I’m not very happy. Maybe there shouldn’t be exams at this time of year?”It’s rare that teenagers are keen to get to school, but they’re not stupid. They know they need to take their exams, and they know they need good grades. So …

Rachel Williams, Guardian
Hundreds of thousands of children enjoyed an extra day off school yesterday, as icy conditions prevented pupils and teachers from travelling and damaged school heating systems and pipes.Areas hit hardest included Hampshire, where at least 410 schools out of a total of 536 were closed, and Hertfordshire, where more than 320 of the county’s 520 schools were shut. In Surrey 365 did not open.Business leaders raised fears that head teachers might be closing their doors too swiftly, warning that companies with few staff suffered particularly badly when parents …

Anushka Asthana
The Observer, Sunday 27 December 2009
Sir Steve Redgrave has criticised the organisers of the London Olympic Games for being shortsighted in planning the sporting legacy for the UK.
The record-breaking Olympian, who won five consecutive gold medals for rowing, says those involved in the Games are not looking far enough into the future. “Everything seems to be very short-term at the moment – there has been little talk about what is going to happen in the years after the Olympics. The success of these games will not even be …

By Murray Wardrop Telepragh
Research suggests children who are smacked when young are more successful later in life A study found that youngsters smacked up to the age of six did better at school and were more optimistic about their lives than those never hit by their parents. They were also more likely to undertake voluntary work and keener to attend university, experts discovered.
Generation of grandparents providing free childcareThe research, conducted in the United States, is likely to anger children’s rights campaigners who have unsuccessfully fought to ban smacking in Britain. …

By Laura Clark, Daily Mail
Children’s Secretary Ed Balls is likely to face criticism for the new proposals Ed Balls stands accused of encouraging teenage pregnancy with plans to give 14-year-olds compulsory parenting lessons. Pupils will learn how to raise youngsters under the Children’s Secretary’s proposals from 2011 onwards.But experts warned that this could lead to teenage pregnancy being seen as increasingly acceptable, youngsters giving up education to have a baby - and teachers taking on the role of social workers.The row coincided with figures showing how schoolgirls in England’s …

Sunday January 3,2010
By Hilary Douglas

PARENT power in the classroom is under threat from teachers who want to dominate school governors’ boards once again, experts warn.
Their aim is to ban pushy mother and father governors. Local government insiders claim if teachers get their way parents playing an active role in the day-to-day management of their children’s education could come to an end in the next year. In recent years, the balance of power has shifted to give parents more say, but many experts now feel that parental influence has gone …

In Manchester, a quarter of 10 and 11-year-olds are dangerously overweight. Parents face being banned from the school run as part of a controversial attempt to combat childhood obesity. Health chiefs hope introducing residents-only parking areas near schools will encourage pupils to walk or cycle instead. The plans were criticised as ‘absolute nonsense’ by parents’ groups, who claim the Government is at fault for the rise in overweight youngsters. They point to physical exercise classes being cut from the national curriculum and school playing fields being sold off. …

By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor
Published: 1:27PM GMT 04 Dec 2009

Police have warned that children playing with toy guns run the risk of being confronted by armed marksmen Senior officers in Essex said plastic guns are now so realistic that even a trained police marksman may not be able to tell it’s a toy, leading to potential confrontations between armed officers and children. But one parents’ group dismissed the warning as “nonsense” and said no officer could seriously consider the likes of a seven-year-old waving a plastic toy around …

Sunday November 22,2009
By Hilary Douglas
Ed Balls admits that the Schools Bill could mean ‘increased costs’ for teachers
Sweeping education reforms could leave schools facing legal action running into hundreds of millions of pounds, Ed Balls admitted last night.
The Schools Bill guarantees children the legal right to a good education – but teachers fear it will allow pushy parents to blame them if youngsters fail to achieve the standards they expect. A set of guarantees written into the bill includes the promise that every child will go to a …