Published in The TES

By Martin Evans and Nick Collins, Telegraph
Parents across the country were forced to stay at home to look after their children after thousands of schools closed in the face of worsening weather. Concerns over safety as well as transport problems for pupils and staff meant the vast majority of primary and secondary schools in the worst hit areas could not open. But some parents and business leaders expressed concern that head teachers were closing their doors at the first sign of a snowflake. For many youngsters it meant a welcome …

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. …

On Tuesday ParentsOutloud met with the School Chief Adjudicator to discuss the difficult issue of school places. Here is Dr Ian Craig’s response and invitation to say what you think needs to be done so I hope lots of you will respond. All responses will be read by Dr Craig.

Tim Ross
State schools will be asked to merge under a dramatic cost-cutting plan.

Children’s Secretary Ed Balls set out the sweeping measures, including bulk-buying of equipment and sharing headteachers between several schools.
Education groups will run more efficient chains of state schools and schools should merge to form “federations”.
Campaign group Parents Outloud expressed some alarm at the plan, warning that children will be “lost in the mass” of huge primaries and secondaries. It will be interesting to hear parents reaction to this, it is hard to think how the ethos of …

From The Times
Richard Ford, Home Correspondent
A generation of youths who do not know how to treat women are to be targeted in a drive to tackle violence and abuse in teenage relationships, the Government announced today.
The campaign could also involve children as young as 5 being taught about “gender equality” as part of personal, social and health education that, from 2011, is to be a compulsory part of the national curriculum. Rules are also to be produced for how teachers should tackle “sexist, sexual and transphobic” bullying.
A strategy to tackle …

Children should be allowed to play in the dirt because being too clean can impair the skin’s ability to heal itself, new research suggests.
By Murray Wardrop Telegraph
Scientists have discovered that bacteria on the surface of the skin play an important role in combating inflammation when we get hurt. The bugs dampen down overactive immune responses, which can lead to rashes or cause cuts and bruises to become swollen and painful. The findings support previous research which suggests that exposure to germs during early childhood can prime the immune …

Posted By Lee Ingram. I had a problem with my child being bullied at Infant school and the teachers told me that the children don’t know what bullying is at that age.

Sarah Harris Mail.
A school dinner lady who told the parents of a seven-year-old girl that she had been viciously bullied in the playground has been sacked. Scott and Claire David were simply informed in a letter home that their daughter Chloe had been ‘hurt’ in an incident with a skipping rope. In fact, she had been tied to a fence, whipped by four boys, had to be dragged to safety and suffered burns to her wrists. But the attempted cover-up was exposed when Carol Hill - the dinner lady who …