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 …

Posted By Mr Newman
I know that schools must show that tools must show that they are removing and excluding less children from their classrooms. Has anyone in government realised what this means? It means that students who are abusive, disruptive, and making a huge negative impact on the learning of the rest of the class are being sent back to class for the sake of a statistic. So the other children who wish to learn can’t - their teacher is busy. They don’t learn, they don’t grow, and they are …

Posted By : Samantha
I have 3 children and have worried with each one about starting school. My last child unfortunately for him was born in the middle of August. He is really not ready for school emotionally. I have done all I can to try to resolve a later start for him but at the risk of him missing out on reception class which i feel would be worse for him in the long run to start straight in at year one. I have tried to contact the local mp …

Today’s results should be ignored by all teachers, parents, children and the country at large . They are an example of the Governments abuse of children to secure themselves headlines to justify the thousands of pounds wasted by them on the pointless exercise of the tests. Let our schools and LEA’s do the testing as in the past and stop the unnecessary stress for all those who are forced to play Ed Balls game. It is time education was returned to the experts, teachers.

“Parents at dead girl’s school plead for advice on viru”. Are we surprised parents are terrified when swine flu was discovered in Mexico we were told it was lethal and the chances of surviving it were not good , it was attacking children and babies. Now it is here we are told it is nothing and we will recover in a few days and already children are ill and one has died. In my area it has been diagnosed in three school when this happened we had 5 …