Baroness Sally Morgan, the chairman of Ofsted, calls for a radical drive to raise standards of early education, including enrolling more children in school-based nurseries

• Ofsted investigating claims Al-Madinah School in Derby has replaced lessons with prayers
• Inspection due later this month brought forward ‘as a matter of urgency’
• Female pupils have to sit at the back of class and give up their place in queues for male classmates, it is claimed

Graeme Paton Telegraph
Formal schooling should be delayed until the age of six or seven because early education is causing “profound damage” to children, an influential lobby of almost 130 experts warns.
Traditional lessons should be put on hold for up to two years amid fears that successive governments have promoted a “too much, too soon” culture in schools and nurseries, it is claimed.
In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, the group of academics, teachers, authors and charity leaders call for a fundamental reassessment of national policies on early education.
It is claimed …

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today denied planned school reforms would turn the education system into an “exam sausage factory”. Mr Clegg was forced on the defensive after announcing proposals which could see five-year-olds tested for the first time and

Richard Garner Independent
Children with a parent in prison are twice as likely to be disruptive in school and face mental health problems later in life, says a report to be

A group of campaigners who want a more flexible approach towards the school starting age in Northern Ireland have welcomed an undertaking by their local Education Minister to consider their case

Shakespeare week will mark the Bard’s 450th birthday
Plans for an annual national Shakespeare week – to be launched next year on the 450th anniversary of the Bard’s birth – will be announced tonight.
The idea is to allow children from the age of five at……

Richard Garner Independent April 2013
Teachers are to demand a new contract limiting them to spending just 20 hours a week in the classroom.
The move was agreed at the National Union of Teachers’ annual conference in Liverpool as part of a demand for a 35-hour week for the profession.
Delegates said research had shown the average working week for a primary school teacher was 50.2 hours a week – and that of a secondary school teacher 49.9.
“We’re fed up with arriving at 7.45am and we’re there until 6.30pm,” said Richard Rose, a …

Richard Garner Independent
Schools across the country are likely to be affected by the rolling programme of walkouts, which will begin in summer term
Schools face a summer and autumn of discontent with teachers’ leaders unveiling plans for the most sustained period of strike action in more than 20 years.
The country’s two biggest teachers’ unions – the National Union of Teachers and National Association Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers announced a rolling programme of industrial action region by region which will cover schools throughout England and Wales by the end of the …

Express 27th Feb
Plans for a new history curriculum by Education Secretary Michael Gove have been given a ringing endorsement by some of the UK’s leading historians.
Dr David Starkey is one of 15 leading historians who have commended Michael Gove’s plans for a new hIn a letter published in The Times newspaper 15 historians, including David Starkey, Niall Ferguson and the Tory MP Chris Skidmore, commended Mr Gove’s controversial plans to have topics taught in chronological order, saying it has “long been needed” and is a “welcome” idea.
The new curriculum would …