Headlines from the world of education and schools work:
- Boarding schools fight ban on cakes: State boarding schools are being threatened with court action for giving pupils sweet treats between lessons.
- Secondary school bans girls from wearing skirts: A secondary school has banned girls from wearing skirts, regardless of length, to prevent them from attracting unwanted attention.
- Puberty: little girls really are growing up faster: A new study says girls are hitting puberty at the age of nine.
- Theresa May halts ‘draconian’ child worker vetting scheme: Child protection measures are disproportionate and will be scaled back to ‘common sense’ proportions, home secretary says
- Charities warn against scaling back vetting and barring scheme too far: After home secretary pledges to bring scheme back to ‘common sense’ levels, charities appeal for system to remain robust
- Nick Clegg to unveil new taskforce on childhood and families: Nick Clegg announces the government is setting up a new childhood and families taskforce that will have to resolve fundamental coalition differences on family policy and whether marriage should be recognised in the tax system.
- Home school parents ‘should be made to register with council’: Parents of home schooled children should be legally obliged to register with their local authority and undergo annual “inspections”, Ofsted has recommended.
- Pupils in smaller classes score higher in exams: Pupils who are taught in smaller classes achieve higher marks in exams, a study claims, raising questions about group sizes in British schools.
- Two-thirds of top schools want to be academies, says Gove: But Catholic church warns its schools against applying for academy status. Nearly 70% of secondary schools rated as outstanding have now expressed interest in becoming an academy, the education secretary, Michael Gove, revealed.
- Michael Gove ushers free schools into shops and houses: Education secretary says planning laws were being rewritten to allow ‘imaginative’ use of small spaces; parents can set up their own schools in shops and houses.
- Separate GCSEs for boys and girls: Boys and girls could be able to sit different GCSEs under plans by Britain’s largest exam board to introduce gender-specific qualifications.
