ISC Daily News Summary

Writer Anne Perkins responds to last week's David Kynaston comment piece on independent schools, stating that 'the people who complain about the private sector's success at getting students into Oxford and Cambridge are wasting their energy on the wrong target. They need to look elsewhere, to the failure of state schools to inspire and nurture their best talent.'

The state we're not all in (Guardian online only)

Figures obtained by the Conservatives reveal that as many as 100,000 children could miss out on their first choice of secondary school. A breakdown of last year's admissions shows that success rates ranged from 100% in some areas to 51% in others. The news comes ahead of the results of admissions day next Tuesday, when more than 560,000 families in England will find out if they have got a place at their favoured state secondary. The Guardian reports on views expressed by the Chief Schools Adjudicator, Philip Hunter. Mr Hunter, who is profiled in today's Education Guardian supplement, believes that secondary schools that have been abandoned by middle class families should be closed to guard against social segregation and school catchment areas should also be redrawn to force a more socially mixed education system.

100,000 children 'won't get school of choice' (Times)
School places squeezed (Daily Telegraph not online)
Parents failed on school choice, say Tories (Independent)
Close sink schools to encourage social diversity, admissions adjudicator urges (Guardian)
Referee on an uneven playing field (Education Guardian)
How school admissions work (Education Guardian)
Half of all pupils don't get into the school they want (Daily Mail)
1 in 5 fail to get school they want (Daily Express not online)
Families' class war (Sun not online)
100,000 miss first-choice school (BBC News Online)

Figures obtained by Liberal Democrat schools spokesman David Laws indicate that more than 550 state secondary schools have failed to sign up to deliver the government's flagship diplomas from this September.

One in five secondary schools fails to sign up for flagship diplomas (Independent)

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is to review sex education as part of its strategy to cut the teenage pregnancy rate, with one possibility being to introduce compulsory sex education lessons in primary schools.

Review of sex and relationship education delivery (DCSF)
Sex lessons plan for primary pupils (Daily Telegraph)
Sex education could be made compulsory for five-year-olds (Daily Mail)
Pupils to help review sex lessons (BBC News Online)

The latest government figures reveal that truancy rates in England's schools have risen to their highest since 1997 with the percentage of children absent without leave rising 0.21% to 1% in 2006-7.

Truancy rate 'highest since 1997' (BBC News Online)
More children found skipping school (Guardian)

The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS) is proposing that employers should be handed new powers to shape higher education degrees, according to a confidential blueprint circulating inside Whitehall.

Blueprint for bosses to shape degrees (Financial Times)
Whitehall eyes business focus for degrees (Financial Times)
Degrees of change (Daily Telegraph not online)

A study by the Runnymede Trust suggests that the requirement for faith schools in England to promote 'community cohesion' is being treated with 'a strong element of distrust' in some areas.

'Distrust' of school cohesion law (BBC News Online)

The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that rampant commercialism is transforming children into selfish materialists with little sense of their own worth. Writing in the Guardian, Rowan Williams responds to the latest research from the Children's Society's Good Childhood Inquiry, for which he is patron. The research suggests that most adults in the UK believe that children's well-being is being damaged because childhood has become too commercial.

Children 'damaged' by materialism (BBC News Online)
Pressures of consumerism make children depressed (Times)
Children 'too materialistic' (Daily Telegraph)
Children need more space, less ultrasound, says Archbishop (Guardian)
It's adults, not young people, who are a public menace (Guardian)
How pursuit of possessions is damaging our children (Daily Mail)

Scottish Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop has opened an exhibition in Glasgow that features ideas for schools designed by pupils, including buildings with no corridors, flexible walls and hexagonal classrooms.

Pupils have designs on striking schools of the future (Scotsman)

An article in the Independent analyses South African President Thabo Mbeki's proposed school oath for pupils, which he outlined three weeks ago and has sparked a great deal of debate. Critics say that the sentiments in the pledge place guilt on white school children.

South Africa's new school oath revives the divisions of apartheid (Independent)

The benefits of dads getting involved in their child's education is analysed in the Daily Mail's Education Notebook column.

We should all believe in father education (Daily Mail not online)

Today's Education Guardian also includes articles on language teaching, neuro-linguistic programming and pupils who daydream. There is also a Building Schools for the Future (BSF) supplement in today's Guardian (not online).

Researchers at the University of Melbourne have discovered that the length and intensity of teenage tantrums correlates directly with the size of their amygdalas - a part of the brain which is linked to anger.

Scans show what really goes on inside the head of that stroppy teenager (Times)
Teen anger 'caused by brain shape' (Daily Telegraph)
Young brains take the Kevin test (Daily Mail not online)
Scientists trace adolescent rage to the shape of teenage brains (Scotsman)