ISC Daily News Summary

A number of news articles and features involving the independent sector over the long weekend including: incoming President of the National Union of Teachers, Bill Greenshields, calling for the sector to be nationalised; a You magazine feature on the growing costs of raising a child, including school fees; a Sunday Times feature on choir schools with reference to Bristol Cathedral School and Head Hugh Monro; charitable status debates in the Sunday Times and Education Guardian (with Head Teacher of Bromley High School, Lorna Duggleby, expressing her view); a Financial Times feature on former Westminster School pupil and Apprentice winner Simon Ambrose; and a Sunday Express profile of Marlborough College pupil Princess Eugenie.

‘Let state take over private schools' (Sunday Times)
Teachers' leader slams academy school plan (Observer)
‘Bring private schools under state control' (Mail on Sunday)
End rich schools (Daily Star Sunday not online)
The soaring cost of having a child (You magazine not online)
The choir schools open up (Sunday Times)
Chris Woodhead: Answer the question (Sunday Times)
Should private schools have charitable status? (Education Guardian)
What the apprentices did next (Financial Times)
The reluctant princess (Sunday Express not online)

Control of schools in the most deprived areas of Britain will be taken away from town halls, under radical new education reform plans to be announced by the Conservatives. Shadow Schools Secretary Michael Gove will declare that a Tory government would transfer power from local authorities to city academies.

Tories to end town hall grip on failing schools (Daily Telegraph)
Brave decision to free our failing schools (Daily Telegraph)
Tories seek to outflank Brown on city academies (Times)
Failing schools to be taken out of council control, Conservatives pledge (Daily Mail)
What do politicians know about teaching? (Independent)

All national newspapers

Further coverage of the annual conference of the National Union of Teachers (NUT). Coverage focuses on a potential strike over pay and class sizes and the union's plan to prevent the establishment of more single-faith schools with imams, rabbis and priests teaching pupils as part of the curriculum.

Preachers ‘should visit all schools' (Times)
‘Muslim clerics should teach in our schools' (Daily Telegraph)
Academies ‘expel pupils to lift ratings' (Daily Telegraph)
Teachers want return to liberal methods (Daily Telegraph)
Union calls for end to single-faith schools (Guardian)
Schools ‘should use imams and rabbis for religious instruction' (Independent)
Teachers on course for first pay strike for 22 years (Independent)
Weapons, violence, disruption and drugs all on the rise in Britain's schools (Independent)
Fury over plan to teach Koran in schools (Daily Express)
Teaching union is wrong on religious education (Daily Express not online)
Teachers criticise over-testing (BBC News Online)
Imams in schools (Sun)
‘Teach all faiths in schools' (Daily Mirror)
Teach the Koran in our schools (Daily Star)
Weaker pupils hit worst by big class sizes (Guardian not online)
Teachers vote for strike action in bid to cut maximum class size to 20 (Independent)
Teachers are right... class sizes matter (Independent)
Class sizes (Daily Telegraph)
Study finds big classes bad for less-able pupils (Sunday Telegraph)
Teachers demand cut in class sizes to 20 (Times) 

This week is the annual conference of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT). Press coverage of the conference has so far focused on the union's claim that the majority of school governing bodies are 'not fit for purpose', and the warning that classrooms are increasingly populated by spoilt 'little princes and princesses' who refuse to do work they find hard or boring.

Teaching union criticises school governors (Financial Times)
Help governors to stand up to heads, says education union (Times)
Spoilt brats in classroom on the rise, warns union (Guardian)
Scandal of Britain's 'crumbling' schools (Guardian)
Parents blamed for generation of ‘little princesses' (Daily Telegraph)
Meet the Frankenkinder generation (Sunday Telegraph)
‘Lunatics take over asylum' as pupils monitor teachers' skills (Sunday Telegraph)
‘Little princesses' too spoilt to cope in the classroom (Daily Mail)
Teachers warn of spoilt children (BBC News Online)

Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail

'Bad schools' are hiding their failings because the inspections system allows them to grade themselves, a study by London's Institute of Education has warned.

Self-evaluating 'distorting Ofsted reports' (Guardian)
Headteachers 'exaggerate performance to avoid inspectors' (Daily Telegraph)Bad schools 'lying' to pass inspections (Daily Mail not online)

Daily Telegraph, Times, Daily Mail

Teachers who retired through illness are being urged to return to the classroom as schools struggle to cope with a recruitment crisis. A government agency has sent out letters to former teachers telling them that the job is now less work, better paid and more rewarding.

Ex-teachers urged to return (Daily Telegraph)
Recruitment drive as mentally ill teachers asked back to school (Times)
Crisis schools call in retired headteachers (Daily Mail not online) 

A new national curriculum for all under-fives risks producing a 'tick-box' culture in nursery schools that relies too heavily on formal learning and not enough on play, teachers' leaders have claimed. The new Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (EYFS), which becomes law in the autumn, lays down up to 500 developmental milestones between birth and primary school and requires under-fives to be assessed on writing, problem solving and numeracy skills. It will apply to about 25,000 nurseries, plus registered childminders in England.

Under-fives to be subjected to 500 developmental targets (Times)

Schools are struggling to cope with an influx of thousands of immigrant children, teachers have said. They need more money to cater for the dozens of languages spoken by pupils from Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, it was claimed. Small primaries are under particular strain as teachers face classes in which a third of pupils speak English as a second language, said the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL).

Teachers 'struggle with influx of immigrant pupils (Daily Telegraph not online)

Independent, Observer, Guardian, Daily Telegraph 

Over-indulgent parents are causing a behaviour crisis in Britain's primary schools, according to research by Cambridge University. Some parents allow children even as young as five to stay up until 3am and give in to temper tantrums - so they think they can get their own way at school. Then, say the researchers, parents threaten teachers with violence if they attempt to discipline them. American research suggests that playing four 15-minute sessions of board games such as snakes and ladders can significantly improve a child's mathematical abilities.

Parents' indulgence blamed for bad conduct (Independent)
Parents told to write bedtime tales (Observer)
Board games boost early maths skills (Guardian)
Snakes and ladders can help your child's maths (Daily Telegraph)

Sun, Times, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror 

Millions of children spend more than 20 hours a week on social networking websites, a report by the think-tank Institute of Public Policy Research has found. Parents are also being warned about a website called 'Miss Bimbo'.

Teens on internet 20 hours a week (Sun not online) 
Outrage at Bimbo website for girls (Times)
Parents concerned about Miss Bimbo game (Daily Telegraph)
Internet Miss Bimbo game for girls attacked by parents (Guardian)
Warning to parents over children ‘being raised online' (Guardian)
Web game that gives little girls a bimbo to play with (Daily Mail)
Fury as bimbo game targets girls aged nine (Daily Express not online)
Parents warned over Miss Bimbo website game (Daily Mirror)

Good Friday's TES included: Payouts for wrong grades...Testing puts a brake on pupils' happiness...Students learn A-level grades by text message...Heads under pressure to keep worst-behaved pupils...Will teachers really back the call to strike?...Cyber-bullying on the rise among primary pupils...Children like to read - but not for pleasure

Daily Express, Daily Telegraph

Restrictions on public buildings flying the Union flag are to be lifted under Gordon Brown's plans to boost Britishness. Ministers are expected to publish a white paper which will include proposals to allow schools, hospitals and council buildings to fly the flag all year round. Legislation dating from 1924 means public buildings can only fly the Union flag 18 days a year, including the Queen's birthday and Remembrance Day.

Ban on flying the flag lifted (Daily Express not online)
Government plans to fly Union flag all year (Daily Telegraph)