ISC Daily News Summary

The Times and Daily Telegraph report on the latest batch of Independent State Schools Partnerships (ISSPs), which will be formally announced by Children's Secretary, Ed Balls, today. Eton College is one school which has joined the scheme, and will partner a number of local state schools, including one that is set to become an academy in September. In total, 23 projects will be funded with over £4million from now until 2011. Head Master of Eton, Anthony Little, is quoted in both articles.

Eton opens up to give state school pupils a masterclass (Times)
Eton lessons for state pupils (Daily Telegraph)

Master of Wellington College, Dr Anthony Seldon, discusses independent schools, the Charity Commission, bursaries and academies in today's edition of the Times.

How to bridge the great classroom class chasm (Times)

Letters in the Observer on boarding schools and a number of other education-related letters.

Pluses and minuses of private education (Observer letters)
Etonian flourishes (Sunday Telegraph letters)
Cathedral choirboys will all be replaced by girls (Daily Telegraph letters)
Send students out into the fields (Independent letters)

The Chief Inspector of Schools, Christine Gilbert, will today announce a series of proposed reforms of the school inspection system with the launch of a consultation document. The plans could mean that parents will be able to instigate an Ofsted inspection of their child's school, weak schools will face annual visits from the inspectorate and the best schools will be inspected only once every six years.

Parents to get power to call in school inspectors (Times)
Parents to appeal for Ofsted review under new plans (Daily Telegraph not online)
Parents to trigger Ofsted inspections (Guardian)
Parents can trigger Ofsted school visits (Daily Mail)

A new qualification in 'life skills' has been approved by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). Critics have described the course as ‘mumbo jumbo'.

Schools use 'mumbo-jumbo' exam course to boost ratings (Daily Mail)
Qualified failure (Financial Times)

The Royal Society of Chemistry has launched a competition that it says will expose the 'disappearance of knowledge' from much of the school science curriculum. Pupils will sit a paper in which 1960s O-level questions will have been mixed with those from later decades, the most recent from a GCSE exam set in 2005. If you or your school would like to enter the Royal Society of Chemistry's Five Decade Challenge, click here.

Science contest to reveal pupils' loss of knowledge (Sunday Times)

Further debate surrounding SATs and the school testing regime.

To test or not to test - the big question (Sunday Times)
Scrap SATs? Finally our pupils will have a real reason to go to school (Sunday Express not online)
Regular tests 'narrow curriculum' (BBC News Online)

The Daily Mail reports that one in three A-levels is taken in a subject that top universities deem poor preparation for degree courses. The article states that 'around a quarter of candidates for physics and chemistry and 35% for further maths are from independent schools, even though the sector sits only 15% of A-levels.'

‘Soft' A-level backlash (Daily Mail)

Ed Balls has ordered an inquiry into the impact of the commercial world on children. The inquiry, which will be carried out by Professor David Buckingham at the Institute of Education, will investigate the government's own policies of encouraging schools to link up with businesses and setting up sponsored academies. Buckingham's inquiry will report next year, with interim findings expected before Christmas.

Inquiry into school links with business (Guardian)
Balls carves out his route to top job (Financial Times)

Children as young as two are being given literacy worksheets to fill in, as nurseries come under pressure to meet controversial government targets on reading and writing as part of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum.

Toddlers are given literacy test worksheets (Sunday Telegraph)

Figures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph show that more than 900 weapons, among them guns, knives and claw hammers, have been taken by police from children on school premises.

Police seize 900 weapons from schools (Sunday Telegraph)
Class war (Daily Mirror)
Kids tooled up in school (Daily Star)

Figures from the School Food Trust (SFT) reveal that 43% of English councils made a loss on their school meals last year, indicating that the rising cost of food will have an impact on the cost of school dinners. The Independent reports that a state school in Cambridgeshire is handing out bananas to pupils before they sit exams in a bid to boost pass rates.

Soaring cost of food forces school dinners to go up (Observer)
Price rise threat to school lunches (Daily Mail)
Bananas to boost exam results (Independent)

Ann Ballinger, president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association (SSTA), says 'far too many' teachers are now subject to intimidation from management.

Bullying of teachers by senior staff is common, says union (Herald)

An article in the Sunday Times profiles a cash-incentive education scheme in the United States. In France, at least 20,000 people have marched through central Paris protesting against the French government's plans to cut jobs in the education sector.

Cash-for-grades boosts black pupils (Sunday Times)
Sarkozy threat to school strikes (Independent not online)
Teachers throng Paris over cuts (BBC News Online)

Pupils at a state school in Norfolk managed to smuggle a piglet into their school as an end-of-term prank during an Ofsted inspection.

A pig in the playground for inspectors (Sunday Telegraph not online)
Pupils let pig loose in Ofsted mayhem (Sun)