ISC Daily News Summary

A-level exam results from 468 ISC schools show that this year, 50.7% of entries from ISC pupils were awarded grade A. City of London School for Girls, Magdalen College School, Wycombe Abbey School and King's College School Wimbledon are all named as the country's top-performing independent school at A-level because different newspapers base their league tables on different aspects of the results. Newspapers also report on the schools who chose to opt out of this year's league tables. For a full list of these schools, or for scans of the league tables, please e-mail hayley.dunlop@isc.co.uk. Tim Hands (Magdalen College School), Diana Vernon (City of London Girls School), Andrew Halls (King's College School Wimbledon), Richard Cairns (Brighton College), Anthony Little (Eton College) and Vicky Tuck (The Cheltenham Ladies' College) are all quoted in the A-level league table coverage.

Over half of A-level entries from ISC pupils are awarded grade A (ISC press release)
ISC A-level results tables (ISC website)
League tables 'vital for parents' (Daily Telegraph)
A-level league table (Daily Telegraph not online)
'Teaching to the test' gives City girls a record result (Times)
A-level league table (Times)
Grammar beats private schools at A-level (Independent)
Schools opt out in league rebellion (Financial Times)
Credit crunch will lead to a race for places at the best state schools, warns top head (Daily Mail)
'Crunch will hit private education' (Evening Standard)
A-level league table (Evening Standard not online)

Praise for the independent sector in Saturday's Daily Telegraph.

The private sector could save our schools (Daily Telegraph)
Private schools: Getting them off on the right foot (Daily Telegraph)

An investigation by The Daily Telegraph reveals that five Russell Group universities in the UK make lower grade offers to sixth-formers from poor-performing schools and deprived homes. High Master of St Paul's School, Dr Martin Stephen, is quoted.

Britain's top universities 'favouring the poor' (Daily Telegraph)
No easy way to tackle the Oxbridge class divide (Guardian)

The Herald and the Scotsman report on figures from the Scottish Council for Independent Schools (SCIS), which show that 90% of fifth-year pupils passed their Highers for the third year running. Director of SCIS, Judith Sischy, is quoted, along with Rector of St Columba's School, David Girdwood, Headmaster of George Heriot's School, Alistair Hector and Principal of Craigholme School, Gillian Stobo.

Independent schools celebrate as exam results go Higher (Herald)
Making the grade: small private schools top exam league tables (Herald)
The A team: Half of pupils at independent schools secure top grade in their Highers (Scotsman)

'Blaming well-off students and private schools for success is ridiculous. If anything it is the fault of the government and this country's education system that people feel the need to send their children to private schools in the first place.'

School is hard work, whatever your background (Times letters)

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has confirmed that police will be able to apply for access to the children's database ContactPoint, enabling them to search the data for evidence of criminal activity. ContactPoint is due to be launched this autumn.

Police to use child database to trace criminals (Daily Telegraph)
Police hunting criminals will have access to child database (Times)
Child database to be used by police to trace criminals (Daily Mail)
Fury at cops' use of data about kids (Daily Mirror)

The Open Eye campaign, which has been set up with the backing of child-development experts, parents and leading children's authors to campaign for improvement to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), claims that the booklet about the framework produced for parents is misleading. According to the Times, the booklet contains no mention of any of the statutory literacy or numeracy targets, emphasising only that children will be expected to 'learn through play' and 'develop at their own pace'.

Nursery booklet for parents is 'blatant propaganda' (Times)
Illiterate goals (Times letters)

Gordon Brown has vowed to scrap the 'medals for all' culture in British schools and introduce a new spirit of competition in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. The Daily Telegraph article states that 'community sports groups and private schools would be encouraged to share their facilities with state schools.' Writing in the Daily Telegraph, former Prime Minister John Major asserts that 'the opportunity to enjoy sport - and to excel at it - must be as great in state schools as in private schools'.

Bring back competitive school sports: Brown (Guardian)
School sport fails young hopefuls chasing glory at London Olympics (Observer)
Someone has to win says Brown, with vow to push competitive spirit in school sport (Times)
Gordon Brown vows to return competitiveness to school sport in time for London Olympics (Daily Telegraph)
Youth sports struggle as British win gold at Beijing Games (Daily Telegraph)
Labour's raid on Lotto money must stop (Daily Telegraph)
Give pupils golf lessons to teach code of conduct, says Connery (Daily Telegraph)

Yesterday's Guardian reported on its front page that the government is poised to radically expand the academies programme by announcing that it has given the go-ahead for the takeover of three struggling primary schools. Schools Minister Lord Adonis has also hinted that the government's target to create 400 academies by 2010 could be exceeded, and has called for more pushy parents to force poor state schools to improve.

City academies to take over struggling primary schools (Guardian)
More city academies needed, says minister (Daily Telegraph)
Academies total on course to pass 400 (Times)
Huge boost for city academies (Sunday Times)
More academies planned despite union opposition (Independent not online)
Adonis wants primary-age academies (Financial Times)
Transcript: FT interview with Lord Adonis (Financial Times)
We need pushy parents to improve failing schools, says education minister (Daily Mail)

Times, Daily Telegraph

Examiners from the Edexcel exam board have hit out at the trend for spoon-fed students, who appear to have prepared for their exams by studying past papers simply to regurgitate answers from previous years.

Pupils have the answers, no matter the questions (Times)
Text message language in A-levels slammed by examiners (Daily Telegraph)

In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a cross-party group of MPs has called for sex education to be compulsory for primary school pupils.

Compulsory sex education for children under five proposed (Daily Telegraph)
Sex in primary schools (Daily Telegraph letters)
Young children should be taught about sex, MPs say (Times)
MPs call for compulsory sex lessons in primaries (Daily Mail)

The Independent reports on changes to the national curriculum that are to be introduced next week, including more emphasis on the study of black Britons and other ethnic minority groups as part of history lessons.

Black history to be taught in school as part of curriculum (Independent)

Teenagers in 160 secondary schools and colleges in some of Britain's worst knife crime areas are to take part in a trial scheme, which encourages them to send text messages to Crimestoppers if they see classmates carrying knives.

Pupils to tackle knife crime by sending a text to charity group (Daily Telegraph)

The English word most commonly misspelt in published documents and on the internet is supersede, an analysis by lexicographers has found. But it is not pure ignorance that leads many of us to get it wrong. Rather, the problem is our intelligent temptation to refer to our experience of how other, similar words are spelt.

It's proof of what you've always known: you're too clever to be good at spelling (Times)
Cedes of doubt (Daily Mail)