ISC Daily News Summary

Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph
The Sunday Times reported this weekend that 'leading independent schools including Eton and Manchester Grammar have in effect frozen their fees under pressure from parents worried about the recession'. The paper said that both schools have announced that charges for 2009-10 will rise by substantially less than the 3.2% rate of consumer price inflation. Figures gathered by The Sunday Times from 37 independent schools which have decided their fees show that the recession has forced them to rein in increases - the average of 3.97% for 2009-10 compares with more than 6% for the previous year. ISC Chief Executive, David Lyscom, and Barbara Harrison, Chief Executive of the Girls' Day Schools Trust, are quoted.
Eton freezes fees as slump hurts parents (Sunday Times)
School fee freeze (Daily Telegraph not online)

Daily Telegraph
In her Daily Telegraph column online, Vicky Tuck discusses the results of a survey conducted last week by Becta which found that nearly a third of parents feel excluded by their children about what they are doing at school. Please note that Vicky now has her own website page on the Telegraph site, Vicky Tuck on Education - Telegraph.
How email makes toddlers of us all (Daily Telegraph)

Sunday Express
A hybrid model is emerging combining fee paying at a much lower level than traditional independent schools with a blend of revitalised education techniques and old-fashioned discipline. The New Model Schools teach a broad curriculum but it is how they do it - at a cost of £5,000 a year - that makes them special and accessible to parents who could not afford higher fees.
Private schools on a budget (Sunday Express)

Times, Evening Standard, Daily Mail
Science GCSEs
Further coverage and letters over the weekend on the issue of ‘soft' science GCSEs. Clarissa Farr, High Mistress of St Paul's Girls' School, was quoted in the item in Friday's Times.
'Making science more relevant' (Times)
Ministers ignored warning on 'soft' science GCSEs (Evening Standard)
Exam boards ordered to make 'dumbed-down' GCSE science tougher (Daily Mail)
Letters - Testing standards for science examinations (Times)

Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph looks at some options on school fee planning.
How to pay school fees when times are hard (Daily Telegraph)

Sunday Telegraph, Daily Telegraph
League tables to be published on Wednesday have been compiled using results for pupils whose test papers were lost and who were never issued with marks, the Sunday Telegraph reported this weekend. Scores of primary schools across the country were told by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority that papers for their pupils were misplaced following last summer's SATs fiasco and will never be recovered. Instead, schools have been told to use teacher assessments of the standard their pupils have reached. Primary school league tables, published on Wednesday, will contain partial or no results for some schools in the subjects where papers have been lost. The Daily Telegraph also reported that primary schools are ‘failing the brightest pupils', as fewer children are leaving primary school with top test results.
League tables compiled without marks (Sunday Telegraph)
Primary schools 'failing the brightest pupils' (Daily Telegraph)

Observer
The Observer considers the benefits of personal finance lessons.
Question of the week: Is teaching personal finance education in schools just a waste of time? (Observer)

Independent
At Woodside High, a 1,000-pupil comprehensive in Tottenham, north London, those whose home language is not English account for four out of five pupils - and between them speak 64 languages.
School's 64 languages - and one voice (Independent)

Observer
A damning report by Britain's leading children's charities accuses the government of failing to protect children from discrimination by excluding them from the forthcoming equality bill. Young Equals, a coalition including the Children's Society, Save the Children and the Children's Rights Alliance of England (CRAE), claims that the government has broken a promise made in 2007 to make Britain "the best place in the world for children to grow up in".
Discrimination 'a fact of life for British children' (Observer)

Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Express
Various comment items in light of the leaked Jim Rose report.
Children already use "pornified" websites - they don't need lessons in them (Sunday Telegraph)
We're keeping our brains at the level of a toddler (Sunday Express not online)

Daily Telegraph
Birmingham City University is to offer a master's degree teaching students about social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo. The £4,400 MA in Social Media will also explain how to set up blogs and publish podcasts. The one-year course will consider social networking sites as communications and marketing tools. The course, which will start next year, was advertised through a makeshift video on the university's website.
University offers social media degree about Facebook, Twitter and Bebo (Daily Telegraph)

Times
Caterers are claiming the improvements inspired by Jamie Oliver in school meals will actually have a negative effect on children's health. The Times reports.
Briefing - School meals: Playground bunfight (Times)

Daily Mirror
People who leave school later may be less likely to suffer from dementia. Cambridge University researchers found better mental abilities in people who left school after 1947, when the minimum school-leaving age was increased from 14 to 15, than in those born earlier.
School link to dementia (Daily Mirror)

Sunday Express
At least 272 teachers have died from asbestos-related cancer caused by exposure to the lethal substance which still riddles many of Britain's schools. Thousands of children could also be at risk from the disease because they are being sprinkled with deadly asbestos fibres every time teachers pin notices to ceilings and walls or when doors are banged shut. The teachers died between 1980 and 2005.
Asbestos still killing teachers and threatening thousands of pupils (Sunday Express)

Daily Mail
Children are being wrapped up in cotton wool because teachers are scared of the 'blame-claim' culture, Sir Ranulph Fiennes has warned. The explorer said teachers were so worried about being sued if pupils suffered accidents that they were put off arranging school trips.
Don't be afraid of the 'blame-claim' culture - youngsters need risky adventures, says Sir Ranulph Fiennes (Daily Mail)

Sunday Telegraph
The behaviour of the youngest children in school is deteriorating because of the constant swearing and vulgarity they are exposed to on television, teachers have warned. Children in reception class, who are aged just four and five, are increasingly using bad language, talking back to staff and throwing tantrums when they don't get their own way - re-enacting scenes they have seen on screen, according to members of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers.
Four-year-old pupils copying bad behaviour they see on TV, teachers warn (Sunday Telegraph)

Observer
Clever children are saving themselves from being branded swots at school by dumbing down and deliberately falling behind, a study has shown. Schoolchildren regarded as boffins may be attacked and shunned by their peers, according to Becky Francis, Professor of Education at Roehampton University, who carried out a study of academically gifted 12- and 13-year-olds in nine state secondary schools.
Clever boys dumb down to avoid bullying in school (Observer)

Sunday Telegraph
Clever schoolchildren can avoid being labelled "nerds" if they follow fashion and have a "fall guy" friend who is badly-behaved, new research has found. Children who are top of the class but also popular with classmates, called "alpha" pupils by academics, were found to have a number of typical characteristics that protect them from being branded "boffins" in the playground. They tend to be good-looking, sociable, extrovert and at the centre of events in class.
Research reveals how to be both clever and popular at school (Sunday Telegraph)

Observer
Every secondary school has been invited to sign up to a transcendental meditation programme. The twice-daily programme, which was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1958 and whose followers include the musicians Sheryl Crow and Moby, will be offered to help schools tackle pupils' behaviour.
Meditation courses at school for problem pupils (Observer)

Sunday Times
Struck off from teaching for her undercover exposé of shocking schools, Alex Dolan tells the Sunday Times she's not the guilty one.
I'm no traitor (Sunday Times)

Independent, Daily Telegraph
Teachers in England are set to renew calls for a 35-hour cap on their working week with up to 20 per cent of their timetable reserved for marking and preparation. The National Union of Teachers will raise the issue of workload at its annual conference next month, seeking to investigate the possibility of implementing south of the border a deal on working hours similar to one introduced in Scotland in 2001.
Teachers call for 35-hour cap on working week (Independent)
Union wants 4-day teaching week (Daily Telegraph not online)

Sunday Times
Answer the question with Chris Woodhead (Sunday Times)

Independent on Sunday
Comment piece by Janet Street-Porter in the Independent on Sunday.
Janet Street-Porter: Balls is fiddling while education goes up in smoke - Janet Street-Porter (Independent on Sunday)

Mail on Sunday
Rod Stewart and his wife Penny Lancaster are moving back to Britain from America so that their three-year-old son Alastair can be educated here. The couple, who are also hoping to have another baby, have told friends they want the boy enrolled in a top British private school and would like to spend more time in the UK.
Rod Stewart hotlegs it to the UK to get son in a top school (Mail on Sunday)