ISC Daily News Summary

The Liberal Democrats have pledged to end the crisis of young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET), as they set out plans to reform post-16 education. Speaking at the party's autumn conference in Brighton on Saturday, Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Munira Wilson described the measures, which include strengthening work experience and career support for school pupils, as "the most ambitious offer from any party". Ms Wilson, MP for Twickenham, added that the proposal for a new post-16 baccalaureate sitting alongside V- and T-levels would encourage "pursuits of academic, creative, and technical disciplines, because no young person should be forced down a study pathway that doesn't suit or interest them". By Lydia Chantler-Hicks, Schools Week.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), England's biggest school leaders' union, has called for a halt to graded Ofsted inspections, warning they could pose a "risk to life" for school staff. The union said the new inspections, introduced nationally just under a year ago, had been severely harmful to school leaders' welfare, and schools should instead be rated using short narrative reports setting out their strengths and areas for improvement. Urging action, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said: "The clear theme emerging across all the feedback we have received is that this Ofsted framework is even more stressful than the one that preceded it." By Hayley Clarke, BBC News.

Schools Week highlights findings from an NAHT survey, which showed nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) of members said they felt the direction of travel on inspection had worsened in the last year. The paper quotes Amanda Hulme, headteacher of Claypool Primary School in Bolton, who described her inspection in February as the most stressful experience of her career. In a comment shared by the union, she said: "It was definitely damaging to my health and really quite distressing." By Lydia Chantler-Hicks.

In an article for Tes, Margaret Mulholland, special educational needs and inclusion specialist at the Association of School and College Leaders, outlines how teacher training can better prepare new teachers to meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Her comments follow a 2025 survey commissioned by the National Association of School-Based Teacher Trainers, which found that 65 per cent of providers do not believe new teachers are equipped to meet increasingly complex SEND requirements in mainstream classrooms. Ms Mulholland, who is also project director at Whole School SEND, says trainees should focus on identifying barriers to learning and considering how they can adapt their teaching, rather than trying to diagnose pupils or become experts in labels. "The most useful question for trainees may be simple: who might find this difficult, what may be getting in the way, and what could I change?" she adds.

English school pupils feel more bullied than any of their Western European peers, according to the 2025 scores from the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which studied 15-year-olds' school performance and wellbeing in OECD countries. One in eight (12.4 per cent) of students in England said they were bullied "frequently", higher than any other Western European nation, while Wales had the second highest level in Western Europe (12.3 per cent). The figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland were 10.1 per cent and 9.5 per cent respectively. Addressing the findings, Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, called for greater funding, "not just in terms of education but also the wider support services around young people and their families". By Cameron Henderson and Ben Butcher, The Telegraph. 

Five pupils from Kent are hoping to inspire the next generation of girls to enter the field of robotics when they represent Great Britain at the First Global Challenge in South Korea, which will see robots completing tasks linked to tackling wildfires. The group of Year 10 and Year 11 students was selected through an application process to represent the country at the international competition, a mixed-gender Olympics-style robotics event for young people. More than 190 countries are set to take part next month. By Claire Starr, BBC News.