Boris Johnson has urged parents and school communities to be patient over the ending of bubbles being sent home to isolate. By Camilla Turner and Ben Riley-Smith, The Telegraph.

Dr Simon Hyde, general secretary of the ​Headmasters'​ and Headmistresses'​ Conference, writes in Independent School Management Plus stating: "Schools need to know what will replace bubbles and when any successor system will be introduced."

Ruth Davidson, a former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, writes in The Telegraph saying that in addition to implementing a proper catch-up plan for formal education, "we must do more to give children their whole childhoods back".

Writing in The Guardian, Dr Deepti Gurdasani, a clinical epidemiologist and senior lecturer in machine learning at Queen Mary University of London, suggests ministers could bring in masks, air filters and more rather than just making a binary choice of ending absences or disrupting education.

Michael Vaughan, a former England cricket captain, writes in The Telegraph pointing out that school sport is also badly affected by the "draconian" measure of sending whole bubbles home because one child tests positive.

Figures from Sport England show that children's activity levels have plummeted since the start of the COVID pandemic, with 31.3 per cent doing less than 30 minutes of activity or exercise daily during the 2019/2020 academic year. By Laura Donnelly, The Telegraph.

Research carried out by the Office for National Statistics has revealed that nine in ten parents "would definitely or probably vaccinate their children". By Chris Smyth and Nicola Woolcock, The Times.

According to data from the National Foundation for Educational Research and the Education Endowment Foundation, COVID has cost about three months of progress in maths and reading for children in key stage 1. By Claudia Civinini, Tes.

New figures from the Department for Education show that poorer pupils missed almost 30 per cent more school days due to COVID in the autumn than their better-off counterparts. By Freddie Whittaker, Schools Week.

The National Audit Office has raised concern after it found the DfE does not know if the funding it has provided to schools will be enough to cover the extra COVID costs they have faced. By John Roberts, Tes.

The think-tank Headteachers' Roundtable has produced a report entitled 'An Alternative Education White Paper', in which it calls for the reform of Ofsted post-COVID. By Catherine Lough, Tes.

The Government has been warned about the potential impact of international students from red-list countries who are due to start at UK universities this autumn. By Hugo Daniel, iNews.

An FT Magazine feature explores the change in the number of independent school pupils who go on to study at Oxbridge. By Brooke Masters. The article quotes Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, Sarah Fletcher, high mistress of St Paul’s Girls’ School, and David Goodhew, head of Latymer Upper School.

Meg Hillier, the chair of the public accounts committee, has said that people are being "left in limbo" after the Government failed to meet its third deadline to publish the long-delayed SEND review. By Samantha Booth, Schools Week.

A report by the National Audit Office has found that funding for deprived schools in England has shifted to wealthy areas, prompting questions over the Government's funding model. By Sally Weale, The Guardian.

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