Writing in Independent School Management Plus, Robin Fletcher, chief executive of the Boarding Schools' Association (BSA) and the BSA Group, criticises Labour's plans to add VAT to school fees, citing research findings which estimate the policy would result in 90,000 parents withdrawing their children from independent schools because they would no longer be able to afford it. Posing a question to Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Fletcher asks: "If you want to transfer money from independent schools to state, how will you do this if there are fewer parents and schools to collect it from?"

A number of contributors have letters published in The Times on the subject of the Labour Party's plans to tax school fees. Timothy Straker KC explains that education services provided by schools, universities, government departments and other institutions are all exempt from VAT, which is in accordance with the stance taken by the EU. In addition to the financial impact on the state sector, Leo Winkley, headmaster of Shrewsbury School, warns that "hundreds of state-independent partnerships that offer mutually beneficial opportunities for pupils and staff would be likely to wither". Echoing Mr Winkley's comments, one writer argues Labour's plans would result in parents withdrawing their children from independent schools and thereby "overloading the state education system", while another states that they "would leave only the super-rich able to access independent education".

Schools may be affected by strike action into the next academic year in the run-up to the general election, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) Kevin Courtney has warned. Coordinated industrial action in the months leading up to the election would provide “leverage” in the union's pay dispute with the government, he said. By Henry Bodkin, The Telegraph.

Data from the Department for Education (DfE) suggests the majority of schools in England had to close to some pupils during the recent teacher strikers, as tens of thousands of teachers walked out in a dispute over pay. More than half of state schools in England restricted access to pupils or were fully closed during strikes by teacher members of the NEU. By Eleanor Busby, The Independent.

Writing in Tes, Sam Freedman considers why there have been so few education pledges from the Conservative and Labour parties ahead of the next general election. Mr Freedman, who is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government and a former senior policy adviser at the DfE, argues "it’s hard to believe schools won’t feature at all in the long campaign".

Research by Oxford Brookes University, the University of Birmingham and the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust suggests the UK needs at least 11,000 more school nurses to deal with the increasingly complex needs of children after the pandemic and to help prevent them from developing serious mental health problems. By Rachel Hall, The Guardian.

Conservative MP Neil Hudson has called for vaping products to be hidden from view in shops amid fears the devices are a “public health ticking time bomb” for youngsters. Mr Hudson's remarks came as he pressed the government to take further action to discourage vape usage among under-18s. By Richard Wheeler, The Independent.

Research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has found that more than 6.5 million children - more than half of children in England - did not see a dentist in the 12 months to June last year. By Eleanor Hayward, The Times.

Writing in The Times, columnist Alice Thomson says the government must learn lessons from abroad in tackling the UK's childhood obesity crisis. New weight-loss drugs are not, she argues, the answer, but rather "children should learn to eat healthily before they get into this cycle of addiction".

Fair Judgment, a crowdfunding page set up by a former Ofsted inspector, has raised more than £40,000 to mount a High Court challenge to force Ofsted to reveal the evidence it uses to downgrade schools. By Mark Gould, Tes.

Political commentator Daniel Finkelstein writes in The Times in light of calls to reform Ofsted. Sympathetic to the family, friends and colleagues of headteacher Ruth Perry, who died earlier this year awaiting her school's inspection report, Mr Finkelstein argues that Ms Perry’s death "does not represent, by itself, an unarguable case for [Ofsted's] reform".

Researchers at Columbia University, in the US, have found that people in their 70s who attended schools with a high number of graduate-level teachers have younger brains than those from poorer quality schools. According to experts, high-quality teachers may create a more mentally stimulating environment which boosts the brain in the long term. By Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph.

The Independent Schools Council (ISC) monitors the national and educational press in order to keep independent schools up-to-date with relevant education news. The DNS is a service primarily for schools in membership of ISC associations, although other interested parties can choose to sign-up. We endeavour to include relevant news and commentary and, wherever possible, notable public letters. Where capacity allows, we may include links to ISC blogs, press statements and information about school or association events. News stories are selected based on their relevance to the independent sector as a whole. Editorial control of the DNS remains solely with the ISC.

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