Sir Keir Starmer has ended the target for 50 per cent of pupils to go to university, instead pledging that the Labour Party will aim for two-thirds of young people to gain higher-level skills, either through university, further education or a "gold standard apprenticeship" by the age of 25. Addressing the party's annual conference yesterday, the prime minister said he no longer believed the pledge, which was made by Tony Blair in 1999, was "right for our times". By Archie Mitchell, The Independent.

In an analysis for The Guardian, education editor Richard Adams considers whether the prime minister's plan to make vocational options as attractive as higher education will work. He concludes: "Given that about 50 per cent of young people already attend higher education by the age of 25, with colleges educating nearly 900,000 more up to age 25 and a further 147,000 on apprenticeship provision in colleges alone, Starmer may be well on the way to meeting his target."

Struggling students are more likely to come into contact with potentially harmful content on their mobiles compared to their peers who perform better, according to a survey by the University of the West of England. It found pupils who categorised themselves as struggling academically were at greater risk of seeing content on topics such as self-harm, and that parents underestimated the types of harmful content their children were viewing. Calling for action, researchers said better conversations around the negative impacts of devices were needed. By Ross Crane, BBC News.

Writing in Independent School Management Plus, Paul Borrows, head of Hunter Hall School in Cumbria, reflects on the impact of the government's VAT on fees policy and the adjustments his staff have had to make. Discussing the effect on his school, which was founded 40 years ago "to offer something different and be innovative", Mr Borrows says: "For many of the parents at Hunter Hall, the school fees were already a stretch, and the combination of increased fees and a faltering economy mean that making the numbers add up is a daily challenge."

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said that school leaders should be given more training and support on how to communicate with parents effectively. Addressing delegates at Labour's annual conference yesterday, she said: "Engagement with parents is critical in terms of the relationship between the school and the family." Ms Phillipson's comments come after she revealed that the upcoming schools white paper will lay out "clear expectations" on parental engagement. By Cerys Turner, Tes.

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