In an interview with School Management Plus, Dan Harrison, executive head of the newly-launched Sedbergh Schools Group, discusses his oversight of Sedbergh School and its nearby prep, as well as branches in Vietnam and China, and a summer school and Easter programme. Mr Harrison says that while the group's expansion has been driven by a desire to collaborate and share best practice, there is no denying the impact of increasing financial pressures, including the government's VAT on fees policy. "The whole situation is very sad actually, we’re fortunate that we’re big enough to be at the centre of a charitable group, it is very sad for lots of schools", he says. By Irena Barker.

Headteachers and campaigners have called for clarity on how best to enforce the government’s proposed legal ban on smartphones in schools. Calling for more detail, Rob McGinty, headteacher at Hollingworth Academy in Rochdale, said his school currently has a "no see, no hear" policy but he would support a full ban. Charlotte Ashton of the school phone-free campaign group Generation Focus agreed that school leaders need more direction on the proposal, adding that the "gold standard" would be for schools to only allow "brick" phones. The comments came as ministers debated the measures in the House of Commons yesterday afternoon. Early education minister Olivia Bailey said the government’s existing measures "will ensure effective bans on phones in schools", while shadow education secretary Laura Trott welcomed the statutory ban but asked for clarity on whether "not seen, not heard" policies are permitted. "These policies don’t work", she said. By Julia Bryson and Hope Rhodes, with additional reporting by Branwen Jeffreys and Hannah Karpel, BBC News.

Black children are eight times more likely to be strip searched by police than their white counterparts in England and Wales, according to a new report from the office of Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza. While the report notes that the number of children strip searched has more than halved in four years, it warns that ethnic disparities continue and calls into question the use of force in some cases. The report also reveals that black children were almost five times as likely to be subjected to force during stop and search than their white peers. By Alys Davies, BBC News. 

Two-fifths of school leaders in England have had to cut back on support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) because of a financial crisis "more than a decade in the making", according to a poll by the Sutton Trust. It found that 71 per cent of leaders say they have reduced the number of teaching assistants (TAs) in the past year, while 49 per cent have reduced support staff and 81 per cent expect the situation to worsen in the coming years. The findings come as the government seeks to reform the SEND system, with experts warning that teaching assistants are essential to supporting pupils with SEND in mainstream schools and that reform ambitions will be unachievable without them. By Sally Weale, The Guardian. 

Writing in Tes, SEND expert Nancy Gedge explores the issue of TAs leaving the teaching profession, and what schools can do to encourage them to stay. Ms Gedge notes that SEND provision continues to be the area a TA is most likely to work in across the education sector. "A TA job is often part-time, term-time only, with a relatively low wage. Recognising why someone might have chosen this path is essential to understanding how to support this important part of the school workforce", she explains. 

Many people across England will be celebrating the country's patron saint, St George, today on 23 April. BBC Newsround looks at how patron saints are chosen as special protectors or guardians over all areas of life, with England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland all having their own patron saints. The feature explains that Saint George also holds this position for Aragon, Catalonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal, Germany, Greece, Moscow, Istanbul, Genoa and Venice (second to Saint Mark).

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