Tom Rees, the Department for Education’s (DfE) inclusion tsar and chief executive of Ormiston Academies Trust, is to co-chair an expert panel that will develop packages underpinning EHCPs and national standards. Eight members and a health co-chair are also being recruited to the independent panel, which will provide recommendations to ministers on what the content, design and structure of the standards and packages should look like. By Ruth Lucas, Schools Week.

Schools Week outlines everything schools need to know about the DfE's inclusion strategy and how ministers expect staff to create a "universal offer". By Ruth Lucas.

In a feature for Tes, educational psychologist Sue Sheppard looks at how teachers and support workers can help autistic children with emotionally based school avoidance (EBSA) back into school. "Schools must find ways to help all autistic pupils feel like they are listened to and valued. Embedding personal interests into the day and making sure there is someone in school who 'gets' them can trigger a strong sense of security," Ms Sheppard explains. 

Writing in The Telegraph, writer and priest Fergus Butler-Gallie makes the case "for the Church’s continued involvement in education at every level", after a poll by the National Secular Society appeared to show that 62 per cent of Britons believe it should have no role in running schools. "The presence of a coherent ethos and identity based around the Christian principles of faith, hope and charity are appealing to people of all faiths and none," he says. 

The House of Lords has again voted in favour of a proposal to ban under-16s in the UK from accessing social media platforms, as ministers were urged to act quicker to protect children. Peers voted yesterday 266 to 141 in support of former Conservative minister Lord Nash's amendment to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which is the second time peers have defeated the government over the proposal that would give ministers 12 months to decide which social media platforms should be unavailable to under-16s. In response to the result, Conservative shadow education secretary Laura Trott said peers have "once again done the right thing" and called for Labour MPs to back a ban. By Richard Wheeler, BBC News. 

Trinity Christian School in Reading has closed its doors, citing the government's VAT on fees policy for having made its financial situation "untenable". The school, which was attended by 40 pupils, said the tax policy, along with rising business rates, was the "straw that broke the camel's back". Speaking to BBC News, parent Jake Amram said his two sons had been very happy at the school but was left with "no choice" but to move them. "It is not our preferred option – we wanted a Christian school," he added. By Neranjana Elapatha.

Parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England feel alienated from their schools if they do not have legal protection, according to the Parent Voice Project’s report, the biggest representative survey of its kind. It found that 57 per cent of parents of a child with SEND but no EHCP rated the quality of education at their child’s school as high or very high, compared with 68 per cent of parents of children with SEND and an EHCP, and 71 per cent of parents of children without SEND. The survey also found that half of all parents said it was important for children with SEND to learn in mainstream schools, but only 52 per cent thought teachers had the right tools to deal with SEND, falling to 38 per cent among parents of children with SEND but no EHCP. By Alexandra Topping, The Guardian. 

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