The past two years have been "really tough" for UK independent schools, Anne Cotton, chair of HMC (The Heads' Conference), and head of King's College School, Wimbledon, has said. Addressing delegates at the association's annual conference in Manchester yesterday, Dr Cotton outlined the pressures facing the sector, including demographic change, geopolitical instability, technology, artificial intelligence (AI) and increasing financial costs. "I am conscious that for some schools, for some regions, the pressures are profound," she said, before urging colleagues to look outwards beyond their schools and the independent sector "to the changing world" that young people are going into. Speaking as the second anniversary of the VAT on fees policy approaches in January, Dr Cotton also paid tribute to HMC CEO Dr Simon Hyde, who has announced he is stepping down from the role next year after more than six years. She said Dr Hyde had "worked tirelessly" to modernise and strengthen HMC and better serve its 400 members in the UK and overseas. School Management Plus. 

Screen time could damage children more than being born into poverty, analysis led by academics at the University of Calgary in Canada has found. The study of more than 2.8 million children revealed that heavier screen use was linked to poorer school performance, weaker language skills and more emotional and behavioural problems. The researchers, who examined screen use such as gaming, social media and streaming in 64 countries, concluded that longer periods of digital and social media exposure were associated with difficulties in some areas of development and mental health, but not others. "Taken together, the findings suggest that screen use may represent one potentially modifiable factor associated with children's wellbeing across multiple domains," they concluded. By Laura Donnelly, The Telegraph. 

In an article for Tes, Oana Robu, head of English at an independent special school, explains why traditional approaches to teaching classic texts such as Shakespeare do not work for all students. She outlines how her team has adapted its methods to make the playwright's works more accessible and engaging for learners with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), and shares some of the practical strategies that can support pupils, including a strong focus on vocabulary and adapted assessment. "As an independent special school, we are able to align our assessment accordingly. We focus on whether students can use evidence and engage with the text meaningfully. This allows us to keep expectations high but attainable," she writes.

Teenage boys are far more likely than girls to be repeat gamblers, according to research highlighted by charity Ygam, prompting calls for schools to take pre-emptive action. Data from 18,000 teenagers in England aged 13-17, shared with Tes, shows that almost three per cent gamble once a month or more often, and that the same proportion have "experienced gambling harm". Overall, seven per cent of the teenagers surveyed said they had tried gambling at least once, but boys are six times more likely than girls to gamble monthly or more often, and nearly twice as likely to have tried gambling at least once. Ygam has expressed growing concern over teens' increased exposure to gambling, with online games, for example, normalising chance-based rewards and challenges. Setting out recommendations for how schools should respond to the issue, the charity is calling for gambling to be treated as a safeguarding concern. By Jabed Ahmed. 

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