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Daily News Summary
8 September 2026

UK pupils rank highly again in Pisa tests
Support schools on how to conquer misuse of pupil images, leaders say
Prince George starts at Eton College

UK pupils rank highly again in Pisa tests

 

UK pupils have again ranked highly in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) science, reading and maths tests, which are sat every three years by hundreds of thousands of teenagers across the globe. The UK's performance remained steady, ranking below the highest-performing countries including Singapore, Estonia and parts of China, but above the US, Australia and other major European nations. Schools minister Georgia Gould said ministers wanted to "build on" the positive results and "go further so all young people leave school with strong literacy and numeracy". By Branwen Jeffreys, BBC News.

A detailed report on the Pisa rankings is also published in The Times, by Oliver Wright, Policy Editor, Georgia Lambert and Oisín Cahalane. In its summary of the assessment's key findings, Schools Week reports that a gender gap has opened up in science, with boys outperforming girls. By Jack Dyson.

 

Support schools on how to conquer misuse of pupil images, leaders say

 

Headteachers are having to manage the inappropriate use of pupil images in schools, with 49 per cent of the 500 heads who responded to a survey by safeguarding platform Aidos saying they had dealt with a child's image being misused, manipulated or used in a blackmail attempt. From the start of the academic year, new guidance on keeping young people safe in education says schools must treat incidents involving artificial intelligence (AI)-generated sexual images of children as a safeguarding issue. Welcoming more support for schools, Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: "This is an area in which new vulnerabilities can quickly emerge." By Ruth Lucas, Schools Week. 

 
Schools Week

Prince George starts at Eton College

 

Prince George starts his first day at Eton College today, following in the footsteps of his father, the Prince of Wales, and his uncle, the Duke of Sussex. Before enrolling at the school, George, 13, was educated at Lambrook, a prep school in Berkshire. By Toby Jones, The Independent.

 
The Independent

 

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