ISC Daily News Summary

Writing in The Telegraph, Martin Stephen, former High Master of St Paul's School, calls for places at 'elite' universities to be allocated to students based on achievement. He says: "To admit a young person to such a hugely demanding environment as Cambridge based only on 'potential' is akin to building a house from the surface up only."

In the latest ISC blog, coinciding with International Mother Language Day, James Mutton of Putney High School GDST considers the wealth of benefits that come with a broad language curriculum and explains how Putney is expanding its horizons even further by offering the coding language Python as an option for linguists.

Universities Scotland, the umbrella body for Scotland’s 19 higher education institutions, is working on ways to handle the rise of the artificial intelligence (AI) platform ChatGPT, which is able to generate bespoke, competently written essays almost immediately. Universities have warned that students could face expulsion and 'disgrace' if they try to use such apps to cheat. By Marc Horne, The Times.

Analysis by the BBC has revealed that in a quarter of England's 160 grammar schools, less than five per cent of children were eligible for pupil premium support, despite most trying to improve their admissions policies. By Branwen Jeffreys & Wesley Stephenson, BBC News.

Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, has said that personalised text messages to parents could be an effective and inexpensive way of helping to improve school attendance rates, after staff have struggled to 're-engage' pupils and their families following the COVID pandemic. By Sally Weale, The Guardian.

Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has pledged to extend free school meals to all primary pupils in London next year, however the amount of funding for the scheme, which is only guaranteed for one year and does not extend to secondary schools, has been criticised. By Freddie Whittaker, Schools Week.

Students have claimed they are left with no option but to 'sofa surf or squat' as the rising price of rent has outstripped loans in the cities most popular for studying outside of London. By Steve Robson, iNews.