ISC Daily News Summary

Plans to improve retention rates, announced by Labour's shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson yesterday, would see new incentive payments of £2,400 awarded to teachers in the very early stages of their career in England to try to stop them leaving. Speaking on the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show, Ms Phillipson said she aims to "reset the relationship" between government and the profession. By Nadeem Shad and Helen Catt, BBC News.

Plans by the Labour Party to make the inspections process less punitive - by abolishing one-word Ofsted ratings in favour of lengthy "report cards" - could widen education inequalities, according to an education expert. Speaking to iNews, Luke Tryl, a former director at Ofsted and ex-education adviser to the government, said the move risks “gaming the education system” towards more “engaged parents that can afford to spend more time doing the research”. By Poppy Wood.

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has denied that Labour's childcare reform plans have been cut back, saying the change would still be “on a scale with the NHS”. Ms Phillipson did not specifically say whether or not support would be means-tested, but added that the government’s recent announcement that more money would be put into childcare represented a “better baseline” from which to build further assistance for families. By Jon Stone, The Independent.

Relations between teachers' leaders and Gillian Keegan are now so poor that more school strikes seem certain, according to union chiefs who have accused the education secretary of lacking an understanding of inflation and the financial plight of the teaching profession. By Richard Vaughan, iNews.

According to The Telegraph, confusion over transgender issues in schools is set to last into next year, with peers warning that the government’s final guidance will be “watered down” by activists. The Department for Education’s (DfE) first-ever official transgender guidance for teachers is expected to be published early this week, but it will only be in draft form and the DfE then needs to run a public consultation. By Ewan Somerville.

A consultation has found broad support among parents and carers for retaining uniforms with a “gender-neutral approach” to dressing for school, while designer labels could be banned under plans to help families cut the costs of school uniforms. The Scottish government has said a working group has been appointed to consider the views of the 2,750 respondents. By Mike Wade, The Times.

Children should be taught how to counter conspiracy theories as part of the school curriculum, according to Professor Sander van der Linden, an expert on social psychology at the University of Cambridge. By Catherine Lough, The Telegraph.