ISC Daily News Summary

In a written question in the House of Commons, Munira Wilson, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for education, asked whether the education secretary will make an assessment of the potential impact of applying VAT to independent school fees on boys who are neurodiverse. Responding, Olivia Bailey, minister for early education, said: "HM Treasury published a Tax Information and Impact Note (TIIN) on applying VAT to independent school fees. This is a comprehensive assessment of the VAT policy, including impacts on individuals and families, and equalities impacts. The TIIN is available here." Hansard.

Ending the two-child benefit limit would reduce child poverty but not necessarily help with a young person’s early development and their readiness for school, a new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has found. It says the policy, which has been repeatedly criticised by anti-poverty campaigners, has "no statistically significant impact" on the proportion of children in England achieving what is termed a "good level of development" by the age of five. However, the researchers also concluded that, at present, the policy has "no adverse impact on children’s development as measured by their teachers at the end of the reception year". By Pat Hurst and Eleanor Barlow, The Independent. 

Women were found to be largely absent from history taught in Key Stage 3, the first three years of secondary education in England, according to research by campaign group End Sexism in Schools, which is seeking to add more female lives and achievements to the curriculum in England. Freedom of information requests on classroom content sent to secondary schools revealed 59 per cent of history lessons at Key Stage 3 did not mention women at all. Even when mentioned, the report found women were more often victims than protagonists. Linking the findings to what she described as "the epidemic of misogyny that blights the lives of young people", Debbie Brazil, founder of End Sexism in Schools, said: "Girls cannot relate to what they are taught about the past, boys miss opportunities to develop empathy and positive role models and society inherits a distorted historical narrative." By Richard Adams, The Guardian.

Andy Bayfield, assistant principal at St Mary’s International School in Tokyo, writes in Tes on the impact of enabling pupils to report any safeguarding concerns anonymously online, a process that used to be entirely paper-based. Reflecting on his own school's experience of using the online framework since 2023, Mr Bayfield remarks: "The most notable aspect of the new system - and a reassuring one - was that students did want to use the anonymous platforms."