ISC Daily News Summary

A 16-year-old Jewish student is urging ministers to make lessons to combat antisemitism mandatory after suffering from bullying and abuse at his school three years ago. Jonathan Frisher told The Independent an education against antisemitism was "needed more than ever now" amid a "crisis of antisemitism". He said of his fellow students: "I saw that lots of this did come from a place of ignorance because they didn't really understand the implications of it," adding: "But education really did change this in my school. People apologised to me." Jonathan's petition to make the lessons mandatory across the country managed to accumulate 6,000 signatures over three years, but has since soared to 33,000. By Bryony Gooch. 

Pupils in Scotland have told BBC News they were left feeling upset, hopeless and fearful about their futures after taking a Higher maths exam that they said was "totally unrecognisable" from what they had prepared for in lessons. More than 11,000 people have signed a petition calling for a review, which states the assessment was "poorly worded, inconsistently structured, and out of step with every previous paper". About 20,000 young people sat the Higher maths exam last year, and it is the first year of exams under Qualifications Scotland. By Mary McCool. The article is immediately followed by an analysis piece by Lucy Adams, BBCs Scotland's education and social affairs correspondent, who warns that the petition to review one of Scotland’s most popular subjects is "at best difficult timing" for the new qualifications body.

Analysis by Tes has shown that schools can reduce the time GCSE students spend in exams, which is a current government and Ofqual priority. Speaking to the paper, a number of education leaders discuss the issue and explain why they are concerned about shifting the responsibility to schools. By Kyle Tormey. 

Schools are being urged to resist pressure from technology firms to rapidly adopt the artificial intelligence (AI) tools they might be unsure about. At the Schools and Academies Show, an expert panel warned school leaders against rushing into new approaches, urging them to question research claims and consider what may be lost when tasks are delegated to technology. Catherine Buckler, edtech lead at Sydenham & Dulwich Girls’ GDST who is working on a doctorate on AI in education, told delegates her research had revealed that every tech company was "trying to sell us a story about education and where they see education going in the future". She said: "As leaders it’s very ok to take a deep breath, not get caught up in the hype and just make sure that we’re really grounded in educational values and not big tech values." By Irena Barker, School Management Plus. 

A set of free educational materials designed to teach primary school pupils about the risks of vaping has been launched following a trial at a number of schools. Created by the youth charity Talk About Trust, the resources were piloted across nine Dorset schools and developed over 18 months alongside NHS anti-vaping work in Scotland. They are designed to help children in Years 4, 5 and 6 better understand vaping, nicotine and the dangers they present before they reach secondary school. The tools are now available for schools to download and use. By Stuart Rust, BBC News. 

Technology is taking away our ability to make ourselves happy, Frank Cottrell-Boyce has said, with children being "sedated" by addictive use of social media. Speaking in an interview to mark the final weeks of his two-year role as children's laureate, the children's author and screenwriter warned: "There’s a big difference between happiness and distraction, and quite a lot of the time that we spend in leisure online we’re in a kind of suspended state. It literally passes the time, but that’s not what happiness is." Mr Cottrell-Boyce is supporting The Sunday Times’s Get Britain Reading campaign, which is calling for everybody to commit to reading for pleasure for at least 10 minutes a day. By Ben Spencer, The Times.