Newsround

What’s been in the education news recently?

10 million children headed back to school this week which is news enough but there has been plenty more happening:

• The UCL Institute of Education (IOE) and Queen’s University Belfast research has raised several concerns about allocating pupils to classes based on their ability. The project team have developed a resource for teachers, ‘Dos and Dont’s of attainment Grouping‘, that draws out tips for best practice in setting and in mixed attainment grouping, based on the research evidence.
• A new toolkit to help schools save money to ensure every pound possible is being spent in the classroom has been published today by Education Secretary Damian Hinds.
• A new report by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) assesses the state of the teacher labour market in England. Levels of teacher quality in secondary schools vary considerably depending on the subject:

Maths and most science subjects in particular struggle to attract highly-qualified teachers – with as little as half of teachers holding a relevant degree. Under 50% hold a relevant degree in maths and physics. These subjects, with the lowest proportion of highly-qualified teachers, are also those with the greatest recruitment and retention problems.

• Do we need a cancer education programme to be fully immersed into the curriculum?
• Freshers at the University of Edinburgh will be given pronoun badges indicating whether they would like to be addressed as “he”, ”she” or “they”.
• A new national response unit will be established to help local authorities support vulnerable children at risk of exploitation by criminal gangs.
• New research carried out for the Diana Award Back2School anti-bullying campaign reveals that bullying has a shocking impact on academic achievement. The research found:

* 40% of young people bullied for their academic ability with over half (51%) afraid to put their hand up in class because of bullying*

* Over a third (39%) say it’s affected their school grades and attendance (38%)*

* Nearly a quarter (22%) of young people have changed school because of bullying*

* Nearly half (46%) of young people worried about going back to school after the holidays because of bullying*

* Nearly three quarters (70%) of parents say that head teachers aren’t doing enough to stop bullying happening in schools**

• The Home Office tackle online child sexual abuse. There has been a 700% increase in child abuse images being referred to the National Crime Agency (NCA) in the last five years which is why Home Secretary Sajid Javid says all technology companies must step up their efforts to tackle online child sexual exploitation.

• 9 out of 10 new teachers are positive about how well their training has prepared them for the classroom.