Newsround

Pinch, punch first of the month but what’s been in the news just lately?

• Damian Hinds has said teachers will be given more help to job share and a lighter workload in an attempt to prevent experienced staff from leaving the profession. Read the Department for Education’s strategy for recruiting and retaining school teachers in state-funded schools.
• Academic research shows grammar school performance in school league tables is not quite what it seems. Dr. George Leckie and Prof. Harvey Goldstein say

We conclude that accountability systems which choose to ignore pupil background are likely to reward and punish the wrong schools and this will likely have detrimental effects on pupil learning. These findings, especially when coupled with more general concerns surrounding high-stakes testing and school value-added models, raise serious doubts about their use in school accountability systems.

• According to the Halifax quality of life survey, Orkney is the best place to live in the UK, with cheap houses, low crime, good schools and a population who are among the happiest and healthiest in the country. The top ten are as follows:

1. Orkney, Scotland
2. Richmondshire, Yorkshire and the Humber
3. Rutland, East Midlands
4. Hambleton, Yorkshire and the Humber
5. Eden, North West
6. South Oxfordshire, South East
7. Cotswold, South West
8. Ryedale, Yorkshire and the Humber
9. St Albans, East of England
10. Derbyshire Dales, East Midlands

• Remember, Ofsted seeks your views on our proposals for changes to the education inspection framework from September 2019.

• Chicken therapy helps ‘to calm’ autistic children.

• According to a Canadian study, allowing toddlers spend lots of time using screens may delay their development of skills.

• The University of Nottingham will stop unconditional offers to all prospective students unless they already hold their qualifications.

• Michael Rosen talks about a flowering of policy initiatives and ‘busy work’.
• Do you use Star of the Week awards? Are they doing more harm than good?
• How about using a T Rex to inspire children’s writing. Look at what two part-time teachers have done using a dinosaur.
• Safer Internet Day 2019 takes place on 5th Feb. If you’re looking for resources for your children then 2Simple have released a free bank of materials you can use.
• In 1969 Yvonne Conolly became one of the first female black headteachers in inner-London.
• Here’s a good one. Those working in Clarks shoe shops are to be asked to engage children in conversation to improve language skills.

• Youth Music publish a comprehensive review of children and young people’s relationship with music. The report says that music is a powerful contributor to wellbeing and that the majority of young people are active music-makers and there are more young people making music than in a previous Youth Music survey conducted in 2006. Watch this video from The Sound of the Next Generation.