Newsround

What’s been in the news just lately?

• Changing Lives: the social impact of participation in culture and sport was published this week and warned,

It is not enough for the DCMS and DfE to simply expect schools to provide a ‘broad and balanced curriculum’: they need to take action to ensure that this is actually happening.

• Some schools are quite happy to exclude pupils to get rid of them but there is one school that has not excluded anyone since 2013. Meet the ‘on-rolling’ school.
• Ofsted chief Amanda Spielman said headteachers who speak to children about their Sats exams and ask how they are feeling, could make them more worried.
• Meet the Nigerian girl who is using coding to help fold clothes.
• Ofsted’s new education inspection framework is now available via handbooks for early years, maintained schools and academies, non-association independent schools and further education and skills.
• Stevenage pupil taking GCSEs using eye movement.
• New UCL Institute of Education (IOE) research says that school break times are as much as an hour shorter than they were two decades ago meaning children are missing out on valuable opportunities to make friends, develop social skills and exercise. The researchers found that there has been an almost ‘virtual elimination’ of afternoon breaks, with only 15% of children in Key Stage 2 and just over half of Key Stage 1 children having an afternoon break. In 1995, 13% of secondary schools reported an afternoon break period. Now only 1% of secondary schools report having one. Co-author Professor Peter Blatchford (Department of Psychology and Human Development) said,

We believe that schools should carefully consider the time available for breaks and refrain from cutting them further. Policy makers should also consider legislating for time for pupils to have adequate breaks – whereas working adults, including teachers have a right to breaks, there is no equivalent policy for pupils.