V levels will become the “only pathway” for young people aged 16-19 to gain vocational qualifications equivalent to an A level, the government announced yesterday.

The new level 3 qualifications “simplify” students’ decisions, and “streamline” the 900 existing vocational qualifications, allowing them to mix and match education options more easily.

They will sit alongside A levels, which have an “academic” focus, and T levels, suitable for those who are “confident about working in a certain occupational area”. V levels will offer those less sure of their career pathway more flexibility, the government’s “Post-16 education and skills” white paper said.

How would they work?

V levels will replace BTecs, which have been around since the mid-1980s. While A levels are geared towards university entrance, and a T level (a two-year course equivalent to three A levels) offers training for a specific career, V levels are designed for young people to keep their options open, said FE Week. They are tied to “rigorous and real-world job standards” and mix theoretical learning with developing practical skills.

As an example, after finishing their GCSEs, a student could study a V level in finance and accounting in conjunction with A levels in environmental science and geography. This student might then go on to an apprenticeship in the renewables sector.

Why are they needed?

V levels represent one of the first steps towards Keir Starmer’s target for two-thirds of young people to go to university, or pursue a “gold-standard apprenticeship” or equivalent qualification.

Last year “roughly one in seven” people aged between 16 and 24 were not in education, employment or training, said the Financial Times. Worryingly, the trend appears to be on the rise, with the 2024 figures representing a 1.5 percentage point increase on 2023.

Will they work?

“If you’re feeling a bit confused by it all, you’re not alone,” said HuffPost. “We’ve all heard of A levels” but they may have to “budge up” with the government’s addition of V levels. Aimed at reducing uncertainty over students’ futures, this flexible hybrid approach may inadvertently fail to direct them towards a clear end goal.

While the announcement is a “big step forwards” for level 3 education, it is “not everything we would want, of course”, said David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges. Though the plans are “ambitious and exciting”, the white paper highlights the “lack of support and funding” within post-16 education, which is plagued by “low pay in colleges” and an “absence of collaboration”.

“It is not yet clear when V levels will be introduced, how they will be rolled out, or which subjects will be on offer,” said the BBC. The government will now launch a consultation to “support the introduction of V levels”, said HuffPost.

The care system for children in England doesn’t represent value for money, according to a new report, with a record number of those in residential care living in challenging conditions and often moved miles away from where they grew up.

The cost of children’s homes has doubled in the last five years but the current standards of care nowhere near reflect that. A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has described the system as “dysfunctional”.

It’s another damning indictment of a sector that has been dogged by staff shortages and higher expenses, leaving vulnerable children unsupported.

The state of affairs

Protecting children in care has become a problem right across the country. “It is a moral failure” that thousands of children are abandoned at critical times in their lives, said a Commons Education Committee report in July, with “urgent action” required to “fix this broken system”.

On a local level, councils are struggling to find enough placements of a high standard for children. Many bounce from home to home, with no consistency or stability to speak of. A history of abuse and neglect affects two-thirds of children in care in England, said Sky News.

The challenges don’t stop there, with the problems they face continuing into adulthood. Due to “systemic failings” of the care system as a whole, those who emerge from care are “three times more likely not to be in education, training, or employment than their peers”.

Better information about the “supply and the availability” of places in care, but more importantly of specific “children’s needs”, should be the top priority for the Department for Education, said the lead author of the NAO report, Emma Willson.

Crunching the numbers

Like many concerns at the moment, a central obstacle for care providers is funding and allocating resources effectively. Care facilities do not come cheap but the situation is beginning to spiral out of control.

Overall, the total cost of residential care in England last year was £3.1 billion, rising from £1.6 billion 2019/20, said the Financial Times. The average cost to local authorities of placements in children’s homes rose by a third to nearly £320,000 in 2023/24, meaning an average cost of around £6,100 per child a week.

In the most extreme circumstances, children with complex needs require “24-hour supervision by multiple staff” and councils had been charged up to £3.3 million a year for a single placement, said The Guardian.

Profit-run sector

Companies that are privately owned, often funded by private equity, lie at the heart of the sector. They look to take advantage of the broken system, said The Guardian, with the fees they charge far surpassing the rate of inflation, with some of the biggest providers “enjoying average annual profit rates of 22.6% a year”.

Private firms were “racking up huge profits” due to market failure, and can load the children’s homes with “high levels of debt”, which often leads to “heightening the risk of market instability”.

Their presence in the sector has grown. Now, 84% of children’s homes are run for profit, said the BBC. Because they are independent, many private care providers can “cherry pick the children they take” from councils “based on how much support they need and how much profit this allows”.

Fresh from embarrassing climbdowns on winter fuel payments and welfare reform, the government is bracing itself for another battle over plans to overhaul special needs education in England.

"If they thought taking money away from disabled adults was bad, watch what happens when they try the same with disabled kids," one Labour backbencher told The Times, summing up the mood in the party and among many parents.

What is special needs education?

Special educational needs and disabilities (Send) covers children and young people with physical, emotional and behavioural difficulties including dyslexia, autism, ADHD, communication and mobility issues.

Services are provided by councils, with roughly 630,000 of those with the highest needs supported by specialised education, health and care plans (EHCPs). Offering dedicated one-to-one assistance, specialist equipment, speech and language therapy, and even subsidised travel to and from school, these "provide some statutory certainty in a system that is overstretched and underfunded", said The Guardian.

Why does it need reforming?

There is widespread agreement among parents, councils and politicians that the current Send system is no longer fit for purpose. Complaints to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman have nearly tripled over the past five years, said Schools Week. Endemic assessment delays and funding and access issues are "symptomatic of a system that is in complete crisis", said Sharon Chappell, the assistant ombudsman.

Send support covers nearly two million young people, costing the Department for Education £10.7 billion a year, according to the National Audit Office. Critics point to a sharp rise in the number of young people diagnosed with ADHD and autism over the past decade, which has put an unsustainable strain on local education support services.

The strain on Send services has, counterintuitively, worked in favour of certain pupils who would ordinarily have been "barred" from mainstream education, but have instead been "folded into mainstream schools with success", said Cristina Odone in The Spectator.

What is the government proposing?

With a full reform package not expected to be made public until the autumn, "we don't yet have any firm details, and that is part of the problem", said The Guardian. Among MPs there is concern that talk of overhauling the system may, in reality, be just another cost-cutting exercise aimed at balancing the budget.

Ministers hope that by increasing the "number of places in Send units at mainstream schools", they can "eventually phase out the need for individual EHCPs over time" for all but "those with the most complex needs", said The i Paper. This has sounded alarm bells for parents and advocacy groups, who fear the withdrawal of vital support. Save Our Children’s Rights said "the idea that 'units' could somehow replace or supersede EHCPs and the rights they embody is worrying and wrong".

In an open letter to The Guardian signed by more than 100 special needs charities and campaigners, Save Our Children's Rights warned that without the statutory support provided by EHCPs, it is "extremely unlikely that ministers will achieve their aim of more children with Send thriving, or even surviving, in mainstream education".

And parents of children with Send "represent a not insignificant protest vote", said The Spectator. "The government angers them at its peril."

Millions of pounds are being fraudulently claimed from Britain's university student loan system by fake students who have no intention of studying at an academic institution, according to an investigation by The Sunday Times.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has announced that the Public Sector Fraud Authority will be investigating the suspected exploitation of the system. Writing for the newspaper, Phillipson said the allegations point to "one of the biggest financial scandals in the history of our universities sector".

What fraud has been uncovered?

Thousands of people have reportedly fraudulently claimed a student loan by enrolling on degree courses, despite having "absolutely no academic intent", and no intention of paying the loan back, said The Sunday Times.

The paper's investigative reporters reviewed leaked financial documents and company accounts, and interviewed sources in the Student Loans Company, the Department for Education and the Office for Students, as well as university lecturers.

Where is the fraud happening?

The majority of suspect students seem to be enrolled at so-called "franchised universities" – small colleges that provide courses for established universities. It is thought, the paper said, that there are at least six franchised providers where fraudulent claims from students have been identified.

These franchised providers often have low, or almost no, entry requirements. Some franchised colleges are reportedly enrolling international students "who cannot speak adequate English or accepting screenshots of Duolingo tests as proof of English proficiency", said the paper.

British students and foreign citizens with settled status can apply for tuition fee loans and maintenance payments. The tuition fee is paid to the course providers but the maintenance loan is paid directly to a student's bank account.

Loans are meant only to be paid out if students attend their courses, but there are concerns that some franchised providers and lead universities are not properly monitoring attendance, allowing students to enrol in courses they have no intention of attending. Loans are only repayable when a student leaves and earns more than £25,000 a year; the debt is wiped completely after 40 years.

Who is committing student loan frauds?

In 2023, the SLC's fraud unit became concerned about the rising number of Romanian students applying for its loans. Leaked figures revealed that Romanian student loan applications have increased dramatically, from 5,000 in 2015-16 to 84,000 in 2023-24, suggesting, said The Sunday Times, that "15% of the Romanian population in Britain was paid a student loan last year".

While not all these applications are thought to be fraudulent, the number of Romanian applicants is notably higher than those of other nationalities. This could be partly due to "organised recruitment" on TikTok, with Romanian influencers targeting their compatriots with advice on how to access student loans in the UK.

How much money is involved?

More than 3,500 suspicious loan applications, totalling nearly £60 million, were identified by the SLC in the 2022-23 academic year. The company spotted multiple applications "involving fake documents and address duplication", said the paper.

However, according to documents seen by The Sunday Times, there could now be "far greater levels of potential fraud, with estimates that it could run to hundreds of millions of pounds".

What next?

The Department for Education said that it would "stop at nothing to protect public money", and that any potential misuse of student loans "is an insult to hard-working students striving for better opportunities".

The government's Plan for Change, announced by Keir Starmer in December, "will restore trust" in the UK's universities, a DfE spokesperson said. "We will overhaul regulation so the Office for Students better protects taxpayers' money. In the meantime, we have asked the OfS to clamp down on franchising."

The government is proposing new legislation to safeguard children by ending the automatic right for parents in England and Wales to homeschool vulnerable children.

The new measure is being put forward after the case of Sara Sharif, who was killed by her father and stepmother. The ten-year-old, who suffered years of torture at the hands of her parents, was twice withdrawn from school after teachers spotted signs of abuse and raised concerns.

While the "primary responsibility" for the little girl's death rested squarely with her parents, said Mr Justice Cavanagh as he passed sentence on them both, her killing "brings into sharp relief the dangers of unsupervised homeschooling of vulnerable children", reported London's The Standard.

Can anyone homeschool their children?

Elective home education – the term used to describe homeschooling in England – is currently available to all children on a full or part-time basis, as long as they are not subject to a School Attendance Order.

"Parents do not need the consent of the school or local authority" to withdraw their child from school in England and Wales, according to Child Law Advice. There are exceptions, however: if the child has an Education, Health and Care Plan and is attending a special school by arrangement of the local authority, then permission must be sought. In Scotland, parents must seek the local authority's consent before withdrawing their child, although, in practice, consent is usually given.

The law states that homeschooling parents must provide a full-time "suitable education" for their child, although exactly what that means remains a "grey area", said Schools Week. There is no obligation for parents to follow the national curriculum, term dates or school hours.

Under Section 436A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, local authorities "do not have any statutory duties to routinely monitor the quality of home education", said Child Law Advice. "Case law has held that local authorities cannot insist on inspecting parents and children in their home or elsewhere".

What are the proposed changes to the law?

Under the new Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the right to homeschooling in England and Wales "will no longer be automatic for parents of the most vulnerable children", said Sky News.

Councils will be given the power to demand children attend school if their home environment is "deemed unsuitable or unsafe". Parents will also lose the automatic right to homeschool if their child is subject to a social services protection investigation or is under a protection plan. This will also apply to children at special schools.

Every local authority in England will also be required to bring in, and maintain, new registers of children not in school, as well as giving each child unique identifier numbers. This will mean "councils know which children are not in school in their area, and can better ensure they are receiving a suitable education", said The Standard.

Why are more parents homeschooling?

For the past 100 years, the number of children being homeschooled in Britain "has been relatively low and stable", said Anthony Seldon, head of Epsom College, in The Spectator. It's been the choice, mainly, of parents who "want a particular style of religious education for their children (evangelical Christianity, for example) or where there are personal difficulties deterring the young attending school".

But, following the Covid lockdowns, there's been a sharp increase in homeschooling rates in the UK (and around the world), as "many children and families found they liked the experience of learning at home, and determined to maintain it". New figures suggest this post-pandemic surge is "at risk of becoming permanent", said The Guardian, with more than one in 100 children in England being homeschooled last summer term.

Indeed, a BBC investigation earlier this year revealed that the number of pupils moving to home education has risen by 22% in the past year, with councils receiving almost 50,000 notifications in the past academic year from families wanting to take their children out of school. Census data suggested that "while the biggest known reason for moving to home education was still philosophical beliefs, mental health was the biggest factor in the recent rise", said the broadcaster.

Despite concern from Ofsted about the "risk to safeguarding" and the number of children "whose pattern of education is disjointed", the trend for homeschooling is only going to be "continuing in the future, facilitated by AI and digital technologies which are improving by the week", said Seldon.

The government has claimed that children will be "protected" from "inappropriate teaching" on sex and relationships by new guidance announced today – but critics say they are alarmed by the rollback of sex education in England's schools. 

The government has published new guidelines on Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) in schools in England following, it said, "multiple reports of disturbing materials" being used in sex education lessons in schools.

Under the guidelines, children will not be taught sex education before Year 5 – about nine years old – "and at that point from a purely scientific standpoint". 

'Let children be children'

"Children must be allowed to be children", said Education Secretary Gillian Keegan writing in The Sun, announcing the new policy. While children need to be prepared for issues they will face in the future, "that doesn't mean they should be rushed into being adults or bombarded with concepts that they are not ready to grasp".

In the three and a half years since RSHE was made compulsory in schools "vocal groups have used it to push inappropriate and inaccurate teaching", said Keegan. 

As well as introducing "age limits" for the first time, the guidelines "leave no room for doubt" that teachers should not teach about "the contested issue of gender identity", she said. "Never again will young girls be led to believe they might be happier if they were a boy, or children to think that there are 72 genders", she said. 

A certain group of Conservative MPs have long pushed the idea that England's sex education is "age-inappropriate, extreme, sexualising and inaccurate", said Nimo Omer in The Guardian. Some 50 MPs urged Rishi Sunak last year to commission an independent inquiry into how sex education was being conducted in schools after evangelical Christian Conservative MP Miriam Cates claimed children were being presented with "graphic" material including "lessons on oral sex" and "how to choke your partner safely".

But most teachers "do not recognise" this characterisation of sex education; most say schools are "exceedingly cautious" about what they teach. Nevertheless, the "crusade against sex education" appears to have "won out" with the government announcing an overhaul of guidance.

'War on woke'

It's hard to view this policy as anything other than part of the Tories' "war on woke" said Liz Toner in The Independent. Since parents can already opt their children out of sex education this new guidance seems firmly aimed at "the self-proclaimed anti-'woke' brigade, who believe that kids are filtering into school aged five, handed a rainbow flag and told they're any gender they want". For Sunak, this is not "a true issue of concern or conscience" but about avoiding "a trouncing at the polls".

As an "old-fashioned common sense type" I have a "horrid suspicion" I may be the kind of parent the government is trying to appeal to, said Jemima Lewis in The Telegraph. But the new guidance is "both a drastic over-reaction, and a cowardly fudge" which seeks to "mollify two quite different cohorts of concerned parents: the middle-aged liberals like me who think sex is tremendous but the whole gender thing has gone a bit far; and the religiously devout, who don't want their children exposed to any of this filth". 

"Both cohorts are somewhat deluded", as "like it or not, our children will pick up most of their sex 'education' from the internet'", said Lewis. But if the government really is concerned about "unscientific gender notions being reinforced in schools" then it should address that issue separately.  "Lumping gender in with sex – quite apart from being a category error – is politically short-sighted" and risks  "destroying a good, and increasingly necessary, part of the education system in order to pacify two completely different groups of anxious parents, neither of whom are likely to be satisfied".

The government's new guidance on mobile phone use in schools has reignited the debate over the dangers of smartphones for children.

More than 4,000 parents have joined Smartphone Free Childhood, a WhatsApp group created by parents "committed to barring" young children from having smart devices, said The Guardian. Research by government watchdog Ofcom found that 91% of 11-year-olds in the UK have a smartphone, as do 44% of nine-year-olds.

'Direct line to bullying, porn and grooming'

The pressure to get children a mobile phone before they start secondary school is "huge", said Daisy Greenwell, who helped set up Smartphone Free Childhood. "Nobody wants their kid to feel ostracised," she wrote for Grazia. 

But "handing your child a direct line into a world of online bullying, porn, grooming, and the anxiety that comes with scrolling and social media, feels equally unappealing". Scientific evidence shows that "the younger a child is when they get a mobile phone, the higher their incidence of mental illness".

New guidance published this week by the Department for Education (DfE) backs headteachers in prohibiting the use of mobile phones throughout the school day, including at break times. Most schools already ban or limit the use of smartphones, but the guidance will "ensure there is a consistent approach across all schools", said the DfE.

A "well-enforced ban" on smartphones in school "is exactly what is needed", said The Times in an editorial. Future generations will "come to regard the uncontrolled manner in which young minds have been carelessly exposed to a little-regulated online world as ­indicative of a wanton lack of vigilance on the part of legislators". 

It is "obvious" that restricting the use of smartphones on school grounds should be a priority if students' education and well-being are not to suffer. The new guidance issued by the DfE is "an encouraging start; it attempts to wrest the status quo back to a presumption that schools should be a smartphone-free environment".

Smartphones 'crucial' for vulnerable children

Children need protecting, said Hugo Rifkind in The Times, but "when we talk about teens being susceptible to the ravages of technology, the unspoken assumption is often that older people are less so". In fact, "the opposite may be true". While there are obvious problems with unfettered access to the internet from a young age, the question remains: "Do we really think that an olde worlde offline childhood would prepare them much better?"

Those calling for a ban on smartphones for under-16s are unaware of what a "crucial" lifeline they can be for vulnerable children, said Esther Rantzen, founder of Childline, in a letter to The Telegraph. 

The majority of children who contact the charity do so online by using the live chat service, email or message boards. When Rantzen asked a group of young people visiting Childline whether they would prefer to call or use the internet if they were suffering, they all said they would find it easier to use messaging. "That is where children are these days, and where Childline needs to be to help them, and for that, they need a smartphone," said Rantzen.

Although calls for a smartphone-free childhood are "worth considering", said The Northern Echo, the pressure should be on social media companies "to ensure all their content is suitable". 

"Smartphones are here to stay and, in the future, are going to become even more enmeshed in every aspect of our lives," added the paper. Young people need to be made aware of the dangers as well as the positives – "and taught how to use them safely because in the world outside the classroom, they will be with them every single second of every single day".

Calls are growing for an overhaul of how schools are assessed, after a coroner ruled that an Ofsted inspection which "lacked fairness, respect and sensitivity" and was "rude and intimidating" at times "contributed" to the suicide of Ruth Perry.

The 53-year-old head teacher killed herself in January while waiting for an Ofsted report that, as she feared, downgraded her Caversham Primary School in Reading from its highest rating to its lowest over safeguarding concerns.

Following the coroner's conclusion, Perry's name will mark "not just the downfall of Ofsted's reign of fear", said Polly Toynbee in The Guardian, "but an end to the pitiless exam- and inspection-driven education era in England".

'Perry case opened the floodgates'

The issues leading to this state of affairs began "decades ago", wrote former Ofsted inspector John Bald for Conservative Home, and "reflect a schism over the purposes of education that is summed up in the legislation of Labour and Conservative governments".

The Perry case has "opened the floodgates to teachers daring to reveal the intolerable fear and stress of inspections" that can deliver a "career-killing" single-word judgement, said The Guardian's Toynbee.

Even Ofsted's outgoing chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, has admitted that reform is needed.

An Ofsted spokesperson said it was "immediately introducing a number of measures" to "address several areas of concern set out by the coroner". This included "developing new training for all inspectors, to include external experts, that will take place in early January".

All schools in England due an Ofsted visit this week can request their inspection is deferred until 2024 – "and all requests will be granted, unless the watchdog has significant concerns", reported The Independent.

What will be "crucial", said the BBC, is how the new chief inspector Martyn Oliver "sets the tone publicly when he takes over in the new year – it's one thing he can control".

'Can't fix Ofsted without fixing the sector'

Ofsted's response was "wholly inadequate" and "completely misses the point", claimed Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) union.

Media commentators and unions are "carrying the hopes of the profession by enticing us to imagine a life without Ofsted", said FE Week. "But the rallying cry for its dismantling is frankly just noise. If it was sent to the scrap yard tomorrow, we'd have a new Frankenstein agency welded together and released back into the wild by a week on Wednesday."

Short of scrapping the education regulator entirely, both main political parties have put forward proposals aimed at reform.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has signalled further changes to Ofsted inspections while Labour, which looks on course to win the next election, has set out its own plan to replace the current system – which ranks schools from "outstanding" to "inadequate" – with a more rounded report card.

"But change at Ofsted isn't enough," wrote Jon Severs for teachers' news site TES. Perry's death "became a symbol of the inspectorate's negative impact on the profession, and what was unfortunately lost in that movement was the wider context in which an inspection takes place", he said.

"Ofsted is a product of the sector, it operates within the context of that sector, and therefore you can't fix Ofsted without fixing the sector, too."

A heated discussion over the issue of self-identity, between pupils and a teacher at a school in East Sussex, has reignited the debate over how the topic is treated in schools.

The conversation, secretly recorded and posted on TikTok, appears to show a teacher defending a pupil’s right to self-identify as a cat, while two other pupils vehemently disagree with her.

During the conversation, which took place in a Year 8 class on “life education” at Rye College in East Sussex last Friday, students were told to “be who you want to be – and how you identify is up to you” by their teacher. In response, a pupil is heard to say “If they want to identify as a cat or something then they are genuinely unwell – crazy.”

When the pupils insist there are only two genders, the teacher says their views are “really despicable”. She adds that there are three biological sexes and lots of genders.

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has reportedly asked the Department for Education’s regional director for the South East to visit Rye College and investigate the matter, according to The Telegraph.

‘Let kids be kids’

“Damaging nonsense” is how Nadhim Zahawi, the former education secretary, branded the discussion, joining a chorus of Tory backbenchers who have urged the prime minister Rishi Sunak to stand up to schools and “let kids be kids”. A spokesman for the PM said children should not be taught “contested opinions as fact”.

Nor has the right-wing press hesitated in joining the conversation. Piers Morgan described the “woke teacher” in the recording as peddling “brain-warped thinking” on Sky News Australia. “Ironically, as I read this, I began to hiss and bare my feline fangs in fury,” he wrote. GB News host Michelle Dewberry went one step further, appearing on her show dressed as a cat.

Rye College said it was “committed to offering our pupils an inclusive education”, but would be reviewing its processes and “working with the relevant individuals to ensure such events do not take place in the future”.

‘Not a genuine phenomenon’

Other schools are “allowing kids to identify as cats, horses and dinosaurs”, claimed the Daily Mail, but not everyone was convinced.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said he had not heard about children identifying as animals as an issue in schools, but added: “There are nine million children in England’s schools so it is not surprising that all sorts of things crop up in discussions in classrooms.”

Similar claims were made in the US, but Reuters Fact Check said experts dismissed it as not a “genuine phenomenon”, and that children were possibly identfying as “furries”. These are “people with an interest in anthropomorphism, who may create their own alternative animal personality known as a ‘fursona’”, the website explained.

Michael Bronski, professor of women, gender and sexuality at Harvard, told the website: “People who identify as ‘furries’ do so for fun; it is not a primary identification.”

Reuters added that it had “fact-checked claims around ‘furries’ in US schools in the past and found no evidence of them disrupting classrooms, or schools developing a policy of including them as a formal identity”.

Schools must provide single-sex toilets and are legally allowed to “ignore requests” from children wishing to be addressed by a different pronoun, the government’s chief legal adviser has said.

In a speech to the Policy Exchange think tank last week, Attorney General Suella Braverman said that institutions had the right to exclude transgender people from single-sex spaces, reserving “particular criticism for schools”, said The Times.

Braverman said that new guidance to be issued by the Department for Education (DfE) would “make this point explicit”, the newspaper continued, and that Ofsted would be responsible for holding schools to account for the new regulations’ implementation.

Maggie Baska at Pink News called it a “chilling” speech that used the “anti-trans dog-whistle that supportive adults are ‘grooming’ children by affirming their identity”.

What are the legal requirements for schools?

Schools “have little official guidance to assist them” when it comes to navigating their way through trans issues, said Good Law Project. A leading expert in education and discrimination law, Dan Squires QC, provided the non-profit organisation with legal advice on the current state of play which, under the Equality Act 2010, prevents schools from discriminating against children on various grounds.

In her speech, Braverman said that under-18s are unable to obtain a gender recognition certificate and therefore schools will “generally be dealing with children whose sex for the purposes of the Equality Act is that registered at birth”.

She claimed it would “not constitute unlawful direct discrimination” to refuse to admit a trans girl or boy to a single-sex school if their registered sex did not match. Squires said it would, however, be unlawful to exclude a pupil from a single-sex school because they identified with the opposite gender.

Braverman said it was also “wrong for schools to suggest that they have legal obligations which mean that they must address children by their preferred pronouns, names, or admit them to opposite sex toilets, sport teams, or dormitories”.

Though a school isn’t legally obligated to treat a child as being the gender with which they identify, educators “cannot prevent trans students from benefiting from the same policies as other pupils just because they are trans”, said Squires. For instance, if teachers allowed for students to be referred to by a name other than the one with which they were registered but refused to do the same for a trans child, that would be “direct discrimination”.

What are the rules around school uniforms?

Policies can indirectly prove to be unlawful if they “disproportionately disadvantage” trans children, said Squires. For instance, if a school has a uniform policy that requires them to wear clothes that correspond to the sex they are registered with at the school, the institution would need to identify a “legitimate aim and be able to demonstrate why it was proportionate to prevent trans children from wearing clothes in line with their gender identity”.

Braverman claimed that the “inherent risks” of social transition could present an “ample legitimate aim” in itself.

But Laura Berman, a partner at law firm Stone King, told Schools Week that schools being told they are allowed to refuse a trans child the right not to wear the uniform of the gender that they are registered with was “not my reading of the Equality Act”.

Must schools out pupils to their parents?

Stonewall advises that schools and colleges only disclose a student’s desired gender identity if they have the individual’s permission.

However, Braverman said schools that “socially transition a child without the knowledge or consent of parents or without medical advice increase their exposure to a negligence claim for breach of their duty of care to that child”.

What else have legal experts said?

Transgender rights in schools “is a tricky maze to navigate”, said Esther Maxwell, legal director and employment and education specialist, for Schools Week, and Braverman’s comments in the past have “stoked this already controversial area”.

Writing in June, Maxwell said the minister has taken a “simplistic view” of the Equality Act 2010, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

Lawyers and educators “at the chalkface of dealing with these issues know the legal position is actually far from simple”. A student needs only to “be taking some practical steps to live in the opposite gender or proposing to do so” to be protected under the Equality Act, she argued. “In short, pupils should not be treated less favourably or experience a detriment as a result of being transgender.”

Maxwell admitted that schools might, however, have to “grapple with a ‘clash of rights’ situation, where the rights of a transgender pupil are pitched against an individual’s personal beliefs that sex is immutable” – so “it is far from straightforward”.

The new DfE guidance is expected to clarify the rules. Until the guidance – which has been in the pipeline since April and is thought to be due out in the autumn – is issued, “schools will continue to set their own policies on transgender pupils”, said The Telegraph’s education editor Louisa Clarence-Smith.

1. Teaching my pupils the ‘positives’ of the British Empire would entrench white supremacy

Nadeine Asbali at the i news site

on teaching colonialism

Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi has said schools should teach “all aspects” of the British Empire – “including the purported positives”, writes teacher Nadeine Asbali at the i news site. “What does it say of our country if the politicians in charge of education, justice and equality feel that the genocide, pillaging and invasion of half the world is an issue up for debate?” asks Asbali. “Some things are simply not two-sided.” Teachers “don’t attempt to expound any positives of Nazism because there are none”. Anyone who claims colonialism should be taught “in a balanced way” suggests that the “supposed ‘positive’ outcomes” must be “offered up on a shiny platter to whitewash the colonial machine as somehow altruistic”. This means “the dead bodies get brushed under the carpet”. And “what message does it to send to schoolchildren of colour if we present the subjugation, torture and murder of their ancestors as justified because some train tracks were built?”

Read more

2. Government should restore £20 Universal Credit uplift and help struggling families

Gordon Brown at The Mirror

on the welfare state

“For most of our lives the British welfare state has been there for us when we require it,” writes Gordon Brown at The Mirror. It’s there “to lift us up when we are down, to provide a safety net for the most vulnerable and to take the shame out of need. But on Friday, as a result of Rishi Sunak’s betrayal of the poor, it passes a point of no return,” says the former prime minister. Families are facing rising bills, but instead of “doing more to help people in need, our welfare state is doing much less”. A family with three children on Universal Credit, “hit by Sunak’s quadruple whammy of tax rises, benefit cuts” and soaring food and heating bills – and who’ve “already seen the value of their benefits go down seven times in the last ten years” – will now receive “just £289 a week, net of council tax”. Food banks and charities are “being forced to stand in for the welfare state” and “are being asked to do the impossible”. Brown is “in awe” of the voluntary help people offer, but it “cannot replace the money lost”.

Read more

3. Forget Will Smith and the slap, why do we politicise black women’s hair?

Ateh Jewel at The New Statesman

on hair loss

“The whole world has been analysing the scuffle” between Will Smith and Chris Rock at the Oscars, writes Ateh Jewel at The New Statesman. “Among all the noise, there is a neglect” of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, “her feelings, and the politics of black hair and hair loss”. The slap “makes it clear that hair is culture, identity and status, and that in our society women are still judged and objectified by their hair or lack of it.” Black people “are still being discriminated against because of the natural way hair grows out of their head”, to the point that the US Congress has passed legislation called the Crown Act “to protect against hair discrimination”. Pinkett Smith’s treatment “makes it clear that you can’t win either when you have or don’t have hair”.

Read more

4. The Ockenden Review must urgently deliver real change in the NHS

Jeremy Hunt at The Telegraph

on healthcare failings

“No parent should ever have to bury their own child,” writes Jeremy Hunt at The Telegraph. “To do so because a hospital refused again and again to learn from the same mistakes is the worst kind of agony”. It’s a “horrible realisation” that “thousands of families across Shropshire will wake up to today” when the Ockenden Review into Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital’s maternity unit is released. The former health secretary says the report “has taken several years longer than expected” because it emerged that the “23 cases of poor maternity care” that he initially called to be investigated “were just the tip of an iceberg”. This “shocking saga” poses “deeply uncomfortable questions for the NHS and regulatory system”. The MP says “there was a chilling and unforgivable failure to learn from mistakes that we now know is far from unique” to this maternity unit. Health ministers “owe it” to the campaigners and families affected by the scandal to “deliver a wake-up call on maternity safety that heralds real change”.

Read more

5. We are all Teletubbies now

Mary Harrington at Unherd

on becoming cyborgs

Teletubbies celebrates its 25th anniversary this week, “and it was wildly successful from the moment it landed”, writes Mary Harrington. “It’s one of the most lucrative shows in BBC history, merchandising sales raking in billions.” But the show has “also spurred a subculture of perverse readings, including that the Sun Baby is a demon”. Harrington thinks “this secondary success is also richly deserved”. Teletubbies is “a brutally frank sketch of a hypermodern era that began gathering speed around the time the show launched, and has now consumed us all”. These “humanoid-but-infantile Teletubby cyborgs, media devices painlessly grafted into their flesh, are fitting avatars for a uniquely modern conflation of technology and nurturing”. This show wasn’t necessarily created for “ravers”, but it offers comfort of sorts to those in that “delicate post-rave condition of self-inflicted chemical imbalance”. Look – says Harrington – “bunnies and Tubby Toast. Eh-oh!”

Read more

Pupils in England who fail their maths and English GCSEs will be banned from taking out student loans under new government proposals.

The Department for Education (DfE) has launched a consultation on minimum grades for loan qualification as part of the biggest shake-up of higher-education funding in a decade, in response to the 2018 Augar review of post-18 education.

Under the plans, students who fail to gain a Grade 4 or above – equivalent to a C under the old grading system – or at least two Es at A-level will be “barred from accessing” student loans, reported The Telegraph. Mature students could be an exception to the rule, said the paper.

1. Pro: push for high quality degrees

Government ministers argue that the new proposals for minimum grade requirements will ensure that pupils “aren’t being pushed into higher education before they are ready”, said The Telegraph. They are proposing to impose controls on student numbers “so that poor-quality, low-cost courses aren’t incentivised to grow uncontrollably”, said the paper.

The government will define “low-quality degrees” as “those with a high number of students dropping out and a low proportion getting a graduate job or entering further study once they have completed their degrees”, said the paper.

Data from the University and Colleges Admissions Service shows 320,000 sixth-formers have applied for university places so far, compared with 306,000 in 2021. But while student numbers are increasing, the DfE has said it is concerned that “not all students receive the same high quality of teaching” and that many students are becoming saddled with large amounts of debt and few job prospects. According to the department, “less than half of students” at 25 British universities who begin a degree “can expect to finish it and find professional employment or further study within 15 months of graduation”, said The Times.

2. Con: less access for disadvantaged

University leaders have warned that the proposed minimum entry requirements to access student loans was “too high” and would “effectively end the hopes” of school leavers from disadvantaged backgrounds who could not afford the £9,250 annual undergraduate tuition fee or living expenses without student loans, said The Guardian.

The paper said that a “key determinant” could be whether the threshold is set at Grade 4 or 5, with the percentage of pupils in England achieving a grade 4 in GCSE English and maths falling from 71% to 52% for those from disadvantaged households.

One education consultant warned that setting minimum entry requirements could “prevent levelling up” and harm social mobility. “Minimum entry requirements are a potential culture war minefield,” consultant Johnny Rich told The Independent. “If we want to level up, to generate social mobility and to meet skills needs, then blanket minimum entry requirements will do nothing more than close doors.”

3. Pro: opens door to alternatives

Ministers argue that the reforms “should encourage more young people to consider apprenticeships and other higher qualifications”, said the BBC. This indicates that the government is keen to “shift away” from the idea that university is “the best choice for all students”, said The Guardian’s education correspondent Sally Weale.

If introduced, the new policy “rows back on policies pioneered by New Labour and the coalition government”, said The Telegraph, which sought to encourage 50% of young people to attend university and which, in 1997, saw student numbers rise by 400,000 a year to over 1.5m.

4. Con: risk of discrimination

Some experts warn that the proposals could become a legal minefield for the government if people are denied the opportunity to access student loans due to learning difficulties or other disabilities.

Sarah Woosey, an education lawyer at Simpson Millar, said the proposed changes were “potentially discriminatory”, and could violate equality laws. “Although it is probably sensible to ensure that students are only funded to study courses which they are able to succeed at, this decision should be determined by the entrance criteria for the individual universities, which also must comply with the Equality Act,” she told FE Week.

She added: “To say that a university would be happy to offer a place to an applicant on the basis of their admissions criteria but then for that student to be unable to access funding to do this because of their disability has got to be wrong.”

A hoax plan for Islamic hardliners to take over schools across the country is back in the headlines almost a decade after it first triggered panic and fury in the UK.

Dubbed the Trojan Horse affair, the scandal centred around claims that extremists were attempting to wrest control of Birmingham schools in an effort to introduce an “Islamist” or “Salafist” ethos into their teaching.

The scandal, which has long been recognised to have been overblown, has been re-examined by The New York Times in a podcast probing the origins of a letter that sparked the events.

What is the Trojan Horse affair?

The scandal began in November 2013, when “Birmingham city council received a strange document in the post”, said The Guardian. The document was “a photocopy of a letter, which seemed to be part of a correspondence between Muslims conspiring to take over local schools and run them according to strict Islamic principles”.

It was accompanied by a note from an anonymous person claiming the letter had been found “in their boss’s office”, the paper added.

The letter purported to outline a five-stage strategy named “Operation Trojan Horse”, claiming that it had already achieved success and was responsible for “leadership changes at four schools”, the BBC reported at the time.

The strategy was to “identify vulnerable schools where most of the pupils are Muslim” before identifying “a group of sympathetic parents to agitate for an Islamic agenda”, The Guardian said.

After this, the instigators of the plan would “put in place governors who adhere to the same conservative Islamic beliefs” and “identify staff to disrupt the school from within by changing rules and undermining unsympathetic colleagues”.

The plan would then be completed by running “anonymous letter and PR campaigns with the aim of forcing the headteacher to resign”, the paper reported. The letter claimed the strategy had been “tried and tested within Birmingham”.

The Times splashed on the contents of the letter before it was then passed to the Department for Education (DfE) in December 2013. The DfE said it was looking into the claim that the alleged plot had targeted 12 schools.

Government alarm bells

In 2014, Michael Gove, who at the time was education secretary in David Cameron’s government, ordered an inquiry and appointed a former national counter-terrorism chief, Peter Clarke, to look into the allegations.

The decision marked “an important shift” in the scandal, said Chris Allen, an associate professor of criminology at the University of Leicester, on The Conversation. “By bringing in a counter-terrorism chief, Gove was making it clear that this was not just seen as an educational issue – it was an investigation into potential extremism.”

The choice of Clarke was branded “desperately unfortunate” by West Midlands Police Chief Constable Chris Sims, according to the BBC. “Peter Clarke has many qualities but people will inevitably draw unwarranted conclusions from his former role as National Co-ordinator for Counter-Terrorism,” Sims warned.

Ofsted carried out 21 emergency investigations into primary and secondary schools in Birmingham. Five schools were placed in special measures, including Park View, a secondary school that was rated as “outstanding” two years earlier under Gove’s toughened inspection framework. The school’s management teams were subsequently replaced.

Clarke’s investigation found “no evidence of ‘terrorism, radicalisation or violent extremism’ in the schools”, The Times said. But his report said there was “‘clear evidence’ of people in positions of influence who espouse, sympathise with or fail to challenge extremist views”.

It warned that there had been “co-ordinated, deliberate and sustained action to introduce an intolerant and aggressive Islamist ethos into some schools in the city”, the Daily Mail reported.

All a hoax?

By the time Clarke’s investigation had been completed and the report published, questions about the authenticity of the letter had been raised.

The Times said that the letter “contains errors that suggest it is a fake”. One such example, the paper said, was that the document “appears to show that the conspirators were working to remove a primary school headmistress who was actually dismissed 20 years ago”.

The Independent also warned that the letter was “widely regarded as a fake”. But Clarke said that his investigation was not tasked with exploring whether the letter was “genuine”, but whether “the events and behaviours described have actually happened”, the BBC reported.

“It quickly became apparent to me that although there are some factual inaccuracies in the letter, there is also a great deal that is true, some of which had not previously been in the public domain,” said Clarke’s report.

Professional misconduct charges were brought against 15 teachers and senior staff members who were accused of “attempting to apply undue religious influence within a small group of schools in Birmingham”, said The Guardian.

But in every case bar one the charges were later “dismissed, overturned or dropped”.

What was the impact?

Critics have said that the Trojan Horse scandal “had a disastrous impact on community relations in the UK” and “helped stoke Islamophobic sentiment to new heights”, according to Middle East Eye.

A study by researchers at Birmingham City University in 2014 found that 90% of Birmingham’s Muslims felt that “community cohesion” was “damaged by the way the affair was handled”, reported Channel 4 News.

The fallout from the scandal also contributed to the demotion of Michael Gove from education secretary to chief whip in July 2014, said the broadcaster.

At the time, the chair of Park View Educational Trust, Tahir Alam, said that Gove’s demotion provided “some reassurance that the Prime Minister has finally acknowledged the profound damage that has been caused by his divisive approach”, said Sky News.

1. Britain’s record on drugs is stuck on a loop. ‘Crackdowns’ simply don’t work

Simon Jenkins for The Guardian

on Johnson’s war

“The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 must be the worst law ever passed by a modern parliament,” writes Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. “Fifty years on, the act is variously credited with a soaring prison population, the devastation of working-class communities and creating hundreds of thousands of hardened addicts,” says Jenkins. The most obvious conclusion to reach from such a view “is that ever fiercer punishment is no deterrent and no solution. Yet no politician, certainly no prime minister, dares open their mouth on the subject without pledging tougher penalties,” he writes. A prime minister “aching for a headline” has proposed yet another war on drugs “in which a modest increase in ‘treatment and rehabilitation’ for those who ‘repent’ is accompanied by a blood-curdling crackdown,” argues Jenkins. “Drugs produce an irrational reaction in Britain’s political community,” he concludes. “After 50 years of costly failure, a reasonable politician might advocate at least an open mind. In most democracies that is happening. Not in Britain.”

Read more

2. Punishing the unvaccinated would be both immoral and unjustified

Sherelle Jacobs for The Telegraph

on compulsory jabs

“Sometimes, the most ostensibly compelling arguments are also the most flawed,” writes Sherelle Jacobs in The Telegraph. “Such is the case with the growing calls in the UK for punitive measures against the unvaccinated, as part of one last heave to escape the pandemic,” she continues. “That doesn’t mean, however, that it would be either morally right or clinically efficacious to follow the path that large parts of Europe are heading down,” argues Jacobs. “Above all, there is the question of what introducing draconian restrictions against the unjabbed would say about us,” she writes. “Is our attitude to human rights morally consistent? After all, freedom from torture cannot be overriden even in, say a terrorist emergency, reflecting our commitment to human dignity,” she continues. “Yet rights like freedom from medical coercion should have become contingent on the circumstances, in spite of our supposed belief in human autonomy.”

Read more

3. Facebook has failed to tackle the ethnic hatred in Myanmar

Jawad Iqbal for The Times

on combating hatred

“It is easy enough to identify the forces of evil in Myanmar. Step forward the generals who have strangled a fledgling democracy and deposed Aung San Suu Kyi, once lauded as a human rights icon,” writes Jawad Iqbal for The Times. “Even so, Myanmar’s hall of shame stretches beyond the military junta and includes other guilty parties – none more so than Facebook, which has allowed its platforms to be used to fuel the descent into hatred and violence,” he writes. “Facebook’s failure to combat the disinformation and lies on its platforms, much of it in violation of its community guidelines, is a case study in corporate evasiveness and wilful blindness,” Iqbal continues. “Facebook’s failings in Myanmar demonstrate once again that the tech giants are too cavalier to be allowed to regulate themselves. These companies pose a real danger to fundamental rights – not just in Myanmar, but everywhere.”

Read more

4. What a lost decade of education spending means for the economy

Sarah O’Connor for the Financial Times

on failures to invest

“Boris Johnson is fond of blaming businesses for the economy’s problems,” writes Sarah O’Connor in the Financial Times. “He says they have failed to invest in their staff and insists Brexit will jolt the country out of its ‘broken model with low growth, low skills, and low productivity, all of it enabled and assisted by uncontrolled immigration’.” O’Connor wants to know about the “homegrown workers who will be expected to power this transformation into a ‘high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy?” That is an area in which “his own government has also failed to invest”, she argues, pointing to an Institute for Fiscal Studies report released last week that said the most deprived fifth of secondary schools experienced a 14% real-terms fall in spending per pupil compared with a 9% drop for the least deprived schools. “As with other policy areas,” writes O’Connor, “the government has big ambitions but is only halfheartedly matching them with its wallet. A lost decade and a half for education spending is not the ideal launch point for a bold new economic strategy based on lower immigration, higher skills and ‘levelling up’ inequalities.”

Read more

5. What voters actually want levelling up to achieve is pretty simple

Ed Dorrell for The Independent

on nicer, cleaner places

“Just what is ‘levelling up’?” asks Ed Dorrell, director at Public First, a policy consultancy based in London. “Surely answering the ‘what’ question before the ‘how’ would be sensible for Gove et al,” Dorrell argues. “And the answer, according to a landmark poll carried out last month by Public First, isn’t, in fact, that complicated: the people of the ‘red wall’ want to live in nicer, cleaner, more peaceful places,” he writes. Red wall voters are “desperate to be proud of the places in which they live and for them to be less shabby and less run down”, Dorrell writes. “Surely a clean, bustling high street free of graffiti – with the threat of petit crime minimised – and a refurbished civic building or two is not too much to ask.”

Read more

Millions of school pupils are due to head back to classrooms in England and Wales as early as next week after two years of disruption due to the Covid pandemic.

While the government’s “back to school” campaign, which launched on Thursday, promises a “more normal year”, it has been branded as “naive” by teaching unions, who warn that “further disruption is inevitable”.

Delays and scepticism

It is not even September yet and The Times has reported that the reopening of secondary schools in England could be delayed “by at least a week” as millions of pupils are tested for Covid on-site before classes can officially begin.

The Department for Education has said schools will be allowed to stagger starting dates so that pupils can be tested twice for the virus, meaning lessons in many secondary schools are “not expected to start until the second week of the new term”, said the paper.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told schools in July they could remove measures taken to prevent the spread of Covid – such as face masks – thanks to the UK’s vaccination efforts. However, a Times survey of 1,200 senior teaching staff has found that many schools plan to keep some measures in place, including plans by one in five schools to stagger the start and end of the school day throughout the coming term.

Ministers have said that they “no longer recommend that it is necessary to keep children in consistent groups (‘bubbles’)”. The guidance also says that pupils aged 18 or under who are named as a close contact of someone who has tested positive for Covid-19 will no longer need to self-isolate for ten days.

In the last academic year, the government's policy of automatic isolation after contact with Covid-19 meant hundreds of thousands of pupils missed school due to Covid-19 – in June, a quarter of a million children missed school in a single week because of coronavirus infections, self-isolation or school closures.

The government’s latest “back to school” campaign has also faced scepticism from school union leaders, reported The Guardian. The campaign encourages school pupils to continue twice-weekly testing at home and features 18-year-old Olympic gold medallist Matt Richards telling school students that regular testing will allow them to “get back to the things you love, like competitive sports and school matches”.

But Nick Brook, the deputy general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, told the paper: “It would be naive to assume that things will be completely back to normal in September. Scientists are already predicting that Covid cases are likely to increase further when schools reopen and sadly we know that further disruption is inevitable.”

A taste of things to come

Scotland, where pupils have already returned to school, may “offer a foretaste of potential developments in England and other parts of the UK”, says the Financial Times. Cases of Covid-19 have more than doubled over the past week since schools went back, with a reported 4,323 cases on Tuesday – the highest daily number recorded during the pandemic so far, said the paper.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said in a Covid briefing that she could not “completely rule out having to reimpose some restrictions” if cases continued to rise.

Indeed, Linda Bauld, professor of public health at Edinburgh University and a recently appointed government adviser, has warned that schools are “at risk of being forced to close again” if numbers continue to rise, said The Times, with teaching unions expressing concern about the spread of the virus among school staff and pupils.

“I’m concerned there will be pressure again to close schools and everybody wants to completely avoid that,” said Bauld. “But if we do have really, really large numbers in schools, then I think that’s really tricky for the government.”

In Scotland, some restrictions remain in place, with children over 12 in schools asked to wear face coverings and remain at least one metre away from staff.

And in England, there are fears that coronavirus cases are still “too high” ahead of the return to school, said the i newspaper.

More than 35,000 people a day are testing positive for the virus, according to government data, with one health official warning that the UK had “lost its lead” on vaccinations by not approving jabs for younger teenagers quickly enough.

Professor Dominic Harrison, director of public health at Blackburn with Darwen Council in Lancashire, told the i that he expected to see “a significant spike in cases as school-aged children will be required to regularly test again”.

While the Joint Council on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advised earlier this month that all 16- and 17-year-olds should be given a first vaccine dose, the Department of Health confirmed today that no decision had been made for 12- to 15-year-olds. The BBC said “NHS organisations in England have been told to prepare for a possible extension of the Covid vaccination programme” for the younger age group, but the JCVI is yet to decide.

Professor Harrison has warned: “The UK has lost its lead in population vaccination coverage due to ‘cautious’ decision-making by JCVI on vaccination for all school-aged children 12-plus.

“The reality for that age group between now and next March is likely to be vaccination or Covid-19 – few are likely to escape exposure to the virus over the winter.”

Boris Johnson may expel Gavin Williamson from his cabinet in the next reshuffle following a second year of anger and confusion over A-level results, insiders claim.

According to The Times, sources say the prime minister is planning to replace the beleaguered education secretary with “rising star in the Tory party” Kemi Badenoch, ​​a treasury and equalities minister who is popular among Conservatives for her attacks on “woke campaigners”.

By contrast, many Tory politicians and aides are reportedly “dissatisfied with Williamson’s performance after a number of missteps” during the Covid-19 pandemic. And following the newly erupted row over the distribution of A-level grades, an unnamed MP told the newspaper that Williamson “is wetting himself about getting the sack”.

Grade gap fury

Williamson is in the firing line once again after students yesterday received A-level results based on teacher assessments after exams were cancelled for a second consecutive year owing to Covid.

A “furious row erupted” over “the gap between private and state pupils” grades, says the Daily Mail, with the discrepancy in results reaching “its widest in the recent era”.

Amid widespread allegations of grade inflation, “an astonishing 70% of A-levels entries by fee-paying pupils were graded at A or A*, compared with 42% of entries at state academies, 39% at comprehensives and 35% at sixth-form colleges”, the paper reports.

The i news site says the government is already mulling an overhaul of exams, with ministers voicing fears that “it will be impossible for universities to distinguish between candidates”.

The plan is to “tackle grade inflation over a period of years rather than solve it rapidly���, in order to avoid a “sudden shock to the system”, the site continues. Suggestions include “looking at reducing the proportion of students allowed the top grades gradually from year to year until the pre-pandemic 2019 baseline is restored”, or “switching to a numerical grading system” in an effort to bring down the number of students achieving top marks.

In detention

Williamson has long been regarded as a close ally of Johnson, having run his leadership campaign in 2019. Johnson brought him back into the cabinet after Williamson was sacked from his role as defence minister by then-PM Theresa May over the leaking of information about Chinese firm Huawei’s potential involvement in the British 5G network.

But with the axe now hovering over Williamson again, an MP told The Times that the embattled minister has been “pitching himself as a potential leader of the Commons” - a junior cabinet position currently held by Jacob Rees-Mogg - in “an attempt to stay in the prime minister’s top team”.

According to the paper, Williamson may face a stumbling block in the form of Douglas Smith, “a Conservative fixer for three decades who has been brought into Johnson’s No. 10 team”. Smith - who is married to Downing Street policy director Munira Mirza - is reportedly “pushing for Badenoch” to get the education role in the next cabinet reshuffle.

Badenoch is known for her work on what No. 10 insiders have termed “woke” issues. But she also made headlines earlier this year following her “unfortunate public meltdown at a reporter”, says Politico London Playbook’s Alex Wickham, who argues that her suggested next role “is hardly going to be popular” with “Westminster Twitter”.

In a series of tweeted posts in January, Badenoch accused then HuffPost journalist Nadine White of “creepy and bizarre” behaviour in questioning why the junior minister had not appeared in a Covid vaccines video aimed at encouraging ethnic minority groups to get the jab.

Downing Street spokesperson Allegra Stratton defended Badenoch at the time, telling the Westminster press pack that she had been “civil” to the reporter and that she had “grounds” for her comments on social media.

With Badenoch now reportedly lined up to join the cabinet in a reshuffle that Politico’s Wickham says could take place “early next year”, Williamson may only have “a little while longer” in his job as “the face of the education mess”.

But on the other hand, Wickham adds, given that “Badenoch’s main claim to fame” is her Twitter tirade, the rumours surrounding her next appointment could trigger “another culture war slanging match that suddenly makes it much harder for Johnson” to put her “in charge of the nation’s schools”.

Disadvantaged white pupils are being left behind as a result of the government’s “muddled thinking” about how to close the attainment gap, according to a damning new report by MPs.

The Department of Education (DfE) has “shown little interest” in exploring why white working-class pupils are underperforming “relative to similarly deprived peers”, says the Education Select Committee.

In a statement summarising the findings, Robert Halfon, the Tory chair of the committee, claims that these white pupils have been “let down and neglected” by a system that “condemns them to falling behind their peers every step of the way”.

But the inquiry report has been “disowned” by fellow committee member Kim Johnson. The Labour MP told The Guardian that the inquiry “cherrypicked data” in an apparent bid to “create a bit of a culture war”.

‘Far from privileged’

“If the government is serious about closing the overall attainment gap then the problems faced by the biggest group of disadvantaged pupils can no longer be swept under the carpet,” argues Halfon.

“Never again should we lazily put the gap down to poverty alone, given that we know free school meal-eligible pupils from other ethnic groups consistently outperform their white British peers.”

His committee’s report claims that terms such as “white privilege” are “alienating to disadvantaged white communities” and may have contributed towards a “systemic neglect” of pupils in need of additional support.

“Our inquiry has shown that poor white pupils are far from ‘privileged’ in education,” the report states.

The inquiry found that in 2018-19, just 53% of white British pupils on free school meals met the expected standard of development at the end of the early years foundation stage - which as The Telegraph notes, is “one of the lowest percentages for any disadvantaged ethnic group”.

And less than 18% of white British pupils on free meals achieved grade four in English and Maths, compared with 22.5% of their peers in the same income bracket.

Halfron has accused the DfE of being “reluctant” to recognise the specific challenges faced by the white working-class, “let alone do anything to tackle this chronic social injustice”.

The inquiry found that only 16% of these disadvantaged pupils went on to study at university after finishing school, “the lowest of any ethnic group other than traveller of Irish heritage and Gypsy/Roma”, the report says.

The MPs argue that disadvantaged white pupils are being held back by a variety of “economic and cultural factors”, including living in families with “multi-generational poverty”; having disengaged parents with a poor experience of education; a lack of community social organisations; and poor local services and transport.

Suggested measures to help lessen the learning gap include finding “a better way to talk about racial disparity”; using pupil premium funding to provide children with additional support; and the creation of “family hubs” to get parents more involved in the education process.

‘Well-known challenge’

“The content of this latest report will come as no surprise to some,” writes Nazia Parveen, The Guardian’s community affairs correspondent. Parveen notes that the MPs refer repeatedly to the findings of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, which published a government-commissioned report in March that critics described “as stark, contentious and a means of igniting a culture war”.

The “provocative” tone of both reports in relation to terms such as “white privilege” chimes with previous claims by Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch that schools which present the theory as an uncontested fact could be breaking the law, Parveen adds.

During a Commons debate last October on Black History Month, Badenoch said that the government did not want white children being taught about “white privilege and their inherited racial guilt”.

The report from Halfron’s committee states that schools “should consider whether the promotion of politically controversial terminology, including white privilege, is consistent with their duties under the Equality Act 2010”, and that the DfE should “take steps to ensure that young people are not inadvertently being inducted into political movements”.

The recommendation has met with a mixed response from other commentators.

GB News reporter Inaya Folarin Iman is also “critical” of the idea of white privilege, but rejects the idea that those promoting the concept are “contributing to the neglect of working-class boys”. Pointing the blame at “successive governments systematically choosing policies” that have failed to address the problem, she says: “There is a danger in thinking the reasons why people have been neglected, entrenched social and economic disadvantage, is to do with the culture wars, rather than that they have genuinely been ignored.”

Labour MP Diane Abbott tweeted that the report was “shameful” for suggesting that “white working class children underachieve because of their colour rather than a general lack of investment in education”.

Meanwhile, DfE policy advisor Sam Freedman argues that Halfon is unfair to blame his department for what is “well-known challenge in predominantly white low-income communities”.

“The idea the education sector ignores it out of some misplaced ‘wokeness’ is absolute nonsense,” tweets Freedman. It is “perfectly possible” to focus on white working-class underachievement “while also working against the impact of structural racism which causes a whole load of other educational and social problems”, he concludes.

The government is facing a backlash from some of the country’s most prominent artists and writers after revealing plans to slash funding for higher education arts courses by 50%.

The budget cuts follow a six-week consultation by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson and the Office for Students, the independent regulator for higher education in England, that found arts education subjects were not “strategic priorities”.

The deadline for consultation on the budget cuts, which may come into effect during the 2021-22 academic year, is today. Other proposals include increased funding for courses “identified as supporting the NHS”, including science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

The reduction in funding, which would affect performing and creative arts, media studies and archaeology courses, has been described by the Public Campaign for the Arts as “catastrophic” and “an attack on the future of UK arts”.

A petition opposing the cuts, launched on 5 May by the arts lobbying group, describes the reduction in funding as “a targeted attack on arts subjects” and has received more than 56,000 signatures.

“Artists and curators” are also “urging the government to reconsider”, The Art Newspaper adds, with the artist Bob and Roberta Smith telling the paper that the “truly appalling cuts to arts subjects will further divide society”. Artist Sarah Kogan wrote on Instagram that “a 50% cut to arts education is unthinkable. We believe the arts should absolutely be a strategic priority for the government.”

And Booker prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other author Bernardine Evaristo wrote on Twitter that “this tin-pot chumocratic government has its priorities all wrong”, adding: “An absurd £37bn on the failed Test & Trace, unlawfully awarded, now this awful assault on the arts in universities.”

A Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson told The Guardian that the proposal would “only affect the additional funding allocated towards some creative subjects” and would direct funding towards subjects that “support the skills this country needs to build back better”.

The government faced similar criticism in October last year when its Cyber First campaign, which encouraged people working in the arts to pursue a career in cybersecurity, resurfaced on social media. The advert showed a young ballerina with the caption “Fatima’s next job could be in tech”.

Secretary of State for Culture Oliver Dowden distanced himself from what he described as a “crass” advert. “I want to save jobs in the arts which is why we are investing £1.57bn,” he tweeted at the time.

A government minister has waded into a row between a Yorkshire school and angry parents after pupils were shown a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

Pupils from Batley Grammar School in West Yorkshire were shown images of the Prophet Mohammed reportedly taken from the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo during a religious studies lesson.

Protests led by unhappy parents took place outside the school yesterday, with some parents shouting “get the head teacher”, The Times reports. No arrests were made or fines issued during the protests, which were attended by West Yorkshire Police.

The teacher behind the lesson, who is believed to be in his late twenties, has been suspended from the school pending further investigation and is “believed to be in hiding” after he was identified online, the Evening Standard reports.

Displaying the image angered some parents as a common interpretation of the Koran’s teachings states that the prophet should not be depicted by human hands.

The Department for Education (DfE) intervened in the row last night, issuing a statement condemning the “intimidation” of teachers.

“It is never acceptable to threaten or intimidate teachers,” the statement said. “We encourage dialogue between parents and schools when issues emerge. However, the nature of protest we have seen, including issuing threats and in violation of coronavirus restrictions, is completely unacceptable and must be brought to an end.”

Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick also said that he was “disturbed to see scenes of people protesting outside the school”, telling Sky News that the teacher being forced into hiding is “very disturbing” and “not a road we want to go down in this country”.

Critics condemned the DfE’s statement as “alarming” and called for a “calmer” response, The Guardian reports. Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, told the paper that the DfE had “chosen to amplify… divisions by attacking the parents and pupils”, adding “we can come together to have a respectful discussion and seek an end to this issue.

“There is still time for calmer heads amongst the department and we urge them to seek language that brings us together and address the issue without deflecting”, he added.

Yunus Lunat, from the Indian Muslim Welfare Society in Batley, told Sky News that showing pupils the image “wasn’t part of the approved curriculum”, adding that he was “absolutely shocked that we’ve arrived where we are today”.

Head teacher, Gary Kibble, said the non-selective co-educational school apologised “unequivocally” for the “totally inappropriate resource” used in the religious studies lesson.

“The member of staff has also given their most sincere apologies,” he added. “We have immediately withdrawn teaching on this part of the course and we are reviewing how we go forward with the support of all the communities represented in our school.”

However, Baroness Warsi, the former Conservative Party chair and the first Muslim woman to serve in the Cabinet, claimed that “extremists on both sides” have “hijacked” the protests.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Warsi said that the dispute is “about child safeguarding and making sure the school looks again, as should every school, to ensure that every pupil in their school is being taught in a way which creates a positive, unifying learning environment.

“Unfortunately, this matter has been hijacked by extremists on both sides to kind of create this culture war,” she added. “What we’re forgetting in all of this is the most important party in all of this, which is the kids and their learning.”

The Times adds that in 2015 the offices of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris were attacked by Islamists who killed 12 people.

And in October 2020, the paper continues, a French schoolteacher, Samuel Paty, was beheaded by an Islamist after he was accused of showing students a cartoon of Mohammed.

The Week’s daily round-up highlights the five best opinion pieces from across the British and international media, with excerpts from each.

1. Daniel Finkelstein in The Times

on the nearly men and women of British politics

My vote for the best PM we never had

“Over the weekend my colleague Matt Chorley incautiously organised a Twitter poll in advance of discussing on Times Radio who should actually be considered, in the modern era, the best prime minister we never had (BPMWNH). [Rab] Butler or any number of rivals? Thousands of supporters of Jeremy Corbyn piled in, voting their man the winner. Rather sweetly, they were so jubilant about their triumph — the victorious Mr Corbyn (I promise I’m not making this up) broadcast an acceptance speech — that Matt was forced to remind his followers that it had only been a bit of fun. But of course it’s only fun because there is a serious edge. It’s about considering the characteristics of a successful prime minister and reviewing the reputations of historical figures. Let’s consider the basics. In order to be a successful prime minister, you’ve got to be able to win elections... So we shouldn’t consider any party leader who had the chance to be prime minister but was rejected by the voters. Either they weren’t right for the job and couldn’t take people with them, or they weren’t running at the right time.”

2. Robin Bevan in The Guardian

on political leadership ignoring overworked staff

Education in Britain is in turmoil, yet the government is still ignoring headteachers

“In a crisis or otherwise, the ideal route for any major education policy change should be: consult, prepare advice, brief leaders, and make a clear public announcement. Instead, during the pandemic we have seen the government ignore the advice of experts, then make a hurried announcement, then dither; and it all culminating with school and college leaders being left to mop up the ensuing problems. The impact has been even more pronounced given the scale of government U-turns in recent months. Meanwhile, most school and college leaders do not have any contractual entitlement to holiday leave – it is down to the discretion of the governing bodies of specific schools. They are used to taking time off as and when the pressures of the job allow. They understand that their summer holiday barely extends into August. The preparation and distribution of results at this time is a key responsibility alongside all the staffing, premises management, and financial and timetable planning over the summer. And yet, this year more than any other, there has been total disregard of the need for school and college leaders to be afforded adequate restorative time off.”

3. Ben Habib in The Daily Telegraph

on a lack of vision in Downing Street

This is not the people’s government, but one obsessed with being all things to all people

“There is a propensity for government to shirk responsibility and find others at whom to point the finger of blame. For years the EU offered itself up as a punch bag but still the Conservative-led government had to be dragged into Brexit, kicking and screaming – the job has still to be properly completed. More recently, it has been the turn of quangos and the civil service who have been in the crosshairs of political blame; and notwithstanding the government’s significant majority it has thus far failed to effect any meaningful reforms. Its failure is not born out of the difficulties associated with getting these things done. Its failure is born out of its own structural problems. In its pursuit of power, the Conservative Party has sought to please the broadest possible cross section of the electorate... Consequently it has lost any form of purpose, vision or ideology.”

4. Shappi Khorsandi in The Independent

on the culture war within Broadcasting House

Relax, the BBC has a long history of right-wing comedy. I should know, I’ve been on the receiving end of it

“Tim Davie, the box-fresh director of the BBC, wants an overhaul of comedy shows which are deemed to have too much left-wing bias. Good news because, dammit, pro-government comedy has been stifled for too long. Where are all the jokes about how annoying it is tripping up over homeless people when you’re on your way to Soho House? And my goodness I cannot wait for a comedy show which really tells it like it is about refugees paddling over and living in Windsor Castle with the Queen, forcing her and Philip to camp under the gazebo. What’s that? Such comedians don’t exist? What tosh! We had that nice Jim Davidson with his hilarious Paki jokes, do you remember? Only he got ‘cancelled’ because we all went too far to the left, political correctness went mad and we weren’t allowed to point at LGBTQ+ people and laugh anymore. Bernard Manning should be given his own prime-time show. The left bang on about ‘prejudice’, yet for years they banned Manning from having his own show merely because he is dead.”

5. Susan E. Rice, former national security adviser, in The New York Times

on the need for laws to control the executive

Trump Isn’t Here to Serve the People

“Across the executive branch, Mr. Trump and his appointees have flouted long-honored norms and violated laws with relative impunity. They have succeeded largely because Senate Republicans have sacrificed oversight and accountability on the altar of subservience to this president so long as it preserves their majority control. Under Donald Trump, the abuses have touched almost every corner of government, suggesting the president views democracy itself as his opponent. Throughout the Republican National Convention, the president and senior officials blatantly violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits government officials from engaging in political activities on the job. From holding the event on White House grounds with cheering uniformed federal law enforcement officers in attendance, and staging a naturalization ceremony as a campaign event with participants used as unwitting political props, to his secretary of state violating departmental rules by delivering a campaign speech from Jerusalem, Mr. Trump has defiled the presidency for political gain.”

A monk accused of running a "sex club" for young boys was allowed to remain at the country's top Roman Catholic school after numerous allegations were made against him from students, reports The Times.

Father Jeremy Sierla lived and worked at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire until as late as 2012, despite a criminal inquiry being launched in 2004 into claims he had summoned pupils to his study at night, "where they were given alcohol and told to perform sex acts".

According to the Times, police spoke to more than a dozen of former students at the school, some of whom "recalled that Father Jeremy often whipped boys' bottoms with a loose part of his monk's habit, pinched their bottoms in the swimming pool, encouraged pupils to tie him up with dressing-gown cords and shoelaces, put his hands under their duvets and sometimes showered naked with them".

The report also says police discovered he had posed as a girl in internet chatrooms, using the alter egos Easygirl19 and Cyberbitch in order to speak to young boys.

No charges were officially brought, but police advised the Department for Education in 2005 that Sierla should not be allowed "anywhere near a school".

However, he remained at Ampleforth until 2012, working in the abbey shop, before the Department for Education advised he should no longer be allowed on school grounds.

An Ampleforth College spokesman told the paper that Sierla's continued presence at the school "was approved at a meeting of safeguarding professionals in 2004" and that the case was reviewed again by an independent safeguarding commission in 2007.

However, the Times alleges that following the inquiry, Ampleforth officials told care inspectors it was "preferable for [Sierla] to be under the supervision of the abbey, rather than unsupervised elsewhere in the diocese".

Sierla, who now lives in a closed religious order, has always denied any wrongdoing, adds the report.

Ampleforth has a history dotted with similar accusations.

Since 1996, three monks and a lay teacher at the school have been convicted of historical sex crimes against more than 30 boys.

Last week, Dara de Cogan, a music teacher who began working for the school in 2004, was jailed for 28 months for sexually abusing a female pupil during lessons.

Blue chip construction firm Carillion has notched up another major government contract win after sealing a deal to build eight new hospitals for the Department for Education.

The Times reports the agreements, "the largest contract in the Department for Education’s £700m priority school building programme", will see the FTSE-250 firm start work on the secondary schools in the Midlands and maintain them in an outsourcing arrangement that will last 25 years.

A consortium of investors including the European Investment Bank and Aviva, the insurer, will fund £138m in construction costs, while the maintenance deal is worth an additional £49m. Carillion, along with infrastructure investor Equifax, will put £11m in equity into the project with a further £2m coming from the Treasury’s Infrastructure UK arm, which will hold a 15 per cent stake.

The deal comes hot on the heels of Carillion being named as one of three firms that will provide services to various government departments and non-departmental public bodies in a "facilities management services agreement", which will run until 2019. City AM says the outsourcing contract that could be worth up to £4.1bn.

The company was also recently selected as preferred bidder for a £430m contract to build a new hospital for the West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust, the Birmingham Post reports. Again, the contract will involve a long-running maintenance agreement that the company expects to yield £130m in revenue over 30 years.

Carillion shares were up slightly in trading on Tuesday to 354p. As a result of its strong pipeline of deals it is currently labelled as a buy by the Investors Chronicle as well as seven equity ratings analysts.