Food In Schools

New research from Ofsted has found that parents on low incomes are struggling to pay for healthy school meals for their children. The report, entitled Food in Schools, also suggests that a third of schools were failing to provide healthy meals for their pupils which meet the mandatory nutrient standards set out by the previous government.

To read the full report, click here.

NSPCC Research Briefings

The NSPCC has recently been issuing a series of research briefings on various child protection topics. These are excellent introductions to the subjects they cover, as they summarise the main issues of each one, as well as containing plenty of suggestions for further reading. To have a look at the latest batch, just click on the links below.

• School Bullying

• Key Facts about Child Maltreatment

• The Impact of Abuse and Neglect on the Health and Mental Health of Children and Young People

• Children and Young People Disclosing Sexual Abuse: an Introduction to the Research
  

Free Schools

Anyone who's followed the news over the last few days will have heard about the coalition government's plans to set up 'free schools'. The issue has divided many parents, teachers and the public, with strong feelings on both sides of the debate.

The idea of free schools is based on similar institutions in Sweden and the USA. Essentially groups such as parents, teachers, charities or businesses are given the freedom to set up their own tax-payer funded schools, which are not under the control of a local education authority. Applications to do so must be approved by the Department of Education, and it is anticipated that the first free schools will be opened in September 2011.

Further information about free schools is available from this BBC article, while this link provides more information using a simple Q&A format. A picture of how the new institutions could work in practice is provided here, while details on the application process for setting up a school are available directly from the Department of Education.

If you're interested in the debate surrounding the rights or wrongs of free schools, then you can read a supportive article from the Daily Telegraph, and a critical piece from the Guardian.

A Century of Fatherhood

If you've ever read the crude comic called Viz, you may know that one of the regular strips is called 'Victorian Dad'; he's a very old-fashioned, strict character who is based on stereotypical ideas of how fathers behaved many decades ago.

Now a new programme entitled A Century of Fatherhood sets out to challenge some of these assumptions, and tell the true story of the changing role of the father in the UK during the last hundred years. Drawing on personal testimony, archive footage and new research, the three-part series begins on BBC4 on Monday 21 June at 9pm.

Local Authorities and Home Education

A new report from Ofsted focuses on how well local authorities are able to monitor home education. Inspectors found that while the majority of home schooled children were happy with the education that they were receiving, current regulations mean that councils face a difficult challenge to ensure that all children are receiving adequate support. To read the full report, click here.

This previous post on home education should help you to understand some of the other issues surrounding this topic.

Child Protection & Grandparents

2 pieces of information from recent days:

• The government has ordered an independent review of child protection in England, to investigate how social workers can spend more time with children and improve their links with other agencies

• The Grandparents Plus charity has put together a detailed review of evidence entitled Grandparenting in Europe. Even if you're not interested in the topic of grandparenting, the report contains an overview of family and childcare policies in 10 different countries, covering such areas as parental leave and benefits.

Using the World Cup in the Classroom

Continuing the theme of the previous post, Teachers TV has put together a collection of films relating to football and South Africa for use within the classroom. The selection of topics covered is diverse including raising boys' achievement, citizenship, racism, history and science. To view the full list, click here.

Love Football, Love Reading

Unless you've been living on another planet in recent weeks, you can't fail to know that the World Cup kicks off in South Africa next week. To tie in with the event, the National Literacy Trust have put together a toolkit for all who work with children to encourage reading and writing through the event. In particular it has been inspired by their own forthcoming research that found that one-third of boys struggle to find reading material that interests them, although the Trust is keen to emphasise that girls can get involved too.

The toolkit's title is Love Football: Love Reading 2010, and it can be downloaded from here. Users will find that it contains ideas for displays, activities, games and much more.

Levelling the Playing Field

A little slow off the mark with this one, but earlier in the year UNICEF UK published Levelling the Playing Field. This is a report which examines the services available to unaccompanied or separated migrant children who have arrived in England by using 3 different local authorities as case studies.