2 DAYS AGO - Increased demand for children’s services leading to meltdown, warn local authority leadersA £5bn debt crisis caused by out-of-control overspending on special educational needs could explode in less than two years, bankrupting scores of England’s local authorities, the UK government has been warned.The crisis stems from the failure to properly fund a huge increase in demand for Special Education Needs and Disability (Send) services over the past decade, triggering an “existential” crisis for councils which have “no obvious means of paying off the debt”. Continue reading... Collapse

2 DAYS AGO - Exclusive: Safeguarding minister outlines measures to protect women and girls, including plans for ‘Raneem’s law’Plans to tackle misogyny in schools could take up to 20 years to have an impact on society, the safeguarding minister, Jess Phillips, has said as she outlined measures to protect women and girls.Phillips spoke the day after the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) estimated that 2 million women were victims of violence perpetrated by men each year in an epidemic so serious it amounts to a “national emergency”. Continue reading... Collapse

3 DAYS AGO - A reader who was a university programme director responds to the news that personal statements are to be scrappedRe your article (Farewell, Ucas personal statements: I won’t miss your hackneyed, cliche-ridden prose, 20 July), while I was the director of an interdisciplinary (combined honours) programme at a Russell Group university, the most common question I received at pre-application open days was: “How should I write my personal statement if I am applying for both single- and joint-honours programmes, and your programme?” It was clear that personal statements were the cause of great stress for applicants – and people advising potential applicants.But this was a question I was never able to answer, for the simple reason that no one in charge of running the programme ever saw any of these personal statements. Admissions had been centralised in my institution some years before, taking individual programme directors out of the loop. The only people who ever looked at those statements Collapse

4 DAYS AGO - Doctoral student at Renmin University of China school of liberal arts in Beijing posted recordings on WeiboA top Chinese university has fired a professor, a day after a graduate student accused him of sexual harassment on social media in a rare public allegation and posted recordings as evidence, drawing widespread support.The woman, who identified herself as Wang Di, said she is studying in a doctoral programme at Renmin University of China’s school of liberal arts. She posted a 59-minute video on Sunday on the Weibo social media platform in which she said her supervisor, an ex-vice dean and former Communist party representative at the university in Beijing, physically and verbally abused her. Continue reading... Collapse

4 DAYS AGO - Rosemary Fowler discovered the kaon particle during her doctoral research in 1948 but gave up PhD to have a familyA trailblazing physicist who gave up her PhD 75 years ago to have a family has received an honorary doctorate from her former university.Rosemary Fowler, 98, discovered the kaon particle during her doctoral research under Cecil Powell at the University of Bristol in 1948, which contributed to his Nobel prize for physics in 1950. Continue reading... Collapse

5 DAYS AGO - Experts say 5.5% pay increase for public sector not ‘consistent’ with spending plans that rule out tax risesLabour is fast approaching a moment of truth over its election pledges on tax and spending, experts have warned, after Rachel Reeves indicated the government could agree above-inflation pay rises for public sector staff.The chancellor promised a full statement on pay board recommendations that teachers and NHS workers should receive 5.5% pay awards, ahead of an autumn budget that is set to be one of the most difficult economic balancing acts in years. Continue reading... Collapse

5 DAYS AGO - Balls, bikes, possibly boredom. As the summer holidays begin, and nostalgia for the good old days kicks in, it’s worth wondering if it really was better back thenAs the school holidays begin, parents tend to behave in one of two ways. The first is to pray, not to God or the universe, but to time itself, begging it for some leniency, a bit of give. Please time, this year please stretch and fold around our external pressures and internal needs. You will recognise these parents by their blank white eyes and empty pockets, and skin that ripples then turns grey across the long month of August.The second type of parent (I say parent, I’m being coy, of course, we’re talking about mothers here) runs at the summer as if she’s in a sanitary-pad commercial or attacking a bear. She has plans, schedules, craft materials, hope. The holidays for her are an opportunity for self-discovery and existential relaxation, for resetting the mind and reclaiming the soul, even during fractured workdays and Collapse