Daily roundup 19 March: Oral health, tuition fees, and school test

Nearly half of eight-year-olds and a third of five-year-olds have signs of decay in their milk teeth, according to a dental health survey in which 14,000 children were studied. The BBC reports the findings of the Children's Dental Health Survey for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which found rates of tooth decay were much higher among children in more deprived families, and that 46 per cent of 15-year-olds had decay in their teeth. However, there were signs of improvement with the percentage of 12-year-olds affected by decay in permanent teeth falling from 43 to 34 per cent between 2003 and 2013.


Shadow chancellor Ed Balls has guaranteed that Labour will be able to fund its £2.9bn plan to cut university tuition fees by a third, refuting claims that George Osborne has ‘shot Labour’s fox’ by using £600m of the planned funds for other purposes. According to the Guardian, Balls said that the Labour manifesto for the general election would include new measures to ensure that the party can deliver on its pledge, reducing fees from  £9,000 to £6,000.
 
 
Early years organisations and teaching unions, including the NUT and ATL, are calling for "potentially damaging" baseline tests for four-year-olds to be scrapped, reports the TES. In an open letter, the groups have expressed concerns about teachers administering ‘disruptive and statistically invalid’ tests instead of paying attention to the immediate needs of children adjusting to a new environment. The DfE insist that the assessments,  designed to test the progression of 4-year-olds’ communication, literacy and mathematics skills, will be introduced in schools from September 2015.

 
First minister Nicola Sturgeon has acknowledged that there needs to be improvements made to the Scottish government flagship free childcare policy, Herald Scotland reports. Under SNP legislation, families are entitled to a mandatory 600 hours of funded early learning and childcare for three and four-year-olds. However, a recent survey by Family and Childcare found fewer than one in six councils in Scotland have enough childcare capacity to meet the needs of working parents.
 

The Department for Education has provided more than £1m to help schools across England recruit governors, the government reports. The money will contribute to a new online tool helping schools search for suitable volunteers, and more bespoke support for schools that find it hard to recruit governors with the expertise they need. Improving the quality of school governance is a major part of the government’s plan to ensure that headteachers are properly held to account for performance, and school budgets are properly managed.


Glasgow City Council is proposing charging school pupils up to £3 for breakfast or closing up to half of the breakfast clubs provided at the city’s schools, reports the Herald Scotland. The clubs, where students currently pay £1 for breakfast, have been deemed non-viable due to cost or underuse. The Children and Families Committee will examine details of a review carried out of 135 such clubs, looking at ways to trim the £2m annual bill.