Daily roundup 7 December: Extremism in schools, apprenticeships, and youth work cuts

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan has ordered counter-extremism officials to assess the extent to which schools can monitor the use by pupils of computers and personal phones to access extremist material. The Sunday Times reports that Department for Education officials will question schools, including those deemed at greater risk of being targeted by Islamist recruiters, about their capacity to glean the content of their students’ own devices and “what students are doing online while they are at school”. The review has been prompted by government concerns that Parliament's decision last week to back air strikes in Syria could lead to more young people begin at risk of radicalisation.


The government has published its strategy for creating an additional three million apprenticeships by 2020. The English Apprenticeships 2020 Vision document reiterates government plans to boost the role of Jobcentre Plus in schools in raising awareness of local opportunities around apprenticeships, traineeships and work experience. It says there will be improved guidance to help Jobcentre Plus advisers deliver the support.


Newcastle City Council has proposed to reduce its spending on youth services by 22 per cent from the current £448,000 to £348,000 for the 2016/17 financial year. A proposals document released by the council also shows the budget for family services, domestic violence, looked after children and children’s social work could be cut.


The Home Office has published statutory guidance to help police and criminal justice professionals identify and protect victims of in-family controlling or coercive behaviour. The guidance, Controlling or Coercive Behaviour in an Intimate or Family Relationship, highlights the safeguarding risks to children living in families where one or more adult uses force to control the actions of others.


Muslim leaders in Newham have criticised the government’s programmes to stop people turning to extremism and terrorist violence as “divisive” and leading to a “breakdown in trust”. Imams in the London borough have claimed the measures adopted under the anti-radicalisation Prevent scheme and the Counter-Terrorism Act result in “spying on our young people” and lead to “increasing division and to a breakdown of trust in schools and colleges”, reports the Guardian.


Families have to live within 300m of a school to get a place in almost a hundred schools, according to an analysis of school admissions. The BBC reports that data gathered on access to places in England's state schools shows the average cut-off distances for oversubscribed schools are 2.3km for primary and 4.8km for secondary. In London, two-thirds of schools are oversubscribed - in some boroughs, such as Greenwich, Kensington and Chelsea and Lewisham, 80 per cent of schools lack enough places for the demand.