Daily roundup: Tougher teaching tests, adoption parties and monitoring academies

Prospective teachers will have to sit tougher tests before they can begin training, University College London, it has been suggested. Stuttering affects around one in twenty children under the age of five, but there are currently no checks for it despite screening for communication problems at key stages, including school entry, being suggested by in Every Child Matters ten years ago. Professor Peter Howell who developed the new screening tool, said: “If we can identify children at risk of stuttering, then we can offer appropriate interventions to help them early on. Primary school is a key time in a child’s development and any help in tackling potential communication problems could make a big difference to the child’s life.”

Adoption parties have been suggested as a potential way of addressing the current “adoption crisis”. A study by the the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has found that children’s parties or activity days, where prospective adopters meet children, are twice as effective as other methods of finding families for children. “Such parties or activity days went out of fashion in the 1980s but no one is sure why,” Katherine Runswick-Cole of Manchester Metropolitan University, who led the research, said. “However, our pilot study has shown an overwhelmingly positive response from practitioners, adopters and the children themselves.” Early findings from their pilot project, which is being run with the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) and a group of local authorities in the East Midlands, are positive, with almost 20 per cent of children from the first two parties matched with families.

Local authorities should be handed powers to monitor academies in areas where they account for more than half of secondary schools, the Local Government Association has said. The LGA fears it will “become impossible” for the performance of increasing numbers of academies to be monitored from the centre. Latest figures show that 50 per cent or more of secondary schools are, or are in the process of becoming, academies in In 86 local authority areas. David Simmonds, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, said: “The council role of holding schools to account and in turn being held to account by local people ensures that parents have a champion to support schools in helping children to fulfil their potential and achieve their ambitions.”

Councils must provide a better deal on transport for young people in order to help them access education, training and work, a report has said. The Passenger Transport Executive Group’s report found that young people have been hit particularly hard in terms of bus service fare offers being axed and evening and weekend services being cut back. It calls for local authorities to engage young people when working on their offer, recognise their needs, and keep fare structures simple. Transport minister Norman Baker said: “Young people are not only a key section of the bus market, they are also the future of the local bus industry, so ensuring the right services are in place benefits bus operators in the long-term.  That is why I am working with all those in the sector to make bus travel more attractive for young people.”

Child protection services in Cambridgeshire have been found to be inadequate following an Ofsted inspection. Inspectors, who visited unannounced, found that leadership and governance was adequate, but the effectiveness of help and protection to children, the quality of practice and overall effectiveness were inadequate. The report states that Cambridgeshire is “in the middle of a significant change programme” in delivering children’s social care. David Brown, lead member for children and young people's services, said an improvement plan was drawn up immediately after the inspection and actions have been taken to address the most immediate issues. “The findings reflect why we are in the process of making fundamental changes to how children's social care is delivered,” he said. “Practice and recording have been too inconsistent and this will be improved by the new ways of working that are being introduced.”

Children should be screened for stuttering when they enter primary school with a new tool developed by researchers at University College London, it has been suggested. Stuttering affects around one in twenty children under the age of five, but there are currently no checks for it despite screening for communication problems at key stages, including school entry, being suggested by in Every Child Matters ten years ago. Professor Peter Howell who developed the new screening tool, said: “If we can identify children at risk of stuttering, then we can offer appropriate interventions to help them early on. Primary school is a key time in a child’s development and any help in tackling potential communication problems could make a big difference to the child’s life.”