Daily roundup 12 July: Social mobility, harmful sexual behaviour, and bullying

The Department for Education has announced funding for 11 schools to support efforts to improve social mobility in "cold spots" across the country. Plans to give the schools "research" status and £200,000 each over three years to become focal points of evidence-based practice in their region and build networks between large numbers of schools were unveiled by Education Secretary Justine Greening today.


New research has found that professionals find it difficult to balance the rights and needs of children displaying harmful sexual behaviour. A study by the National Children's Bureau found that professionals often face difficult decisions, such as whether to exclude a child from school, in order to protect other children from harm.


Children suffer significantly more face-to-face bullying than online abuse, a major study has found. The Daily Mail reports that research found that despite the growth of social media and the internet, physical bullying is still more common than its digital equivalent. Out of more than 110,000 15-year-olds across England questioned by researchers, less than one per cent of children are bullied solely on the internet.


A total of 1,319 applications for children to be taken into care were made in June, figures published by Cafcass show. The figure represents a 2.8 per cent increase in applications compared with the number received in June 2016.


School-based children's mental health charity Place2Be has appointed Simon Mackenzie Smith as its new chair of trustees. The appointment follows the retirement of outgoing chair Michael Fowle, who oversaw the growth of Place2Be to 282 schools around the country.


A consultation has launched into the way that voluntary adoption agencies are inspected. Ofsted intends for all voluntary adoption agencies to receive one inspection in a three-year period and one overall judgment irrespective of the number of premises they use. Meanwhile, the notice period for the inspection of voluntary adoption agencies will be reduced from 10 working days to two working days.