Daily roundup 13 October: Childcare, summer-born children, and referrals

Parents are asking family and friends to look after their children to reduce childcare costs while they apply for a mortgage, a survey by price comparison website Uswitch has found. The BBC reports that 17 per cent of parents had been turned down for a mortgage or given a smaller loan than expected because of the cost of childcare.


Plans to allow summer-born children to start school a year later have been delayed due to worries it will give an unfair advantage to parents wanting to register their children at popular schools. The Telegraph reports that schools minister Nick Gibb told MPs in a Parliamentary debate it was important parents were not given two chances to get their child into a school of their choice.


The NSPCC has seen a 43 per cent rise in contacts referred from its helpline to social services and police in 2015/16 because of physical abuse since 2012/13. The charity has also seen a 43 per cent increase in contacts referred because of emotional abuse over the same time period.


Details of individual children on the national pupil database in England and Wales were passed to the Home Office for immigration purposes 18 time in four years, the Department for Education has disclosed. The Guardian reports the findings from a freedom of information request come as the DfE reassures parents that new school census questions asking for their children's nationality and country of birth will not be passed to immigration enforcement teams.


More than 13,500 people have sought help from a child protection charity in a bid to stop viewing sexual images of children online. The Lucy Faithful Foundation said that in just one year, 1,615 people with concerns about their online behaviour had called the confidential Stop it Now! Helpline, and 12,057 visited the Stop it Now! Get Help website. ?


The government has introduced the National Citizen Service (NCS) Bill to parliament for its first reading. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said the NCS Trust will be given a Royal Charter and the bill would establish the relationship between the trust and parliament.


Northumbria Police have commissioned South Tyneside charity Bright Futures to deliver prevention and education work to young people across Northumbria. As part of the work, the charity has launched a mobile app on iTunes, Google Play and the Microsoft Store, which contains information on subjects such as substance misuse and mental health for young people and parents.??