An ambition by the government for schools to provide wraparound childcare before and after lessons, as well as after-school clubs and holiday activities, are falling short due to inadequate funding, research has found. The Child Poverty Action Group and the Family and Childcare Trust said extending school services are popular with schools and families and can improve outcomes for children. However, they told The Guardian that current provision is failing to meet parents, demands for after-school and holiday childcare.?
Prime Minister Theresa May's childhood obesity strategy is a "stinking herring" that has "completely let down every child in Britain", television chef Jamie Oliver has said. The Mirror reports that Oliver hit out at the Prime Minister after the strategy failed to ban sweets at supermarket checkouts and curb junk food adverts. ?
Brexit minister David Davis is being urged to protect a £112m European Union (EU) student exchange scheme, due to fears the UK will be locked out of the programme after the UK leaves the EU. The Guardian reports that leaders of the Erasmus programme fear it will not be front of mind in Brexit negotiations and the 30-year scheme will disappear.
School leaders and teachers overwhelmingly oppose plans for a new wave of grammar schools, a survey by the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of School and College Leaders, and Teach First has found. The Independent reports the study, which was based on responses of more than 2,500 teachers and school leaders, found 80 per cent are against the proposals and do not believe testing children at age 11 can measure academic potential.?
All schools should be required to offer the Think U Know campaign to increase awareness of child sexual exploitation, according to Jamie Saunders, director of the National Cyber Crime Unit at the National Crime Agency (NCA). The programme, devised by the NCA and delivered by the Department for Education, is currently taken up by 88 per cent of schools, but Saunders told a committee of MPs that it may be necessary to make the awareness campaign compulsory.
A toddler died in a pool of her own vomit while her mother watched television just weeks after a judge refused to put the child into care, an inquest has heard. The Daily Mail reports that Ampthill Coroners Court heard 19-month-old Autumn Gooch from Maulden, Bedfordshire, "looked like she'd gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson" when she was found face down by her mother, Nikki at her home in 2015.
Community groups are being invited to bid for a share of £1m to save services previously run by children's centres being closed across Oxfordshire. The BBC reports 44 centres will be replaced with a network of 18 when the council withdraws funding from some non-statutory services and documents say the fund will provide grants for "sustainable" schemes for open access services.?
