Daily roundup 15 December: Benefits, spending plans, and learning disabilities

People may limit themselves to having two children if they cannot claim child benefit for three or more offspring, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith has suggested. Speaking on television, Duncan Smith said that he would like a future Conservative government to limit child benefit to the first two children because it would save money and create “behaviourial change”. Such a measure “was well worth looking at” he said but added it was yet to be agreed for the Conservative manifesto, reports the Guardian. 


The Liberal Democrats have accused their coalition partners of putting the education system at serious risk with their plan to cut the budget by more than a quarter — or £13.3 billion a year — by 2020. David Laws, the education minister, warned that school funding, the pupil premium and free childcare for low income families were all at risk from the Conservatives’ plans to reduce the deficit, reports the Times.


A new poll has found that 81 per cent of parents with a child with learning disabilities or special educational needs (SEN) are not confident that their child’s school is helping them to reach their full potential. The study by Mencap also found that 65 per cent of parents believe that children with SEN receive a poorer education than fully able children.


Ofsted has temporarily closed a nursery in Oxford following claims that a child there was force-fed. The Daily Mail reports that Park Town Nursery has had its Ofsted registration suspended while police investigate allegations of assault, which are thought to relate to a boy being force-fed a meal.


The Catholic Education Service has criticised Ofsted for making “unsubstantiated” extremism claims against St Benedict’s Catholic School in Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk. The Telegraph reports that the school was downgraded from “good” to “requires improvement” after failing to fulfill the government’s new British values requirements.


Boarding schools provide stability and help improve teenagers’ mental health, despite their reputation for harsh regimes, according to the headmistress of a leading independent school. Rhiannon Wilkinson, headmistress of Wycombe Abbey, said that parents frequently changed jobs, worked long hours and moved house, uprooting children, which meant that they struggled to fit into a community and did not see their parents in the evening, reports the Times.