Daily roundup 19 January: Citizenship, academy funding, and child literacy

National Citizen Service (NCS) has launched a new campaign film tracking the stories of graduates of the programme in a bid to demonstrate the potentially life-changing impact of the programme. The Our Future film also encourages other graduates to share their experience of the social action programme.


New Department for Education figures show that academies are stockpiling cash reserves worth almost £2.5bn – more than £550,000 per school. The Guardian reports that the figures, released in response to parliamentary questions, show that the reserves are worth more than the combined £2.18bn held by local authority maintained schools.


Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg has included plans to end child illiteracy by 2025 in the Liberal Democrat manifesto. The party have also backed a national campaign by Save the Children, which aims to get all children reading and writing to a good standard by the age of 11, the Independent reports. The 2025 target has been set by the charity after finding one in five children who leave primary school are unable to read and write properly.


Nearly half of young teachers feel they have been subject to discrimination because of their age, a survey has found. The poll, taken at a conference organised by the NASUWT union also found two-thirds of young teachers had experienced bullying or harassment. According to the Times, around 200 teachers under aged 30 took part in the poll and Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT described the results as “deeply worrying”.


Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found families with children are the most likely group in the UK to have less money than they need to live on. The BBC reports in the five years leading up to 2013, the number of families living on inadequate income rose by a third, with researchers blaming benefit cuts and little economic growth. However the government has argued the data does not present the true measure of poverty.


A social network linked to teenage suicides has appointed a panel of internet and child safety experts to crack down on cyberbullying. Ask.fm was condemned for failing to protect teenagers who got abusive messages encouraging them to harm themselves, reports the Times. It has now appointed an advisory board that includes John Carr, secretary of the Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety, and Anne Collier, author of A Parents’ Guide to Facebook.