Campaign group the Howard League for Penal Reform has written to Justice Secretary Michael Gove calling for a raft of radical youth justice reforms to be introduced. The charity is calling for the closure of two secure training centres – whose contracts are due for renewal, as well as the abolition of detention and training orders, reform of youth courts, and a new role for the Youth Justice Board.
Staff at a Nottingham school pulled 100 pupils out of class and sent more than half of them home because they were wearing the wrong type of shoes. The Nottingham Post reports that teachers at Djanogly City Academy enforced a uniform crackdown on the first day of term when pupils returned from their summer break wearing trainers and flip-flops.
A nursery carer who took to social media and used expletives to describe the children in her care after she was bitten and spat on has been suspended from her job. The Daily Mail reports that a trainee 18-year-old early years worker at a nursery in Motherwell uploaded the posts to Facebook following her first day back at work.
Police in Cambridgeshire have launched a month-long campaign in an effort to help stamp out child abuse. Cambridge News reports that the new initiative urges members of the public to report any concerns they have for the welfare of children in the county in a bid to increase the number of people coming forward with information to protect children.
A council’s scrutiny committee is to examine how a cost-cutting plan for the district’s children’s centres hit major delays. The Telegraph and Argus reports that Bradford Council is pressing ahead with cutbacks to its children’s centres in a bid to save £2.4m a year, but the plans have been delayed by five months, costing £700,000 of the savings.
