Daily roundup 20 April: Child refugees, after-school clubs and gender

The government has a “moral duty” to offer thousands of child refugees stranded alone in Europe sanctuary, an MP has said. The Express reports the House of Commons is due to vote on granting 3,000 child refugees asylum in the UK next week. Conservative backbencher Heidi Allen has said she is willing to rebel against her party, which opposes the amendment to the Immigration Bill.


?The academic performance and social skills of disadvantaged primary school pupils can improve with after-school clubs and sports, research funded by the Nuffield Foundation has found. The BBC reports poorer primary school children who had taken part in after-school clubs were found to get better results at the age of 11 compared to their peers from similar homes who had not.?


Children as young as four are being asked to choose the gender “they most identify with” as part of a primary school form. ITV News reports a letter was sent to thousands of parents by Brighton and Hove Council this week asking them to support their child’s gender choice before they start school for the first time in September.?


?Staff turnover at Leicester City Council’s children’s services department is still too high, a report has said. According to The Leicester Mercury a council report said there is still a “higher than desirable level of staff turnover” at the department, which was judged “inadequate” by Ofsted last year.?


??Nearly a quarter of 12 to 20-year-olds who have been bullied go on to bully other children and young people, according to research by anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label. BBC Newsbeat reports the survey also suggest more than twice as many boys as girls bully, while half of all children and young people say they have been a victim of bullying at some point in the past year.?


CoramBAAF has announced a new partnership with US-based The National Center on Adoption and Permanency to improve child welfare systems across national borders. They will work together to shape joint programs and projects as well as strengthen current initiatives.?