Daily roundup 20 July: Extremism, FGM and mental health

Extremist ideology is the “struggle of our generation", David Cameron will say in a speech today. The Guardian reports that Cameron will set out the government’s five-year strategy for tackling extremism, and that Louise Casey, head of the government’s troubled families unit, will chair a review looking at how to boost community integration in deprived areas.


Police have launched an investigation after a Liberal Democrat peer raised concerns about a large group of Somali girls on a flight from London. The BBC reports Baroness Tonge contacted the Metropolitan Police after spotting around 50 girls aged between 11 and 17 on a flight from Heathrow last Saturday.


Mental health is a growing problem for schools, with more than two thirds of head teachers worried about their pupils’ mental health, it has been claimed. The Independent reports that an annual survey by a company providing management support to schools found that only 14 per cent of heads reported concerns last year.


Children are at risk of developing learning difficulties because they are not receiving eye tests at primary school, the College of Optometrists has warned. The Telegraph reports fewer than a third of local authorities are following the national screening guidelines to give all four- and five-year-olds a sight test.


Six children’s charities, including NSPCC Scotland, Barnardo’s and Children 1st, are calling for parents of young children to be given money to pay for childcare. In an open letter to The Herald Scotland, the charities are calling on the main political parties to put children’s needs ahead of party politics and to stop trying to outbid each other on promises of free childcare.


More than 400 children have disappeared without a trace from Bradford schools in the past two years, it has emerged. According to figures obtained by the Telegraph and Argus a total of 417 children have vanished from school registers since summer 2013, and authorities have exhausted all efforts to trace them and their families.