Birmingham City Council children’s services has nearly twice the rate of unfilled posts than the level recommended by Ofsted. More than a quarter of the posts (27 per cent) are vacant – 12 per cent higher than recommended, the Birmingham Mail reports. A council report shows around one in five children’s social workers are agency staff and more workers have left this year than have joined.
Young people in custody are being kept in virtual solitary confinement for months, the Sunday Times reports. Inspections of institutions show that children are put in “segregation units” for up to 77 days, during which time they are kept in their cells for most of the day and cannot associate with other prisoners. Sue Berelowitz, deputy children’s commissioner for England, who has inspected a number of the units, said the practice was routinely being used as a punishment even though it is banned by the Youth Justice Board.
Teachers are helping to serve lunches as schools struggle to cope with the logistics of providing free school meals for all infants, the Times reports. Since the start of the autumn term, all children in the first three years of primary school have been entitled to free hot lunches under a £1 billion governmenty policy. However, a school in Bristol is having to ask teachers to help serve meals because of a shortage of money to pay for additional catering staff.
From September 2015, integrated health and early years reviews for children aged 24 to 30 months will be introduced, the Department of Health and Department for Education have announced. Currently, health and early years reviews of young children are carried out separately. By integrating them, parents will get a more complete picture of their child, drawing on the expertise of health visitors and early years practitioners.
Research into pupil premium spending reveals that boys make 50 per cent more progress in secondary school than girls. A Nuffield Foundation study, carried out by Essex and York universities, concludes: "Highly able boys appear to benefit more from an increase in spending of £1,000 per pupil [the pupil premium] than girls of similar ability." Boys still perform worse than girls overall, reports the Independent on Sunday.
Sixteen reports of missing children linked to child sexual exploitation or sex offences have been given to police in Shropshire this year. The figures, revealed through the Freedom of Information Act, have almost trebled since last year and show that some of the county’s most troubled children are repeatedly disappearing from residential homes and foster placements. The figures show some of the county’s most vulnerable children are disappearing repeatedly from residential homes and foster placements, reports the Shropshire Star.
