Daily roundup 4 May: Life chances, school inspections, charity merger

The education select committee has launched an inquiry into the impact that the early years of a child's life have on their life chances. The committee's inquiry aims to understand the impact that early years education and social policy have on determining children's life chances, including examining the role of current government policies in these areas. Written submissions to the inquiry can be made until 1 June.


Using a single "trigger" point to indicate when struggling schools in England require intervention would help to create a simpler system, the Education Secretary has said. Speaking at the National Association of Head Teachers annual conference Friday, Damian Hinds said there are too many confusing ways for schools to be judged as underachieving. Hinds also pledged there will be fewer ways for schools to be forced to become academies in the future, reports the BBC.


Family Action and Hackney-based charity Off Centre have merged. Off Centre is a counselling, therapy, advice and psychosocial service for young people and young adults aged between 11 and 25 who live, work or study in Hackney. Services are free, confidential and aimed at supporting Hackney's young people and young adults to have greater control over their lives.


Figures from Pacey Cymru show the number of childminders registered in Wales has fallen two per cent in the past year. The latest figures are an update to its 2017 report Childminder De-registrations in Wales, which showed childminder numbers in Wales fell 6.5 per cent between 2015 and 2016.


Providing "family learning" sessions could aid parents to deliver lessons at home, but supporting them to turn up regularly can be difficult, research has concluded. An Education Endowment Foundation study of Family Skills, a programme aimed to improve the literacy and language of pupils learning English as an additional language, found that children whose parents attended Family Skills sessions made greater progress in literacy than children whose parents did not.