Daily roundup: Child abuse, early years services and academy conversions

MP Keith Vaz has expressed “very serious doubts” about the evidence given by the former director of children’s services at Rotherham Council to a parliamentary inquiry on child sex abuse. The Times reports that Vaz, chair of the home affairs committee, wants an explanation from Joyce Thacker about a discrepancy between her sworn testament and documentary records.

A government adviser on health inequality has warned that a lack of quality early years services are failing children. The BBC reports that Sir Michael Marmot, director of University College London’s Institute of Health Equity, said half of five-year-olds are not ready for school and that investing in the early years is a priority if their future prospects are to be improved.

A think-tank is calling for all schools to be converted into academies in the next five years as part of efforts to improve educational attainment. The Guardian reports that Policy Exchange thinks a mass conversion to academy status is also the best way for schools to deal with a range of challenges, including funding cuts and the introduction of new national curriculum and assessment systems.

Bury Council has been forced to deny claims it wants to privatise services aimed at vulnerable families. This is Lancashire reports that the authority came under fire after putting forward plans to close seven children’s centres and convert them into nurseries for disadvantaged two-year-olds.

Head teachers in Greater Manchester fear that the government’s free school meals scheme could cost them thousands of pounds. Martin Henderson, head teacher at Westmorland Primary, told the Manchester Evening News that there is no incentive for parents on low incomes to register their children for free school meals or the pupil premium, meaning that schools could lose out as a result.

Researchers at Oxford University have found the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier peers to be equally wide in both “outstanding” and “inadequate” schools. The Independent reports that the researchers also found that children in receipt of free school meals fall behind their wealthier peers at the same rate in both “outstanding” and “inadequate” schools.