Daily roundup: Pupils 'go hungry', whooping cough and missing children

Increasing numbers of children are turning up hungry at school and without adequate clothes, a study has found. Research by the Give More campaign found that 52 per cent of teachers are seeing increasing numbers of pupils arriving hungry at school. Meanwhile 44 per cent of teachers reported more pupils arriving at school in inadequate clothing and 63 per cent said they were increasingly noticing the results of family breakdown in the classroom. Give More has teamed up with the Citizenship Foundation to produce resources to help teachers address some of the issues raised.

Pregnant women are being offered vaccinations to protect babies from an outbreak of whooping cough. The disease, which is highly contagious, has claimed the lives of nine children this year and there have been 302 cases of the disease in children under three months old. Due to begin on Monday (1 October), the temporary vaccination programme aims to boost the short-term immunity passed on by pregnant women to their babies, who cannot be vaccinated themselves until they are two months old. Chief medical officer Sally Davies, said: “It’s vital that babies are protected from the day they are born – that’s why we are offering the vaccine to all pregnant women.”

Companies and organisations across the UK are being encouraged to get involved with a new scheme to try and trace missing children. The Europe-wide NotFound initiative is posting details of missing children on “404 Not Found pages”, which people are directed to when they reach deleted pages on the internet. Anyone who runs a website is being encouraged to join the initiative. So far more than 900 sites have pledged to help. Laurent Dochy, creator of the project, said: "An increasing number of websites designs have customised error pages that limit frustrations for the user. With the NotFound project we are however taking this one step further by giving these pages a reason to exist.”

Adam Nichols is stepping down from his role as chief executive of Changemakers, the charity has announced. Nichols plans to set up a new education organisation called Schole, a social enterprise aimed at “transforming the education system through the creation of child led free schools and academies”. Martin Sharman, Changemakers chief operating officer, will act as interim chief executive until a successor is appointed. Nichols will step down in mid-October but will continue to work with Changemakers over the next few months in order to support the charity’s involvement with a newly opened free school.

Scottish children in foster care want their guardians to be paid for looking after them, a survey has found. Research by the Fostering Network found that nine out of 10 of children in care said foster carers should get a wage or fee like staff in children’s homes, while eight out of 10 said carers should receive an allowance to cover all the costs of looking after a child. Sara Lurie, director of the Fostering Network Scotland, said: “Fostering is a job, and foster carers are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Not only do they need a fair allowance that covers all the costs of looking after a fostered child, but they should be properly paid for their skills, experience and commitment to each child.”

And finally, young people in Yeovil are to benefit from a revamped skatepark after carrying out research and lobbying funders. The Western Gazette reports that the town’s youth council, carried out a survey of people who use the skatepark, which opened 12 years ago, with more than 70 per cent of those who responding saying it needed more equipment. The youth council presented its findings to Yeovil Town Council, which awarded £1,500 to help improvements, and also made a successful grant application to a local charity for £10,600.