Daily roundup: School meals, Welsh education, and looked-after children
Neil Puffett, Gabriella Jozwiak, Tristan Donovan
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Thousands missing out on free school meals, Wales's education minister quits, and more looked-after children go onto positive destinations, all in the news today.
More than 225,000 children are missing out on free school meals despite being eligible for them. The Mirror reports that statistics from the Children’s Food Trust show that 17.1 per cent of the 1,307,455 children registered for free school meals were not taking them up.
Wales's education minister Leighton Andrews has resigned after he defended a school in his constituency that faced closure under his own surplus places policy, the BBC reports. In a letter, Andrews said: "I regret that my commitment to my constituents may have led me to an apparent conflict which led to difficulty for the government."
Three-quarters of looked-after children went on to ‘positive destinations’ within three months of leaving school, Scottish Government figures for the 2011/12 academic year reveal. The figure represents an 11 percentage point rise on 2010/11.
Ofsted inspectors have rated child protection services in Cumbria as inadequate, the BBC reports. Cumbria County Council said it was taking "immediate action" to improve practice.
A Birmingham MP has criticised “systemic failures” at the city’s children’s services department after a woman was jailed for life for killing her two-year-old son. The Birmingham Mail reports that Perry Barr MP Khalid Mahmood said Birmingham City Council's services have a “passing the buck culture”.
And finally, YMCA England has named Denise Hatton as its new chief executive. Hatton, who has worked for YMCAs for 25 years, had been the youth charity’s interim chief executive since January.