Half of education welfare officers (EWO) that responded to a Unison survey reported a rise in the levels of truanting from school over the past year. EWOs said the main issues behind truancy occurring are housing problems, drop in family income due to benefit and welfare changes, lack of money for basics such as school uniform and lunch, family breakdown, substance misuse problems and bullying. Two-thirds of respondents said penalty fines for parents of truants had risen, while 42 per cent reported a rise in prosecutions.
The Alliance for Inclusive Education is holding a lobby of Parliament today to protest against provisions in the Children and Families Bill which take away the right of children and young people with a special education need to attend a mainstream school. As part of the lobby, the Alliance is launching a manifesto that demands a fully resourced inclusive education system and an end to segregation. An Alliance spokesperson described the government’s failure to provide disabled learners with a right to participate in mainstream education as a “national disgrace”.
The Department for Education has awarded a consortium of charities a contract to deliver resources and training for social workers to better support foster carers and adopters. The consortium, made up of Research in Practice, TACT and Action for Children, will equip trainers with materials, knowledge and skills around a range of key topics including the legal frameworks underpinning practice, parental behaviour, leadership and supervision, and matching children’s needs to carers. The contract, which runs until March 2014, will see nine regional two-day training events held.
Claire Perry, MP for Devizes in Wiltshire and an advisor to the Prime Minister on preventing the sexualisation of childhood, has said that young people’s views of relationships and sex are being distorted by images and videos easily accessed on the internet, reports the Independent. Perry spoke out following the publication of NSPCC research which claimed that nearly a third of children aged between 11 and 18 believe internet pornography dictates how they should behave in a sexual relationship. Writing in response to the research, Perry said: “The rise of sexting, online bullying, porn and young people documenting their entire lives on the web needs to be a core tenet of how we teach sex and relationships.”
The number of UK workers earning below the so-called living wage has risen to 4.8 million, research suggests. The figure, equivalent to 20 per cent of employees, is up from 3.4 million in 2009, the Resolution Foundation think tank said. The living wage is set at £7.45 outside London and £8.55 in the capital, reports the BBC.
The University of Roehampton has published a report drawing together evidence on the benefits of prison reading groups. The report charts how prison reading groups have been set up in more than 40 prisons, including young offender institutions, since first started in 1999. It concludes that reading groups enhance literacy and skills for employment, develop empathy and foster respect, and strengthen ties with family and the community.
