Parents say use of isolation room damages mental health and children’s learningOne in 12 secondary pupils put in isolation rooms at least once a week, study findsMax was 11 and had just started his new secondary school when he was first put into isolation. He had asked to use the toilet between lessons, which was not ordinarily allowed, and was told to go quickly.“He knew he wasn’t allowed to run, so he walked quickly,” his mother, Beth, told the Guardian. But teachers claimed he was running and Max’s secondary school career began with a week’s isolation. Continue reading...

Children with special educational needs more than twice as likely to be put in isolation, say Manchester researchers‘Publicly humiliated’: parents describe difficulty of children’s isolation at schoolOne in 12 secondary pupils report being put into school isolation rooms at least once a week where they often spend in excess of eight hours, missing more than a full day of lessons, according to research.Children with special educational needs were more than twice as likely to be placed in isolation, otherwise known as internal exclusion, while students from low-income backgrounds were also disproportionately affected. Continue reading...

The Institute for Public Policy Research says there should be more comprehensive support for Send students in mainstream schools.

School joins University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and Brown in bowing to White House to restore fundingThe University of Virginia (UVA) has become the latest institution to agree to the Trump administration’s demands concerning discrimination in admissions and hiring following significant pressure from the justice department.The deal, which the department announced on Wednesday, comes after the president of the esteemed public university resigned in June to resolve a justice department investigation into UVA’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies. Continue reading...

Family seeks tutor from ‘socially appropriate background’ who can provide infant with ‘comprehensive British cultural environment’Getting paid £180,000 a year to tutor a single child might sound like a dream job but there’s a catch: the child is only one-year-old and you need to get him into Eton.A wealthy family near London is “searching for a tutor to provide a comprehensive British cultural environment” for their infant, according to an advertisement published by Tutors International, which calls itself “the handcrafted Bentley” of private tutoring. Continue reading...

The government says it needs more time to test proposals for the special educational needs system.

The government’s funding plans, announced in this week’s white paper, won’t do much to alleviate a deepening crisis of morale among university staffThe prospect of university tuition fees passing the £10,000 threshold in this parliament will not put a song in the heart of Labour MPs desperate for some good news stories. Nevertheless, the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, had little choice but to announce on Monday that the price of a degree will be allowed to rise in line with inflation from 2026. The eight-year freeze on annual fees, before Ms Phillipson permitted a small uplift to £9,535 last year, was a major factor in the huge funding crisis that now engulfs higher education.Less understandable is that what was given with one departmental hand is set to be taken back by another. Unveiling her post-16 education and skills white paper, Ms Phillipson also confirmed a Home Office plan to introduce a levy on fees paid by international students studying at UK institutions. As the chief executive of Universities UK, Vivienne Stern, told the House of Commons education committee on Tuesday, the negative impact of this proposed surcharge would more than cancel out increased revenues from domestic fees.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Plans had been expected this autumn but government wants more time to build support for changesThe government is to delay publishing its long-awaited overhaul of special educational needs provision in England as ministers seek to build a coalition among parents to support its changes.The schools white paper, which had been expected to be published this autumn, will not appear until early in the new year, according to a letter from the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, to the chair of the Commons education select committee, Helen Hayes. Continue reading...

The aim is to address systemic and institutional racism but those efforts need the space to expand not shrink• Don’t get The Long Wave delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereIt’s Black History Month in the UK, and it feels like it’s time for a rethink. Over the years, an event that started out as a celebration and reminder of history, culture and the connections between global Black communities, has taken on a corporate feel, expanding to include events where Black people are paid to talk to white audiences about “unconscious bias” and “allyship”. The 2020s Black Lives Matter protests created a surge in the business of demonstrating racial awareness. But even that moment has passed. The wave has crested, leaving a sort of hollowed out legacy of what raising awareness is for. Continue reading...

Another qualifications upheaval risks undermining the government’s good ideasFurther education is one of the public sector’s Cinderellas – chronically neglected by policymakers who care more about schools. The government’s latest white paper is a welcome attempt to rectify this. If the plan succeeds, it would go some way towards fulfilling Labour’s pledge to break down barriers that block opportunities for too many young people.But there is no simple way to enhance the status of further education colleges while also raising the quality of job-linked training and adult education more widely. Previous attempts have not gone well. Overall, investment in non-academic training has dropped calamitously since 2010. The apprenticeship levy scheme introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 was a dismal failure, as employers spent the money on existing employees rather than entry-level opportunities. The take-up of new T-levels, which were meant to raise the status of technical learning to match A-levels, has been disappointing.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...