Teaching union leaders are calling on education secretary Gillian Keegan to make a “fully funded” pay offer to avert future strike action when they meet with the Department for Education (DfE) on Wednesday. Speaking to Tes, National Education Union (NEU) joint general secretary Kevin Courtney has said “there is still time to avoid the strikes” and that “all serious offers will be listened to”. By Matilda Martin. In an interview with ITV, Ms Keegan repeated a previously disputed claim that, when certain factors such as pension contributions are taken into account, teachers are “in the top earners” in parts of the country. Tes.

Industrial action is being planned in the constituencies of Rishi Sunak and Gillian Keegan at the end of this month, coinciding with the next round of teacher strikes that will target regional areas one by one, starting with schools in Yorkshire where the prime minister is the local MP. By Kate Devlin, The Independent.

BBC News reports that a new pay offer to try to avoid further strike action in Scotland is expected to be made this week, although the EIS union has said it would need to be 'significantly improved' before the action is called off.

According to a new book looking at NHS child gender clinics, staff 'regret' routinely referring under-16s for puberty blockers. Former clinicians at the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids), part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in London, have detailed in Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children how some “incredibly complex” young people were placed on medication after one face-to-face assessment, despite many having a 'variety of mental health or family background problems'. By Glen Keogh. The Sunday Times.

Vikki Boliver, a sociology professor who sits on the Scottish Government’s access delivery group, has warned there is a risk that imposters could “game the system” to get ahead of straight-A students by pretending to be transgender when applying to university. Dundee University is thought to be the only university in the UK that includes transgender status in its policy to widen access, which lowers the admissions criteria for applicants deemed to be disadvantaged. By Mark McLaughlin, The Times.

Proposals to scrap the annual fixture between Eton and Harrow at Lord’s will come down to a vote at Marylebone Cricket Club's (MCC) annual general meeting, as a compromise between the club and its members has yet to be reached. MCC announced last year that it would no longer host the annual game between the two schools, which has been played at Lord’s since 1805, in order to focus on a competition that would include state schools and universities. By Elizabeth Ammon and Ivo Tennant, The Times.

Counter-extremism staff have warned of a 'rapid rise' in the number of cases being referred to them from schools worried about the behaviour of pupils impacted by Andrew Tate. Examples include the verbal harassment of female teachers or other students and outbursts echoing the influencer's opinions that have been shared on various social media platforms. By Ben Quinn, The Guardian.

Research by the Centre for Social Justice think tank has revealed that around 275,000 pupils a year are leaving primary school without basic maths and literacy skills, and only 41 per cent of those in Year 6 are meeting the expected standards. The Government has set a target of ensuring 90 per cent of children achieve the national curriculum standard in reading, writing and maths at the end of primary education by 2030, but attainment has fallen back to levels only slightly above those of 2015-16. By Michael Savage, The Observer.

Figures from dataHE, a higher education data analytics company, suggest that around 10,000 fewer young women have applied to start university in September 2023, a decline of almost three percentage points to 47.6 per cent compared to the previous year when over half of UK female 18-year-olds applied. By Louisa Clarence-Smith, The Telegraph.

Councils in England are calling for vapes to be kept out of sight of children in shops and for the the legal minimum age of 18 to be marked clearly on each product as they say too many young people are being illegally sold vapes with fruity flavours and colourful packaging. In the UK, only those aged 18 and over can buy vapes or e-cigarettes. BBC News.

Vending machines are being installed in hundreds of schools to dispense books as a reward for good behaviour amid campaigns by experts to stop the decline of school libraries. A lack of space and squeezed budgets have led to cuts of non-teaching staff such as librarians, prompting Cressida Cowell, the author and former children’s laureate, to warn that inequality in school library access is a social mobility “time bomb”. By Nicola Woolcock, The Times.

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