Allowing 100% faith-based access would be divisive and likely penalise disadvantaged children, say campaigners

Faith schools in England will no longer have to offer up to half of their places to children who don’t belong to their religion, under changes to state school admissions rules announced by the government.

Currently, new faith schools can only fill a maximum of 50% of their places using faith-based admissions criteria, but the change announced by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, will allow them to turn away other children.

Readers respond to the news that single-word ratings for schools are to be retained

How depressing to read that the government sees “significant benefits” with Ofsted’s four grades in that they provide “a succinct and accessible summary for parents” ( Ruth Perry family furious as Ofsted single-word ratings are retained, 25 April ).

Clearly my 50-plus years of involvement in the education service has not led to a population capable of dealing with more than one-word summaries – hence my depression. Even greater is my outrage that it appears of lesser relevance to the government that such summaries may not be accurate or complete. It is time for the educational system to rise up in protest at this insensitivity.
Ken Wales
Preston

Teaching unions share family’s disappointment after government says system has ‘significant benefits’

Ofsted’s controversial single-word judgments are here to stay, the government has ruled, in a blow to campaigners who hoped they would be scrapped after the suicide of the primary school headteacher Ruth Perry.

Perry’s sister, Prof Julia Waters, reacted with fury to the government’s statement, published on Thursday in response to an inquiry into Ofsted by MPs on the Commons education committee, describing it as “woefully inadequate”.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie . In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org , or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Kids pausing their football so a friend can pray; theology chats over lunch – I’ve seen the richness that religious diversity brings to school life

A Muslim student at Michaela community school in Brent, north-west London, has lost a high court challenge to the school’s ban on prayer rituals. As a Muslim secondary schoolteacher, I have to say I am disappointed – but not surprised.

The appeal was lost on the grounds that the school declares itself secular. This is something the headteacher, Katharine Birbalsingh, insists all students and parents know when applying. In the written judgment dismissing the student’s case, Mr Justice Linden went as far as to say that: “The claimant at the very least impliedly accepted, when she enrolled at the school, that she would be subject to restrictions on her ability to manifest her religion.”

Nadeine Asbali is a secondary school teacher in London and the author of Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain

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Fawcett Society warns sector is lacking in ambition and delivery and calls for free ‘universal’ hours

• Labour in a bind over much-needed childcare reform

England’s childcare system is failing and falling behind those of much of the rest of the world, a UK charity for gender equality and women’s rights has said.

The Fawcett Society said childcare in England was failing on several fronts: affordability, quality and levels of public spending.

National Education Union chief Daniel Kebede says Labour pledges are ‘a long way from the scale of change’ needed

A new Labour government could find itself facing a wave of industrial action by teachers in England and Wales if it fails to meet demands over pay and education funding, the leader of the UK’s biggest education union has warned.

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), fired a warning shot over Keir Starmer’s bows, declaring that Labour’s current proposals on schools and education were “a long way” off the scale of change needed.

Union poll on school buildings also highlights sewage and wastewater leaks, overheating, severe cold, pests and mould

A survey by the UK’s biggest education union on the state of school buildings in England and Wales has found two in five teachers reporting signs of vermin or pests and more than a quarter complaining of sewage or wastewater leaks.

Of the 8,000 members of the National Education Union who responded to the online poll, two-thirds (68%) said they worked in buildings that leaked, with one in 10 describing the problem as “severe”.

Long waiting lists and insufficient resources part of system that is ‘failing’ children, according to NEU members in England and Wales

One in three teachers say they have no behaviour support team for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), while one in four have no educational psychologist or speech and language therapist to help them, according to a union survey.

The online poll, which attracted responses from 8,000 members of the National Education Union (NEU), indicated that seven in eight teachers feel resources are insufficient to meet growing demand, with three-quarters calling for more learning support assistants in classrooms.

Improving schools is first challenge for new first minister, Vaughan Gething, as IFS study shows lower attainment is not due to poverty

Wales’s new first minister, Vaughan Gething, faces a major challenge in improving the country’s schools, after the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that pupils in Wales were performing only as well as disadvantaged children in England.

The IFS study follows Wales’s weak performance in the OECD’s most recent Programme for international student assessment (Pisa) standings, in which results in Wales declined by more than in other UK nations and were well below the average across OECD countries.