British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (UK)

Parents want more information from schools by e-mail and text, a survey suggests. One in 12 of the 1,493 parents polled by government education technology agency Becta said schools kept them informed using these methods.

More children in danger of going off the rails or being taken into care could be offered places at boarding schools funded by the state. Ministers have pledged at least £10 million over the next three years to help expand the state boarding system.

All 11-year-olds in England will be able to receive a free cookbook under a programme aimed at tackling obesity.

The head of Cambridge University has criticised the government over pressure on elite institutions to take more students from disadvantaged homes. Vice-chancellor Alison Richard said universities were there to educate and lead research and not act as "engines for promoting social justice".

ETS - the company behind the "Sats shambles" - apologises, but puts much of the blame on the exams body which employed it.

England's college funding body steps into the row over maintenance allowances. Problems at the firm running education maintenance allowances mean 150,000 youngsters are not getting them. They are entitled to means-tested payments of up to £30 a week, to help to keep them studying.

The Sats tests could end next year and be replaced by individual level tests, Schools Secretary Ed Balls has hinted. The national tests are taken by about one million children aged seven, 11 and 14 across England each May, but this year's marking was a "fiasco", he said.

Mike Baker wonders if having school holidays earlier might make pupils do better. As the new school year began in most parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland this week, parents, students and school staff fell into one of two camps.

The proportion of new Cambridge University students from state schools jumped 7% last year. For the year 2007/08, maintained sector admissions stood at 59% - the highest total since 1981, the university said.

Cambridge University is no longer going to use the full LNat admissions test from next year.

School meals in England's primary schools are subject to even tighter guidelines from this month. Caterers have drawn up new menus which conform to strict nutritional guidelines on the amounts of vitamins and minerals young children need.

Children starting secondary schools in England this week are the first legally required to stay in education until they are 17.

Education chiefs say they cannot tackle the poor state of gym facilities in Scottish schools until buildings are upgraded. The Association of Directors of Education has spoken out after an inspectors' report was critical of PE facilities in many primary schools.

Poor teachers can put children off learning and are too difficult to sack, the chief inspector of schools warns. Christine Gilbert, head of the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), told the Sunday Telegraph pupils were being let down by inadequate teachers.

Scottish schoolgirls are to become the first in the UK to be vaccinated against cervical cancer. Schools in the Lanarkshire, Tayside, Grampian and Western Isles NHS areas are to begin vaccinating 12 and 13-year-old girls from this week.