Evening Standard (UK)

The Government's academy schools programme has been put in jeopardy by the removal of its chief architect Lord Adonis from the schools department in Gordon Brown's reshuffle, the Conservatives have warned.

Primary schools could assess children on healthy lifestyles and attitudes towards sex, instead of traditional academic subjects, under a radical plan by ministers
Schools Secretary Ed Balls has ordered an overhaul that is expected to see the number of subjects slashed to make room for "concept-based" lessons. The review team said many teachers and parents believed the new primary curriculum should give children's "personal development" equal status to English and maths.

Ministers have failed to cut class sizes despite spending billions of pounds on schools, a major international report has found

The minister said 59 per cent of black Caribbean children are looked after by a lone parent - but warned that children of all races and social backgrounds are suffering because they have no father in their lives.

Students can get up to an A grade at GCSE music without being able to read a note, it was revealed today. Research by BBC Music Magazine found that none of the main examination boards awards more than than 20 per cent of total marks for being able to read music.

Anger management classes have been given to nine-year-old schoolchildren for the first time in the UK. The sessions were carried out in nine primary schools, to the bemusement of parents and officials.

Plans for a massive database snooping on the entire population were condemned yesterday as a ‘step too far for the British way of life’

State schools should be run for profit by private companies, a senior aide to London Mayor Boris Johnson believes. Sir Simon Milton, the Mayor's adviser on planning and housing, said today that opening state schools up to market forces should go hand in hand with moves to make it much easier to sack incompetent teachers.

Asked what book they are reading and many adults will come up with the name of some worthy or fashionable volume.

Universities are turning a blind eye to cheating and poor standards to boost their results and climb league tables, an academic warned today

Children are more likely to master maths if they sit in pairs facing the teacher, a former Government adviser has revealed...

Thousands of bright comprehensive pupils are missing out on degree course places because they are let down by their schools, it is claimed. Research has found that strong performance in A-levels determines university entrance - not the background of the applicants.

A top university is extending its degree courses by a year to teach school-leavers basic maths and science because they are 'spoon-fed' at A-level...

A teenager said to have been bullied on the social networking site Bebo has been found hanged in his bedroom. Sam Leeson's family say the 13-year-old was picked on by other users of the site because of his 'alternative appearance' and his taste in music

Top-performing grammar schools could merge with failing secondary moderns nearby as part of a £400 million drive to raise standards, ministers said today