UK Education News

Heads warn of exam 'congestion'

Pupils about to take GCSE and AS-level exams are put under extra stress by timetabling problems, teachers warn. - read more

Return of education's 'Cold War'

Mike Baker considers the pressures facing the independent sector over the public benefit test. - read more

Catch-up reading scheme 'success'

A government-backed reading scheme shows lasting results for struggling readers, research suggests. - read more

Reading skills' 'virtuous circle'

Ofsted inspectors say that schools and children are making progress with the teaching of phonics. - read more

Strike threat over academy plan

Teachers at a school in Derby are threatening strike action over plans to turn it into an academy. - read more

Rugby to let in more poor pupils

Rugby School becomes the latest independent school to open its doors to more less well-off pupils. - read more

Move to bolster school governors

The scale of governor shortage is revealed as ministers try to strengthen the management of schools. - read more

UK Education News

Extract two: Parenting Inc. by Pamela Paul

Pushchairs that cost as much as a second-hand car, £1,000 nappy bags and private members' clubs for toddlers… Whatever next? In this extract from her gripping new book about the commodification of childhood, Pamela Paul examines where it all began - and, more worryingly, how it might end. - read more

Dear Vicki and Octavia

Our mother and daughter agony aunts answer your questions. - read more

10 ways to survive the exam season

Christopher Middleton offers a plan to ease the pain of this testing time. - read more

Extract one: Parenting Inc. by Pamela Paul

Smart toys, computers, classes - parents are bombarded with products and services claiming to boost their offspring's brainpower. In this extract from her book Parenting Inc, Pamela Paul discovers that children would be better off left to use their imagination. - read more

The Idle Parent

Forget money: train your children to enjoy doing jobs around the house, says Tom Hodgkinson. - read more

His and heirs

Just look at the father to predict the sex of a child, says Max Davidson. - read more

Pocket money: why children are coining it in

Parents who pay their offspring to behave could find there are hidden costs, says Tamsin Kelly. - read more

UK Education News

Questions please

... for James Purnell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. These are for an article as part of our You Ask The Questions series, which runs each Monday. Send your query to myquestion@independent.co.uk with the name in the subject line. - read more

The Big Question: Is there anything we can learn from previous stock market panics?

Why are we asking this now? - read more

Ruth Frow: Collector of left-wing literature

Ruth Frow was the co-creator of the Working Class Movement Library and a political activist for over 60 years. The library, based in Salford, is an ecumenical collection covering the diversity of the British labour movement since the late 18th century, a statement of the richness and creativity of the left. - read more

Edward D. Hoch: Doyen of the 'impossible' mystery

The American author Edward D. Hoch was one of the very last of a now all-but-extinct species: the professional fictioneer who writes solely for periodical publication. In a career that spanned over 50 years, Ed Hoch wrote and sold nearly a thousand short stories, principally in the mystery, spy and detective fiction genres, a record which will surely never be beaten, matched or even approached. - read more

Joan Ingpen: Opera administrator and artists' agent who talent-spotted Pavarotti

Sole founder of the successful artists' management agency Ingpen and Williams (Williams was the name of her dog), Joan Ingpen later became controller of opera planning at, successively, three of the world's most prestigious opera houses ? Covent Garden in London, the Paris Opera and the Metropolitan in New York. - read more

Legal Opinion: Legal showdown in the court of public opinion

Barristers are playing a dangerous game of chicken with the Government over new rates of pay for representing defendants in the most serious and costly criminal trials. Some advocates say they will strike rather than sign new contracts which they claim will lead to a substantial pay cut, with as little as £285 a day on a murder trial. - read more

US acts to calm world economic jitters

In today's traumatised global economy, one extraordinary day follows hot on the heels of another. The US slashed interest rates yesterday in a last-ditch attempt to avert recession in the world's largest economy and to try to restore order to the world's battered stock markets. The cut, by three quarters of a percentage point, was the largest in more than 25 years and was intended to signal to investors and corporations the world over that the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, would do everything it takes to reduce the cost of business and reignite the economy. - read more

Plenty to chew on for great minds of Davos

Blackberries beeped, mobile phones buzzed and all manner of other hand-held devices suddenly exploded into action. As the snow fell on Davos, with a full-scale blizzard blowing at the top of the mountain which closed all but a few of the resort's myriad ski lifts, the news was filtering through of the Federal Reserve's "emergency" interest rate cut of three quarters of a percentage point. - read more

First cracks begin to appear in the Chinese economic boom

At trader haunts in Beijing and Shanghai, the usual chatter is of the overheating economy, of double-digit growth and how China will function as the economic engine of the world during a slowdown. No one mentions the dreaded word sub-prime over cocktails at Centro or "M on the Bund". - read more

Christie and Day-Lewis lead Oscar charge

Julie Christie and Daniel Day-Lewis have continued their triumphant sweep through the Hollywood awards season, picking up Oscar nominations for their respective roles in Away From Her and There Will Be Blood. - read more

Mother of victim did not know her daughter was a prostitute

The mother of one of the victims of the alleged serial killer Steve Wright told Ipswich Crown Court yesterday that she had "no idea" her daughter was working as a prostitute. - read more

The more successful you are, the more you drink, research finds

Chief executives of big companies and public sector organisations are coping with their stressful positions by drinking the equivalent of almost three bottles of wine a week, new research shows. - read more

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