Teachers fear Vicky Pollard nursery nurses

Teachers fear Vicky Pollard nursery nurses
Nursery nurses with few qualifications and poor social skills risk creating a generation of Vicky Pollards, teachers’ leaders warned yesterday.
Too many illiterate students were starting childcare courses as an easy way to get government grants paid to encourage students to stay in education, the Professional Association of Teachers warned.
Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 3 August 3 2006, page 11

Tribunal lifts blanket ban on deportation of Zimbabweans
The government yesterday won the right to deport failed asylum seekers back to Zimbabwe. The asylum and immigration tribunal ruling means up to 7,000 people who fled Robert Mugabe’s regime could be returned against their will.
Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 3 August 2006, page 7

140 suing children’s home
One hundred and forty men are suing a number of Catholic organisations for the abuse they say they endured at a children’s home.
The action is against the Catholic Welfare Society, Middlesbrough Diocesan Rescue Society and three branches of De La Salle Brothers, which ran St William’s community home, Market Weighton, Yorkshire, from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Source:- Daily Mirror, Thursday 3 August 2006, page 21

Unions and MPs urge amnesty for illegal migrants
A campaign to put an amnesty for illegal immigrants back on the government’s agenda is being launched today by an alliance of Labour MPs, unions and pressure groups. Labour is in a “miserable double bind” and is “cutting itself adrift from its progressive instincts”, the campaigners say, arguing that the immigration minister, Liam Byrne, missed a golden opportunity when he rejected the amnesty idea last month.
Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 3 August 2006, page 19

Reid shelves plan to give JPs tougher jail powers
Home secretary John Reid has indefinitely postponed proposals to increase magistrates’ sentencing powers which would have enabled them to deal with more cases.
The plans, contained in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, were designed to accompany custody-plus, a new sentence combining imprisonment and community punishments that has also been shelved.
Source:- Daily Telegrah, Thursday 3 August 2006, page 1

Breastfeeding lowers anxiety in children, says study
Babies who are breastfed cope significantly better with stress in later life than those fed formula from a bottle, according to research published today. Scientists studied a group of 9,000 children born in 1970 to determine if those who were breastfed were more emotionally resilient if their parents divorced or separated.
Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 3 August 3 2006, page 15

Children should start school at seven, says MP
Children should not start school until the age of seven, giving them time to learn and develop away from the pressure of tests and formal lessons, Barry Sheerman, the chairman of the Commons education committee, said yesterday.
Source:- The Guardian, Thursday 3 August 2006, page 14

We need lotteries for school admissions, says Labour MP
The chair of the education select committee Labour MP Barry Sheerman has called for school admissions to be based on a lottery to ensure middle-class parents cannot colonise the top schools, in a speech to the Professional Association of Teachers’ annual conference.
Source:- Daily Mail, Thursday 3 August 2006, page 10

Welsh news
Early action plan for social services
Health minister Brian Gibbons has pledged that it will be easier for people to get help from social services under a new draft 10 year plan for the sector. The plan, which was put out to consultation today, says that social services need to help people earlier on in their lives. It also states that the services will remain the responsibility of
councils. There had been speculation that they could be taken out of local authority control.
Source:- Western Mail, Thursday 3 August 2006

Scottish news
Under-tens abusing drink and drugs
Children as young as eight are being referred to the children’s reporter with drink and drug problems, figures have revealed for the first time.
Source:- The Scotsman, Thursday 3 August 2006

Shops caught out selling alcohol to children
More than 30 licensed premises have been reported for selling alcohol to under-age customers in the first month of a pioneering police project using “undercover” children.
Supermarkets, pubs and corner shops were among those caught in the operation in Fife, the first of its kind in Scotland.
Source:- The Herald, Thursday 3 August 2006

School fundraiser dead after child porn found
The former fundraiser at a top private school has been found dead after police discovered child pornography on his computer.
Kenneth Grant, who was in charge of the Edinburgh Academy Foundation, had earlier appeared in court following accusations of taking pictures of young boys wearing wellingtons boots as they played in the snow.
His body was discovered on Sunday at his home in Stuart Park, Edinburgh, where he had lived alone for more than 20 years.
Source: The Scotsman, Thursday 3 August