Childcare and Education News August/September 2007

• The Children’s Fund, which supports projects specialising in early intervention and prevention, is to be given £396million to enable it to run for a further 3 years.
  
• An evaluation of City Academies has claimed that a review of admission policies should take place to ensure that there are no ‘overt or covert’ barriers preventing the most disadvantaged pupils from accessing these schools. For more information see Academies Evaluation.
  
• The Institute for Public Policy Research North has recommended that the poorest families should receive free meals during school holidays as well as in term time. The institute found 850,000 children in England received less nutritious food between terms. See more details at http://www.ippr.org/ipprnorth/pressreleases/?id=2834
  
• The Government has unveiled its ten year Youth Strategy, and Councils will be expected to devolve 5% of their budgets for youth services to young people by 2010-11. Beverley Hughes, Children, Young People and Families Minister said “We want to put spending power in the hands of young people”. The strategy announced that the Youth Opportunity Fund and the Youth Opportunity Capital Fund will be funded until 2011, and money currently lying dormant in bank accounts will be used to improve youth facilities in every community. See Aiming High For Young People: A Ten Year Strategy for Positive Activities.
  
• Analysis of figures from the Dept for Children, Schools and Families show that City Academies permanently excluded pupils at a rate 3 times higher than neighbouring secondary schools. In 2005-6 a sample of 14 Academies’ average expulsion rate was 8.7 per thousand. The rate for Local Authorities in which those Academies are situated are 3.2 per thousand. Critics have claimed that Academies are using expulsions as a form of back door selection.