A cross-party group of MPs and colleagues has joined forces with UK universities, calling for an extension of the visa scheme for Ukrainian refugees to temporary placements for students and academics.

In a letter to Home Secretary Preeti Patel, Member of Parliament and Advocacy for Universities UK, the university said the project would provide visas and temporary accommodation for displaced students and academics to study and research.

Led by Rumford Conservative MP Andrew Rosindel, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the group includes Lib Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davio; David Blankett, Labor Peer and former Secretary of Education; And Tom Tugendhat, Tory Backbencher who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee.

The government has so far introduced two systems to allow Ukrainians to come to the UK after being displaced by Russia’s invasion of their country – a scheme for family members of people already in the country, and one through which individuals or organizations can sponsor people to come.

The latest figures from the Home Office show that 24,400 visas have been issued out of 32,800 applications through family schemes. Through the sponsorship route, 150,000 people have expressed interest in sponsoring, 32,200 have formally applied to do so and 4,700 have been issued visas.

The letter argues that the amount of interest shown in the sponsorship system indicates that many Britons are willing to help, and that student and academic visas will help more people find refuge until they are ready to return home.

In addition to providing “sanctuaries” for students and academics, the proposal states that allowing young Ukrainians to continue studying subjects such as medicine and engineering will help them qualify, which will be important in Ukraine once the war is over.

“It is vital that Ukraine is not a country where President Putin’s narrative is strongly and unequivocally refuted and the courage and collective struggle of the Ukrainian people is duly documented,” Rozindel said.

“It simply came to our notice then. Individual universities and institutions are already offering positions for Ukrainian academics, but today we are calling for it to be extended to state programs and for students, with the financial support needed for universities to implement it. “

“It would be a tragedy if the young people of the future refuse to continue their education and research opportunities because of President Putin’s move to rebuild the country and provide a powerhouse of innovation and creativity,” Blankett said.

He added: “Giving the UK higher education system the opportunity to resume learning with due support is a small but important step towards realizing our commitment to the people of Ukraine.”

An official spokesman said: “Anyone currently studying in the UK is already covered under our Ukraine Extension Scheme, which means they will automatically qualify for a three-year leave to stay here.

“We are moving as fast as we can to ensure that those who have fled Ukraine can get security in the UK through the Ukraine Family Scheme and Homes for Ukraine. In the last three weeks alone, about 30,000 visas have been issued and thousands more are expected to come through this uncapped.” Being done. Route. “

If Children have siblings and they mingle with others, they are socially at the same level as before the epidemic. But those who are only children and have just been at home with their mother and father do not know how to communicate.

They have problems sharing, getting too excited and taking turns. They are quite advanced in numbers and letters for their age because they were at home with adults, or they played a lot on tablets, but they are far behind socially, have no sympathy.

This is a fairly prosperous area where I work, there are not too many social problems. Slightly more middle-class children seem to be socially backward. They are more likely to have only children, have elderly parents and their parents are mostly office workers so they worked from home and were more isolated. Many children were given tablets.

It’s not the parents ’criticism because they were forced into that situation, but you can see it in the children’s social skills. In five years, social skills are everything, an indicator of how they will develop more than how they can say the alphabet or count to ten. Kids with good social skills and interaction, even if they are not quick to learn to read or write, often have the best educational results.

Parents are expressing high level of concern about how their children are developing. They ask, “Is my child normal?” Many parents say “my child is autistic” and the child is clearly not. They’re just presenting planned behaviors, they line things up and do things consistently, which is exactly how kids develop. We need to reassure them that this behavior is normal, that kidnapping a child is normal. The parents didn’t get a chance to talk to the other parent so they are at home and Google is doing something and it opens the can of worms.

Parents are certainly making it worse for their children socially and for themselves. We have a special little boy, he is four years old and he has never mingled with children. Mother is extremely nervous and so anxious about Kovid that she will keep him away as soon as she cries because she thinks she is hurt. He is a completely normal boy but he is not being given a chance because his worries are shifting in him.

There are a bunch of kids who will not be ready for school no matter what pre-school. In a pre-school with 30 children you will have four or five adults, in a school you will have one teacher. They don’t have time to take a baby to the toilet or settle them, the baby has to be ready.

Earlier today I set you the following six issues, created by the Graberchuk family, who came from Ukraine and who are well-known international creators of puzzles. See the previous post to know more about them.

I have presented the problems together, including the solutions together at the end.

1. Hex wax

Which number question mark should be replaced?

2. Ring ding

Which system of rings is different from others?

3. Snake shake

Which aspect of the 11-cube snake is wrong?

4. Box fox

Place a number in each box so that all 8 equations, across and below, are all correct. A box already has the number 7

5. Sign mine

Which sign in the bottom row should replace the question mark?

6. Basic

For each of these six elements, find another element that has no character match with the replica. Each answer is unique.

Solution:

1. Hex wax

2. Ring ding

3. Snake shake

4. Box fox

5. Sign mine

6. Basic

If you like these puzzles, Graberchucks is publishing a free daily puzzle here to help raise funds for Ukraine. Consider donating to Ukraine. Here are the links to the National Bank of Ukraine’s grant pages for humanitarian and military assistance.

Grabarchuks has Facebook, Instagram, and their website here. Their most recent book is the Age of Puzzles series. All images in this story are their copyright.

I set up a puzzle here on Mondays every two weeks. I’m always looking out for great puzzles. If you want to make an offer, email me.

I am the author of several puzzle books, most recently a language lover’s puzzle book. I also discuss math and puzzles at school (online and in person). Contact your school if interested.

On Thursday 21st April I will give a puzzle workshop for the Guardian Masterclass. You can sign up here.

After an unsuccessful restructuring, a British drama school was closed and left with heavy losses and is no longer financially viable, resulting in about 300 students having to change schools without warning.

Students at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts (ALRA) say they are shocked and “physically ill” after Monday’s announcement that the institution, which opened in 1979 and includes alumni Bridget Christie and Miranda Hart, is closing. 284 students are being offered places at Rose Brufford College, another drama school, to continue their studies.

ALRA said it had a restructuring in 2021 but was closing immediately after an unsuccessful search for a “new income stream”. It said its board wanted a new owner but “it was not achieved”.

It said: “The ALRA board has looked at other options and has finally decided to stop teaching students and is working with partners. [the school is] Provide appropriate assistance to students in finding alternative study options. “

The company, which has campuses in central London and Wigan and charges £ 13,000 a year for certain courses, said it would lose 28 permanent and 16 permanent employees.

ALRA South students now prefer to continue their studies at Rose Brufford, which has a site in London and they have taken courses in Brighton, Edinburgh and Belfast, or elsewhere, when the Guardian realizes ALRA North students may be able to continue their studies. On the same campus in Wigan.

Students have shared their push on social media. Oliver Knowles, an acting student at ALRA North, wrote on Twitter: “I can’t describe how I feel. An organization that raised me slowly in the acting industry since I was 18 years old. I have seen my organization collapse and it saddens me. “

Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of the Office for Students, said the regulator was “working closely with many organizations to ensure that ALRA students are inevitably protected as much as possible in a difficult situation.”

The school became embroiled in a row in 2020 when 13 graduates published an open letter complaining that it had failed to address systemic racism. One student said she was told by a teacher that she was “a ghetto girl with rude girl attitudes”, while others said she faced racist stereotypes and language from teaching staff at both ALRA positions.

After a row and an external review, Principal Adrian Hall resigned, and an external review found that the school had a “blind eye” to racism and a culture of dismissing or dismissing allegations made by students.

IIf the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge needed some comforting lessons after their awkward Caribbean tour, they could do worse than go back to Tony Blair’s autobiography. In 1997, Britain’s new prime minister traveled to Hong Kong to oversee the handover to China. Many years later, Blair recounted how he fought with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in a conversation about UK-China history, because, in his own words, Blair “had only a fairly dim and sketchy understanding of that past.” The history that is being discussed is the Opium War, which is why Hong Kong became British in the first place. Yet there was a boarding school and an Oxbridge-educated prime minister who had no knowledge of the history of the event that made up the trip under his supervision.

The idea that many ministers give today is that students in the British classroom are being bullied with endless stories of British imperialist crime. This is why the government now seeks to re-balance the scales with a new curriculum that highlights the “advantages” of the British Empire, as well as its negative aspects. Based on last year’s controversial Seville report, the plans promoted by Equality Minister Kemi Badenoch are part of a broader campaign to push imperial education away from the culture of persecution and identity politics in schools that the government fears, rather than structuring legacy. As for the empire and as a debate of inconvenience. Was the empire wrong? Was that right Which bit of the empire was naughty or beautiful?

But far from being inevitable, it is even more common to find a well-polished omerta about empire in our curriculum. This amnesia about Britain’s imperial past creates a widespread ignorance of what is happening in the world, which William and Kate recently discovered. Since protests over welcoming the couple during a Caribbean trip, the British media has been confused as to why Jamaica and other Commonwealth countries are seeking to release the Queen as their head of state.

Badenoch’s remarks on imperial education in schools were in response to a growing call from students for greater involvement with Britain’s imperial legacy. But his vision only reinforces the culture war that he claims he is trying to overcome. Learning about empire, according to his plan, giving equal weight became a game of positive and negative discussion. This endless back-and-forth argument over the morality of a century-long process will be endlessly propagated, eventually making the issue seem like a meaningless dispute in the long-distant past. Yet the empire is something other than ancient history. The British Empire only ended in the 1950s and 1960s. Earlier, the empire shaped the life of the island for about 400 years. Establishment of the Virginia slave colony in England or its colonial rule over Barbados The Act of Union, the Glorious Revolution, and even the English Civil War.

It would be amazing if this whole period of history had no lasting effect on today’s political, cultural, economic or legal system. Yet for many people, it is not uncommon for schools, colleges and even universities to be completed in the UK without even hearing of the empire mentioned once. Recently, issues such as the royal visit to the Caribbean, the Windrash scandal, or the Russian oligarchy benefiting from the privacy protections of British foreign territories have pushed Britain’s imperial legacy to the forefront. Such incidents remind us that empire is not a question of moral judgment about a bygone era. The empire is still shaping our world.

How can we reflect this reality in the curriculum? One answer would be to take imperial education beyond the history class and into other subjects in the humanities and social sciences. Currently, students cannot study for their GCSE in citizenship knowing that all people in the British Empire, from Lagos to London, had the same citizenship status as “British subjects” until 1948. In an A-level law course, students may find that in places such as Jamaica, the Bahamas and Bermuda, the Queen is still introduced into the British constitutional system without any mention of the head of state or her secret council acting as the supreme court of these countries. Students of English literature can read canonical books such as Jane Eyre or Mansfield Park, regardless of the colonial setting that provides the background to these stories. Economics students read a complete textbook on development without discussing how the subject originated from the colonization of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. This type of imperial amnesia raises relevant questions in a number of disciplines beyond the limits.

There is no reason why the Windrash scandal should not be the subject of study throughout the citizenship curriculum or why offshore Britain and global tax avoidance should not be discussed in economics classes. Expanding the avenues for students to become involved in the legacy of the empire would go a long way in moving the issue away from divisive identity politics, rather than Bedenoch’s plan to renew the debate over who is “good” or “bad” in history. Indeed, his commitment to highlighting the “advantages of the empire” is exemplary identity politics. It is designed to turn the empire into a totem that people are proud of, not as a lens to think critically about the world.

We shouldn’t expect anything less from a politician who told his colleagues last year that he “doesn’t care about colonialism.” Previously, Badenoch described the growing call for curriculum in schools, colleges and universities as a “recent fad” that is “not just misguided, but actively opposed to the basic purpose of education.” He even threatened that those who teach race and empire in school “without behaving in a balanced manner” are at risk of “breaking the law”.

In a climate where the government’s legal threat is backed by newspaper attacks on “Week Schools” accused of teaching “critical race theory”, it would be understandable if teachers chose to avoid the issue of empire altogether. The government’s recent guidelines on political neutrality in education specifically highlight “imperial issues” while reminding teachers that they “could be subject to a restraining order if their actions or conduct violate basic British values”. Such a charged environment does not encourage fearless and creative learning on a complex but important subject.

This recent campaign appears to be primarily intended to renew the silence on the empire in British schools. If this succeeds, students will receive an education that trains them to remain ignorant of the main issues that inform the world in which they live. And like Tony Blair or William and Kate, they have to navigate the global community with “just a faded and sketchy understanding” of Britain’s role in creating it.

CA $ 50 change in a child’s life? Los Angeles has invested millions of dollars in launching the largest universal child savings program in California in the hope that it is possible, experts say, supported by a feasibility study.

The city opened more than 40,000 college savings accounts last week, with a balance of $ 50, as part of a plan to help every first-grader in America’s second-largest school district.

Officials have announced the program, which follows a similar test in San Francisco, as an important step for students to “even support the playground” and encourage families to pursue higher education. Experts say research has shown that these programs, even with a small amount of cash, can have a profound effect.

College costs have risen dramatically in recent decades – jumping 169% since 1980 – surpassing families’ ability to pay, and some have stopped going to university altogether. In California, thousands of people seeking post-secondary degrees face homelessness and food insecurity amid the dual burden of high tuition fees and a devastating statewide housing shortage.

Los Angeles says its program will help ensure more students attend college, citing data that students with কলেজ 1- 99 499 in college savings accounts are three times more likely to go to university and four times more likely to graduate. Similar programs have yielded promising results, research shows.

CSA (Children’s Savings Account) programs have been discontinued across the United States in the last 15 years, says William Elliott, a professor and expert in college savings accounts, college debt and resource inequality with the University of Michigan. According to a 2020 report, there are more than 100 child savings account programs in 36 states and Washington DC, serving about 1 million children.

“Theoretically part of the way it’s supposed to work is that it creates thinking about this future adaptation and college and it could be a potential future for themselves,” says Terry Friedline. A professor of social work at the University of Michigan, Dr. Researched to improve the health of low-income families through savings.

Specifications of programs vary, but typically include states and cities that provide child savings accounts for children in birth and kindergarten or first grade, so they can add savings and eventually enter college. Nevada has launched the first statewide program in the United States, which sets up a college savings account with $ 50 for each kindergartener attending a public school. In Maine, every child born after 2013 will automatically receive a 500 grant for future education expenses while every child born in Pennsylvania from 2019 is eligible to receive an account with $ 100.

In Los Angeles, accounts are available for all first-graders, regardless of income or immigration status. The decision by officials to use the City account allows for the inclusion of unregistered families and others, Elliott said. These programs also create systems that allow third-party donors to contribute more easily, he added.

This fund is intended for post-high school education expenses only, including two-year or four-year colleges, vocational schools and some trade schools. Each account is funded by 50 and families are encouraged to set up regular contributions, which collect interest over time. Students or parents may request a speedy withdrawal in case of a family emergency.

Officials behind the program looked to a similar effort in San Francisco, which launched the first publicly funded universal children’s savings account program in the United States. Since 2011, San Francisco City Public Schools has opened a College Savings Account with $ 50 for each kindergartener, bringing the total to about 50,000 accounts. At the time, 23% of students had put $ 6.8 million away, according to city data.

Research on similar programs has shown a correlation between CSA and increased enrollment for colleges, as well as further enrollment in four-year colleges.

A survey conducted on a Boston program targeting seventh- to tenth-graders found that families with accounts saved about $ 2,000 more than those without accounts and were more likely to make monthly contributions. These results are impressive for a program that is not very intensive – starting with just 50 50 per student account – says Paco Martorell, an associate professor at UC Davis School of Education.

And the benefits of the CSA program extend beyond their cash value, Elliott said. She points to research that shows a positive effect on children’s social and emotional development, the effect on parenting practice – parents are less likely to use spanking – and even reduce maternal depression.

“It’s not that they’re getting the money in their hands, it’s that their children have a better understanding of the future,” Elliott said. .

Some critics of such programs argue that the immediate needs of low-income people should be addressed before creating future resources for children, a critique Elliott says is misleading.

“The wealth that gives you hope is real hope. It says you have money stuck that you will be able to use to go to college one day. It’s a different kind of hope,” he said. For, they want to get their future partnership – this LA program … to give kids a real hope. “

Such a program could eventually roll out statewide. California Governor Gavin News has unveiled a plan to create a college savings account for 3.7 million low-income children. This comes as the cost of attending a school within the University of California system continues to rise. Students now pay $ 35,000 to $ 38,000 a year to attend a UC between tuition, transportation and accommodation.

Amanda Can Fried, San Francisco treasurer and head of policy and communications at the tax collector’s office, also said such programs are ambitious, not about resolving the college’s capacity crisis.

“It’s very clear to the family that the amount you’re saving doesn’t matter,” he told the LA Times. “It simply came to our notice then. You’re talking college with your kids. You show them that you trust them and that the city trusts them. “

Outside of the CSA program, there must be an effort to create systemic change, Friedline said.

“We need to take steps to break down the systems that exclude and marginalize poor and black and brown families,” he said.

A growing number of young children are unable to understand facial expressions due to the low chance of developing their social skills during the epidemic, according to the UK Education Observatory.

Amanda Spielman, chief inspector of Offstead, said the most vulnerable children are those who live in small houses without gardens, usually spending more time on the screen during continuous lockdowns, resulting in delays in learning to walk and crawl.

He said it was clear from the four education briefings published by Offstead that the epidemic had created a “protracted challenge”.

He said: “I am particularly concerned about the development of young children, which, if not addressed, could lead to potential problems for elementary schools.”

In a briefing on early years, based on visits by 70 early-year providers in January and February 2022, some providers stated that children had “limited vocabulary” while “some children struggled to respond to basic facial expressions”, partly because of contact with them. Wearing people.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today program, Spielman said that epidemics and lockdowns have led to delays in speech and language learning; Problems with social interaction and confidence, such as not knowing how to take turns; As well as delays in walking and crawling, resulting in more obesity.

The children were also not at the expected stage in developing essential self-care skills, such as being trained in ribbons, tying their shoelaces and taking off their coats, he added.

He said: “Children spend less time in primary school, less time with others outside the family. For some kids they don’t interact too much if they look at the screen all the time. The kids are talking in funny voices and they are spending a lot of time watching cartoons. “

To help their child develop, Spielman advises parents to talk to their children as much as possible, taking them for walks, shops and parks so they can see the world and exercise. “Those basic parenting issues are more important than delaying their entry into school,” he said.

He said schools were well prepared to deal with children at various developmental levels, noting that maximum efforts would be made for children who had experienced the worst in the epidemic.

The inspectorate has seen “a lot of really good work” throughout the early years, school and more education, including catchup strategies to close the knowledge and skills gap.

But Offstead found that funding for two-year-olds had not been used as much as before the epidemic, which Spielman said he hoped would “see the opposite” as he returned to normal life.

The report found that some staff members of nurseries have come up with innovative ways to help young children catch up, such as recording activities through a “caterer group” with a diary or encouraging children to express their feelings through “emotion cards”. Pictures of children displaying different facial expressions.

In schools, offsetting that the epidemic continues to affect students’ knowledge, headmasters have also expressed particular concern about the children of the reception year, who they say have delayed speech and language development.

For 11- and 13-year-olds, teachers are struggling to help students grasp what they missed while preparing for exams.

James Bowen, director of policy at the National Association of Head Teachers at the School Leaders Union, said: Vital services such that all children in need of specialist assistance receive it as soon as possible. “

A spokesman for the Department of Education said: “Our ambitious recovery plans are underway across the country, with nearly bn 5bn invested in high quality tutoring, world-class training for teachers and early-year practitioners, additional funding for schools and extension of time in colleges. 40 hours a year.

“We have simplified the national tutoring program to reach out to as many students as possible, with funds being sent directly to the school from next year. The Nuffield Early Language Intervention Program is being used by most schools to improve the language skills of reception-age children. “

Today’s puzzle is all about helping Ukraine.

These are written by the Graberchuk family, who are one of the most original and extensive puzzle makers in the world. Originally from the western Ukrainian city of Uzgorod on the Slovak border, the family moved to the United States in 2013 to become internationally famous for their puzzle books, websites and apps. Computer science legend Donald Knuth says the family’s father, Serhiy Graberchuk, said: His works are particularly beautiful, instructive and fulfilling. “

Since the beginning of the war, Graberchuk has been publishing a daily puzzle that promotes Ukrainian culture (such as St. Sophia Cathedral’s ‘Spot the Difference’ at the top of this story) in the hope of raising money for humanitarian and military aid.

Below are six puzzles I selected from the family archive. If you enjoy them, please consider contributing to their suggested causes Slava Ukraine!

1. Hex wax

Which number question mark should be replaced?

2. Ring ding

Which system of rings is different from others?

3. Snake shake

Which aspect of the 11-cube snake is wrong?

4. Box fox

Place a number in each box so that all 8 equations, across and below, are all correct. A box already has the number 7

5. Sign mine

Which sign in the bottom row should replace the question mark?

6. Basic

For each of these six elements, find another element that has no character match with the replica. Each answer is unique.

Hint: All answers are well-known elements, words that are in the vocabulary of a non-chemist.

No spoilers. I’ll be back in the UK at 5pm with the answer.

Graberchuk’s story began five decades ago when Serhi, now 64, was a schoolboy in Uzhgorod. He discovered a talent for creating puzzles and magic tricks and turned it into a career. In the 1990s he and his wife Tania had a small company publishing puzzle books, and now the business has expanded to websites and apps and involved his sons Sergey Jr. and Peter and their wives, Kate and Helen. The most successful puzzles in the family are Streamco, a pencil and paper puzzle in the Sudoku method.

If you enjoy today’s puzzles, please consider donating to Ukraine. Here are the links to the National Bank of Ukraine’s grant pages for humanitarian and military assistance.

Grabarchuks has Facebook, Instagram, and their website here. Their most recent book is the Age of Puzzles series. All images in this story are their copyright.

I set up a puzzle here on Mondays every two weeks. I’m always looking out for great puzzles. If you want to make an offer, email me.

I am the author of several puzzle books, most recently a language lover’s puzzle book. I also discuss math and puzzles at school (online and in person). Contact your school if interested.

On Thursday 21st April I will give a puzzle workshop for the Guardian Masterclass. You can sign up here.

Special schools in England are struggling to access significant government funding worth thousands of pounds to offset rising staff salaries and rising fuel costs, head teachers have warned, with some facing cuts in class size.

The Autumn Expenditure Review set aside £ 1.2 billion in funding for schools to cover the upcoming national insurance increase and “broader spending pressures,” including a new £ 30,000 starting salary for teachers, as well as an increase in fuel prices.

That fund, the school’s supplementary grant, has been transferred directly to mainstream schools, but goes through local authorities to special schools, alternative arrangements, and hospital schools through high-demand budgets.

Special schools warn that this has led to a “postcode lottery” where some cash-criminal councils withhold all or part of the grant to reduce their high-demand budget deficit, while others match or exceed the mainstream grant school

Pauline Achinson, who runs the National Network of Special Schools (NNoSS), which represents 460 special schools across England, said: .

“Top-ups have not increased in many schools for many years. They are seeing real cuts in their funds. We need to make sure that while mainstream schools are guaranteed extra funding for extra costs that are not their own fault, the same is true with special, hospital and alternative systems. It has to be a level playing field. “

Aitchison said the funding was especially important for special schools, which hire more staff per student and help them avoid staff crises, leaving assistant staff to leave the job for lower pay. “Having this funding guarantee can make schools more strategic in retaining and attracting the right staff for their school,” he added.

According to an NNoSS survey of 135 special schools since mid-March, about two-thirds still have not heard from local authorities, despite health and social care tariffs being in effect since April 1, when nine out of 10 expected to receive insufficient funding from their local authorities. .

Achinson says uncertainty is making it harder to plan for next year and head for the budget. He said the Department for Education (DFE) said delays were a matter for councils and schools, with no deadlines or specific procedures set by local authorities.

A multi-academy trust, Eden Academy, said the four local authorities where its special schools were based had given different responses so far. Hillingdon will not pass any funds, Harrow will give anything but has not yet determined how much, Cambria has passed 3%, just below 4% of mainstream schools, and Northumberland has not yet decided, says its chief operating officer, dear reader.

He said the lack of transparency is making it difficult for schools to determine what support they will be able to provide to students in September, with the ability to limit class sizes to eight students, including therapy and speech and language, as well as forcing schools. Dive into emergency funds to cover unforeseen costs, such as building work. “I can only budget for something that I know is definitely coming. The danger is I rely on it and it doesn’t materialize.”

He added: “Our head was told this fund was coming and now it seems it is not happening. We are still trying to negotiate with the local authorities to get some of them out. It’s stressful for the head, the uncertainty of not knowing what the budget will be like. “

Warren Carat, chief executive of the Nexus Multi-Academy Trust in South Yorkshire, said he thinks the decision reflects the government’s view that special needs schools have been blamed for increasing high-demand funding in recent years. Published.

“From the department’s point of view, it seems that special schools are well-funded and that’s where the problem lies, but there are structural deficits in the high-demand blocks,” he said.

“It appears from the green paper that financial recovery will come from fewer children in special schools and the department is reluctant to direct the council to pass the SSG. [schools supplementary grant] To me, this is a clear indication that the department is saying that special schools do not need more money, which would not be strongly agreed with special schools. “

A DFE spokesman said the SSG was “paid directly to mainstream schools but provided to local authorities for alternative arrangements, special schools and more.” Supplementary grants will be rolled out to the NFF. “

AAt least 200 babies born to the Shrewsbury and Telford NHS Trust could have survived if they had been better cared for, including 131 who were stillborn and 70 who died shortly after birth. Nine Mao deaths have been avoided. Tragically poor maternity care has resulted in the theft of a lifetime. Many more were left with a lifelong disability, their parents struggling against adversity for the care and support they needed for the rest of their lives. The Okenden investigation, published last week, found that midwives and doctors blamed mothers for the deaths and injuries, despite children being forcibly removed from their mothers by force and doctors leaving women screaming in agony for hours on end. Their kids

It is sad enough that a child has died as a result of clinical failure. But absolutely unforgivable that it happened again, and again, and again, all the time frustrated and grieving parents have spent more than a decade fighting the system for truth.

One of the worst NHS scandals from the 1970s to the present day has a lot to offer. I wrote about why maternity care was particularly risky for such horrific cultures, where child mortality investigations have been completed or are ongoing at other NHS trusts. Women are less likely to believe when they say they are in pain, the “normal birth” ideology that has infected some parts of the midwifery profession – the misconception that untreated “natural” births are always the best – combined with the realization that the risk of childbirth Not only is it a cross for women to carry but also something that should be accepted without their complaint, making maternity services particularly unnecessarily life-threatening.

But analysis can’t stop there. There are many common strands, including other examples of systemic negligence in healthcare, such as the Mid-Staffs scandal, where patients were subjected to dangerously horrific standards of care in the 2000s and further into other parts of the public sector. People have been terrorized by the state, who cannot answer for what has happened to them, leave the assurance to others that it will not happen again, have to sacrifice their lives to establish the truth or give it up. From health to education to policing, weak leadership and bad culture become more self-sufficient as whistleblowers are driven out and good professionals follow.

The political response is always “never again”, yet it is a blind spot for both sides of the political spectrum because these experiences do not fit any great political narrative. Proper obsession with waste disposal and improving efficiency in the public service; For the left, the story often stops and begins with the question of wealth.

Of course, more money is vital. There are some people who put forward a ridiculous narrative that we spend too much on our healthcare, even though we have invested significantly less per capita in the last decade than in comparative countries like Germany and France. We actually spend very little, keeping the NHS less staffed and providing truly world-class care without up-to-date equipment.

But many of these child deaths – and the mid-staff scandal – occurred during the Labor Fund Rise. It is easier for the left to get rid of the lazy rule of “public sector is bad, private sector is good”; There are plenty of examples where this is horrible and systematically wrong, such as private equity companies pocketing huge profits by providing low quality care to some of the most vulnerable children. But the failure of countless public sectors shows that the left can be misguided by this doctrine.

Where leftists who compare “public sector” to “good” err in their analysis of power: they compare it to personal gain and leave it there. But the truth is that nurses, doctors, teachers and police officers can wield immense power over people’s lives, often with positive effects, but sometimes with terrible consequences. Just ask the survivors of child sexual abuse in Rotherham, where police prejudice and failure – police officers believed that children under the age of 11 could have sex with men three times their age – had their grooming gang abusers to abuse working girls. Kept free. These officers did not believe they deserved the same protection as their own daughters. Or the metropolitan police stop and search black youths for no apparent reason. Or adults failing as children by the horrific state education they received in the 1970s and 80s, when the soft orthodoxy of low expectations spread to many schools.

At the heart of a strand of labor public service reform was this insight: more money, but more accountability. Of course, the targets were blunt, so with unintended consequences, the inspection systems were complex and in need of improvement. It took so long to find out about the mid-staff and Shrewsbury and Telford – it was conservative, not labor, the health secretaries finally ordered them – shows how incomplete this reform agenda was. But it was driven by the right insights: the shamelessness of estimating the collective interests of public sector professionals is always lined up with patients or students. See the British Medical Association is losing public confidence in the recommendations of expert immunologists regarding the gap between doses of the covid vaccine due to the demands of their own members or the position of the National Education Union in favor of offset visits and complete cancellation of league tables. (The two visits I made as a former school governor were funny contrasts, but part of a school system and parcels that put children first.)

The fact is that politicians of all stripes have put too much emphasis on Big-Bang structural reforms – spending huge sums of money on restructuring the health and education systems – instead of challenging failed institutions to do what seems so good: closing ranks and Protect themselves. There are no easy shortcuts to “never again”. It involves hard and obscene work to improve leadership and culture in the worst pockets of the public sector, from dangerous maternity services to corrupt police forces. And never forget that power without accountability corrupts certain individuals and therefore institutions. Public or private: There is no resistance anywhere.