• A Civitas investigation throws doubt on the government's claim that academies are improving twice as quickly as mainstream schools. They have found that 48% of A*-C grades achieved in academies were actually in vocational subjects, while in mainstream schools, passes in vocational subjects accounted for half the number - 24% - of passes. Telegraph


• Schools Minister Nick Gibb has promised that key historical dates and events will be put on the curriculum to restore children's 'depressing' knowledge of the past. A radical review of the curriculum is expected to set out 'vital bodies of knowledge' which children must know but to give schools more freedom over how to teach them. Telegraph


• A number of schools are allowing Muslim parents to pull their children out of music lessons, even though the subject is a formal part of the national curriculum. Dr Harris, a lecturer conducting the investigation said that she had visited schools where half of all pupils were withdrawn from music during Ramadan and that Ofsted inspectors sometimes turned 'a blind eye'. Telegraph


• A General Teaching Council employee seeks to counter Michael Gove's justification for its abolition: that it 'did little to raise teaching standards or professionalism'. He lists the identification of 10,000 teachers who were not qualified and 4,000 investigations into claims of manslaughter, drug supply and firearms offences, and suggests that the finances and child safety will be jeopardised by Gove's actions. Guardian


• A woman on the management committee of her son's preschool nursery argues that asking parents to take over the education system is like asking the Prime Minister if he's got time to run France too. And the bureaucracy they hope to cut? Not the legacy of malevolent lefties but the very necessary CRB checks, health and safety legislation, insurance and staff training. Guardian


• Why the stress of gaining grammar school entry for your child may not be worth it. Telegraph

• Ucas has launched a review into the points-based tariff used to award places on degree courses following concerns that it fails to differentiate between qualifications which might be more appropriate for some degrees than others. There are also concerns that such a system of admissions encourages students to study courses such as the diploma, worth three-and-a-half A Levels, in order to gain the points in the easiest way possible. Telegraph


• The jobless rate among graduates is the highest in seven years - 10% of graduates from UK colleges last year are unemployed, up from 8% the previous year. The lowest unemployment rates were seen among graduates in medicine, education and law; the highest in computer science, communications, architecture and engineering. BBC

• Milton Keynes General Hospital has been criticised following the deaths of three babies in their care. Telegraph


• Lynsley Hansley despairs of Iain Duncan Smith, as he snipes at the poor and unmarried for 'breeding', during an appearance on Question Time. She explains that Frank Field - while too militant in his plans to make men take on jobs by withholding their welfare - still understands that poverty leads to family breakdown while IDS' misguidedly concludes that people's desperate circumstances could be solved by marriage. Guardian


• The Guardian's politics blog explains why Tory MP Philip Hollobone's bill to ban the Burqa in Britain doesn't stand any chance of making it into law, despite the climate of growing intolerance. Guardian

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