• A study by the Institute of Education has found that children do better when their teachers are not fixated on exam results. Pupils are better motivated, behaved and more likely to be independent and strategic thinkers when their teachers are under less pressure to ensure they succeed in exams. Watkins, a reader at the Institute, commented that 'Our preoccupation with exam performance could be a key element in explaining...the underachievement in secondary schools.' Guardian


• Prep school head turned Education Consultant Peter Dix answers Telegraph readers' questions about adolescents, the private sector and early years education. Telegraph


• A Carmarthenshire primary school is to stay open at the cost of up to £110,000 despite not having a single pupil. The Welsh Assembly dictates that the local authority must go through a lengthy statutory consultation period with local people before the issue can be fully discussed by Carmarthenshire council. BBC

• Students have been warned that their loans may not arrive for the beginning of the academic year as the Student Loans Company (SLC) is hit by administrative problems for the second year running. The SLC is concerned enough to have created a new scheme which will allow students who fail to complete the necessary documents to receive three quarters of their maintenance grant. Telegraph


• Students starting university this year are likely to graduate with almost £25,000 worth of debt, with students at nine institutions expected to borrow more than £30,000 to complete their course. Costs have soared by 5.4% this year. Scottish students are likely to leave with less than half this, £12,500. Telegraph


• Universities have been told to prepare for the deepest cuts in funding since the Great Depression, as Vice Chancellors are warned that funding may be slashed by 35% over the next five years. Universities will buffer themselves against cuts by recruiting more foreign students, axing courses, closing libraries, delaying structural repairs and cramming more students into lectures. Telegraph


• A college is under investigation for allegedly creating a fraudulent gateway to the UK for hundreds of Asian immigrants to whom it sold English language certificates. The Times found that recent graduates of the Oxford College of Management Sciences had little knowledge of where, when and what they had studied to gain their certificates. Both men running the college have uncertain immigration status. Times

• British police fear that British sex offenders are targeting Spanish beach resorts, with a heavy influx of known sex abusers thought to be at high risk of re-offending during the summer months. The Spanish police are passed around 100 requests from British police to monitor such figures each year, but complain that they do not have the resources to keep them under watch. Telegraph


• The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre has today claimed that its new Facebook application has prompted 211 new reports of suspicious online behaviour. Facebook refused to install a CEOP panic button but proposed an application; this has been downloaded 55,000 times in the last month. Guardian


• Researchers have found that people are more likely to report a better childhood relationship with their mother than their father and those who reported they had a good mother-child relationship reported three per cent less psychological stress than those who had a poor relationship. Men who reported having a good relationship with their father were more likely to be less emotional when reacting to stressful events in their current lives than those who had a poor relationship. Telegraph

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