• The Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry has said that exam boards, MPs and schools all have a vested interest in keeping GCSE exams 'meaninglessly easy' in order to keep middle class parents happy, protect the textbook industries and league table positioning. He called for a 'new relationship [to] be established with universities and industry, which have been left out of the curriculum development process'. Times


• 26% of teachers do not think their school buildings are an effective learning environment, responses to the school environment survey showed.51% did not think their school offered a physical environment which could 'be adjusted to support delivery of the curriculum' and many reported students' vocal concerns about inadequate toilet facilities. BBC


• The boy turned down from the school neighbouring his home. Mail

• David Willetts has said in the future, eighteen year olds will no longer submit 'the kind of Club Med application' to university, but will instead take up degrees at various times in their lives. Willetts suggested that school leavers could take on apprenticeships or enter work before studying for degrees - which would be more flexible and diverse - later in life. Telegraph v


• Education programmes in prisons are to be reviewed to ensure they offer value for money. Skills minister, John Hayes, said that 'effective education' was key to reforming the justice system and 'effective and relevant courses' prisoners would ensure that ex-offenders were 'an asset to the economy' rather than a 'concern to the wider community'. £9bn is spent annually as a result of re-offending. BBC

• Social services in Birmingham are still failing to protect vulnerable children two years after seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq was starved to death by her mother. An Ofsted inspection in June found 'critical shortcomings' in the city council's safeguarding procedure and 'serious deficiencies' in its management. The report follows an improvement notice served in February, but it concluded that outcomes in community-based child protection work remained poor. Telegraph


• A new research programme - Right Here - is to allow 16-25 year olds in four areas of the UK to develop local services for young people with poor mental health. A National Advisory Panel brings together young people from across the country who have struggled with poor mental health and had negative experiences with government health services. Guardian


• A three year study into the protection of maltreated 11 to 17 year olds has said there is an urgent need for a shift in approach to ensure they are safe. Over a fifth of serious case reviews relate to a child over 11, but the study found that the older a child gets, the less likely they are to be judged at risk and made subject to child protection procedures. They found a particular shortage of services for those over 14 who were being neglected or abused. Guardian


• A motion will be debated in parliament which calls for credit and debit card companies to face fines if their products are used to buy child pornography on the internet. Labour MP Geraint Davies has the backing of forty MPs so far; he told Radio 4 that pre-paid credit cards, purchasable from newsagents, allow users to be anonymous and his bill sought to ensure their identities could be known. BBC


• A twin girl has become the youngest baby to survive in the UK: Amelia Hope was born at 23 weeks and two days old; her twin brother ten days later. Her survival will put further momentum behind the campaign to have the abortion limit lowered to 20 weeks; David Cameron voted for a cut earlier this year and has said an upper limit of 20 or 22 weeks would be 'sensible'. Telegraph


• A new study published in the BMJ has found that very obese mothers are 82% more likely to give birth very prematurely; overall the increased risk of induced birth before 37 weeks gestation was 30% compared with very normal weight women. They are also more likely to suffer complications such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Telegraph


• Texas has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and uses the death penalty, it's also embracing a new alternative to custodial sentences: a reading course called Changing Lives through Literature (CLTL). Guardian

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