Ofsted urged to pause inspections after teacher death
- The Headteacher of Caversham Primary School in Reading, took her own life while waiting for an Ofsted inspection report to be published, which downgraded her school from outstanding to inadequate.
- Education unions believe Ofsted inspections continuing this week is the “height of insensitivity”.
- A General Secretary of the National Education Union said “Ofsted should pause all its inspections and reflect upon the unmanageable and counterproductive stress they cause for school leaders.”
- Ms Perry’s family said that she had described the inspection in November as the worst day of her life while her sister is calling for schools to “boycott Ofsted.”
- Flora Cooper, executive head of John Rankin Schools in Newbury tweeted that she had refused access to inspectors who were due to visit.
- A spokesperson for the Department for Education has said inspections were a “legal requirement” and are “hugely important as they hold schools to account for their educational standards.”
- A petition calling for the inspection system to be changed has so far gathered over 40,000 signatures.
- For more on this story, please visit the BBC News website.
Self-harm images online ‘can trigger young people to hurt themselves’.
- Research from the University of Oxford suggests that viewing online self-harm images can trigger young people to harm themselves.
- Experts looked at 15 studies, all of which found viewing such material has harmful effects.
- Effects included the escalation and reinforcing of self-harm through commenting and sharing images.
- Comparing self-harm may also result in the “development of a self-harm identity”.
- It was acknowledged that further research was required as some studies did have “protective” effects for some young people including a reduction in urges to self-harm and a social connection with those receiving and providing support.
- The mixed nature of the findings highlights the complexity of issues relating to online self-harm and the need for more research on the harm vs protective benefits.
- For more on this story, please visit the Irish News website.
Warning issued to millions of smartphone users
- Smartphone users are being warned about multiple security issues that are allowing hackers to attack devices remotely.
- Google’s security team at Project Zero has found that the flaw affects Samsung and Google devices.
- Cybercriminals only need the victim’s mobile number to compromise the phone.
- Samsung is working on a solution but until it is pushed out, users are vulnerable.
- According to Google, users who wish to protect themselves should turn off Wi-Fi calling and Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) in their device settings.
- Turning off these settings will remove the risk of hackers taking over the device.
- For more on this story, please visit the GB News website.
NSPCC calls for ban on physical punishment of children in Northern Ireland
- Research from the NSPCC has revealed that 65% of adults in Northern Ireland support a change in the law to protect children from being physically punished by their parents and carers.
- Currently parents and carers can physically punish a child using the defence of ‘reasonable punishment’ if they are charged with assault.
- Children in NI have less protection from parental assault than most parts of the UK and Ireland.
- This change in the law would bring Northern Ireland in line with 60 other countries, including the Republic of Ireland.
- The move reflects the growing body of evidence on the detrimental effects of physical punishment which is harmful and has no benefits.
- The NSPCC hope the change in law will coincide with positive parenting and more effective child behaviour management.
- For more on this story, please visit the Belfast Live website.
