Graduate 'background checks' as 85 compete for each job

Middle-class students face extra competition for top graduate jobs as companies increasingly favour applicants from poor backgrounds to engineer a more “diverse” workforce, research suggests.

More companies are vetting recruits' backgrounds to prevent jobs being monopolised by graduates from middle-class families.

Rising numbers of employers are carrying out background checks on graduates during the annual recruitment round amid political pressure to boost social mobility, it emerged.

A new report reveals that more than one-in-six top companies currently vet applicants’ socio-economic status and numbers will increase to almost four-in-10 in coming years.

Costs for state school hits '£22,500 per child'

The cost of putting a child through state school has risen by more than £6,000 in the past five years, according to research.

The latest Aviva School Sums index reveals that families are paying out more than £1,600 per child per year

The cost of educating children is enough to make even celebrities wince.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Status Quo rocker Francis Rossi said his children's education was the biggest drain on an estimated fortune of £10m.

His eight children have been privately educated, but new research out today shows that the cost of educating a child through the state system adds up to more than £22,500.

Teachers to strike over pay, pensions and workload

Teachers are to stage a one-day national walkout in the autumn in a continuing row over pay, pensions and workload, it was announced today.

The General Secretary of the NASUWT union, Chris Keates

Every region in England and Wales will be affected by regional strikes in the first and third week of October, the NASUWT and the National Union of Teachers (NUT) said.

This will be followed by a national strike later in the term.

Degree courses filled with foreign students, minister says

Universities are being forced to fill large numbers of degree courses with foreign students amid a shortage of well-qualified British applicants, the Education Minister has warned.

Elizabeth Truss, the Education Minister, said not enough pupils were taking maths beyond the age of 16.

Many places to study subjects such as maths, science and engineering are going to undergraduates from oversees because home-grown teenagers fail to take appropriate A-levels in the sixth-form, according to Elizabeth Truss.

In a speech, she told how England was “way behind our competitors” in terms of the number of students studying maths beyond the age of 16 – a prerequisite for most technical degree subjects.

Poor boys 'two-and-a-half years behind wealthy peers'

The gulf in standards between bright boys from rich and poor backgrounds is wider in Britain than in any other developed nation, according to research.

The Sutton Trust said that bright children should be identified and given extra help from the age of five.

Clever boys from wealthy families are around two-and-a-half years ahead of their peers in the most disadvantaged families by the age 15, it emerged.

The study showed that boys’ chances of doing well were more closely tied to social class in England and Scotland than anywhere else in the western world.

Fewer children 'should take packed lunches to school'

Schools will be told to increase the number of pupils eating canteen meals today to cut childhood obesity despite warnings from teachers that the plans are "not feasible".

Leon bosses Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent will recommend that parents stop providing packed lunches as part of an overhaul of school dinners.

A Government-backed report is expected to push for a halving in the number of children taking packed lunches to school in an attempt to stop pupils eating so much fatty and sugary food.

The study – by Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, co-founders of the Leon restaurant chain – will call on head teachers to make school dinners more attractive to pupils.

Head teacher 'snaps' and runs over keyboard

A head teacher had a “Basil Fawlty-style” meltdown in front of his pupils, when he destroyed an electric organ by repeatedly running over it in his car.

Malcolm Hayes, headteacher of Horsmonden Primary School, Kent

Malcolm Hayes was playing the instrument during an assembly at Horsmonden Primary School, near Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, when he is said to have “snapped”.

He began smashing and punching the keyboard before picking it up, and asking pupils to follow him as he carried it outside.

Free school under fire: 'We've made a difference to the children's lives'

Free schools epitomise David Cameron’s Big Society, but the founders of the first to fail an Ofsted inspection says this new way of education needs time to succeed

Andrew and Lindsey Snowdon at Discovery, the first free school put into special measures by Ofsted

Andrew and Lindsey Snowdon are a model Cameron couple. Until May 2010, they enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle, earning up to £250,000 a year and living in a spacious home in Crawley, West Sussex. But rather than taking longer holidays and joining the golf club as they entered their fifties, they gave up their jobs to set up one of Britain’s first free schools.

Dave Shelton wins 2013 Branford Boase Award

Illustrator and author Dave Shelton has won the 2013 Branford Boase Award for his debut novel A Boy and a Bear in a Boat

Dave Shelton wins the 2013 Branford Boase Award for most outstanding debut novel for children for A Boy and a Bear in a Boat, with David Fickling honoured for his editing.

Dave Shelton has won the 2013 Branford Boase Award for his witty and imaginative debut novel A Boy and a Bear in a Boat.

The revised national curriculum: subject by subject

The Government has today published a revised national curriculum to be introduced to schools in England in September 2014. Here are some of the main points by subject:

The curriculum says that 11 to 14-year-olds should study a range of English literature, both pre and post-1914 including prose, poetry and drama

ENGLISH

Age 5/6: Read using phonics, recite poetry by heart in class, learn alphabet, ensure left-handed pupils get help