1 Urgent action is required to retrain bad teachers, said the General Teaching Council for England. The council suggested that 24,000 incompetent teachers should be removed from their classrooms and given intensive retraining.

2 Labour suffered a severe mauling in the local elections. The party lost 331 council seats in England and Wales while the Conservatives gained 256 seats and the Liberal Democrats 34 seats. In London, Boris Johnson won the mayoral election for the Conservatives, unseating Ken Livingstone.

3 A council that forced through the adoption of a baby girl against the wishes of her father was condemned by judges, who concluded that East Sussex County Council was determined “by fair means or foul” to see the child adopted.

4 Having a dog in the house makes children less sensitive to allergens, researchers found. Their six-year study added weight to the theory that having a pet in the home helps to train the immune system

Assessors wreathed in secrecy

Research assessment exercises are now so secretive that academics are using the Freedom of Information Act to view assessors' reports

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5 More than 30 state schools in England have solely ethnic minority pupils, with no white children on the roll, according to government figures.Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, blamed this on “white flight” from racially-mixed areas.

6 Teachers' leaders condemned government plans to judge schools on teenage pregnancy rates and other social targets. The plans, in a Department for Children, Schools and Families discussion document, suggested that schools should also track pupils' drug problems, obesity and criminal records. But unions said holding schools accountable for all of society's ills was “ridiculous”.

7 A Court of Appeal ruling gave hope to NHS Alzheimer's disease patients who have been denied potentially helpful drugs. It ruled that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence had been unfair in restricting the drugs to those in the moderate stage of the disease while those with mild forms had to go without.

8 A planned pay rise for prisoners was scrapped after intervention from the Prime Minister. He overruled the Prison Service Management Board on learning that it intended to raise the minimum pay for offenders from £4 to £5.50 a week.

9 Nearly two out of every three deputy head teachers avoided applying for the top job because of a fear of Ofsted inspections, a National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) survey found. NAHT also reported that pressure of work forced 1,000 head teachers to quit last year.

10 The number of under-fives in independent schools is rising, according to the Independent Schools Council. Fees for private schools have also shown a sharp rise and now stand at an average of £3,751 a term.

11 Police will not change their stance on simple cannabis possession, despite the drug being upgraded to class B. The Association of Chief Police Officers said officers would continue with a “confiscate and warn” policy.

12 MI5, the security service, may have colluded in the torture of British citizens in Pakistan. Some terrorism suspects originally arrested in that country are convinced that MI5 knew of their brutal treatment by Pakistan's intelligence agency.

13 Around a quarter of all prisoners now share a single cell, said evidence obtained by the Liberal Democrats. Almost 20,000 inmates now “double up”, compared with 9,498 when Labour came to power.

14 Doctors trained outside the EU will not be banned from applying for training posts in Britain. The House of Lords overturned the government guidance that non-EU doctors could only apply if no suitable British or EU candidates could be found.

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