Sports Calendar

Communication is a vital skill for children

Early speech and language difficulties can lead to mental health problems and fewer qualifications and job prospects

Cuts will force universities to close courses

Government spending cuts of up to 30% will force universities to close hundreds of courses, according to one vice-chancellor

Pupils to be given lessons on debt

Schools are to be required to teach children how to spend with restraint, borrow within sensible limits and save prudently

Career switchers shake up teaching

Bankers, lawyers and other career-changing professionals are flooding into the classroom, outnumbering new graduates

‘Boarding makes you more independent’

Shanice Gibbons, 15, has boarded at the Royal Alexandra and Albert School since her parents divorced when she was just 8

Island children's virtual classroom

Primary school with 19 pupils joins other schools online

Red tape 'driving teachers out of schools'

Tories claim millions of pounds are wasted on training teachers who later leave the profession because of bureaucracy

Rise in under-6s excluded for violence

Primary schools and nurseries hand out more than 2,600 exclusions – 14 a day – to three, four and five-year-olds

Pupils save lollipop man from retirement

Children at a school near Preston were so upset at the thought of losing their lollipop man that they petitioned to save him

Catholic school condemned over admissions

Cardinal Vaughan School told parts of its admission procedure are 'unlawful' and have the potential for racial discrimination

Private schools hindered by Whitehall rules

Endless government regulation and a tick-box culture is diverting teachers away from education, says top head teacher

Graduates move home to cut costs

Charlotte Andrews has a job earning £17,500 a year as a PR account assistant and pays £200 a month to her mother and father

University gets £1.26m donation to help with scanner

Ronald Storey, 82, has made the largest gift ever received by the University of Edinburgh, in order to help to fund medical imaging facilities

Briefing: University funding

The government is cutting funding for universities and capping student numbers. Is this the end of Labour’s higher-education dreams?

Private school pay rises 'will shock' parents

At a time of rising fees, the earnings of more than a dozen private school 'super-heads' have risen above £150,000 a year

‘Cuts could force universities to close’

Lord Mandelson said universities must save £135 million in the next academic year, as he cut £518 million from the budget

Universities ‘will become training machines’

Academic standards and students’ welfare are both at risk from funding cuts, explain a Leeds professor and a Sussex adviser

The charity that listens to youngsters

The drop-in counselling service The Place2Be is branching out to help children to adjust to life at secondary school