10 June 2011 last updated at 19:07 ET Share this page by Hannah Richardson BBC News education reporter Sir Chris famously estimated that there were 15,000 incompetent teachers A former Ofsted head, a universities' leader and a super-head are among those working in education rewarded in the Queen's birthday honours. Outspoken former Ofsted chief inspector Sir Chris Woodhead is knighted, along with Universities UK chief Professor Sir Steve Smith. Super-head Dr Reena Keeble from a [...]

11 June 2011 last updated at 11:43 ET Share this page Councils provide schools with a range of support services The education secretary has denied making a U-turn after agreeing to review funding cuts for councils. Michael Gove said they were "accelerating the pace of reform" and the review was needed because of the growth in academies. Councils provide support services such as special needs education for state schools, but not academy schools. Ministers had [...]

9 June 2011 last updated at 10:16 ET Share this page The gap between boys' and girls' progress has widened slightly A third of secondary pupils in England fail to reach their potential in maths and a quarter are making insufficient progress in English, figures show. In total some 200,000 maths pupils and 160,000 English students are failing to make the progress expected between starting secondary school and finishing GCSE, according to official data. Also, [...]

11 June 2011 last updated at 00:32 ET Share this page Councils provide schools with a range of support services The government is set to review the amount of money cut from local authority budgets in England to help fund new academy schools. The move comes after a group of 23 councils filed a claim for a judicial review against ministers. The councils argued the way a £148m cut for services they no longer provided [...]

9 June 2011 last updated at 20:27 ET Share this page the group aims to find out more about the causes of smoking and drinking Five universities are to work together to study Scotland's drink and drug culture to help inform health policy. Researchers from Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, St Andrews, and Glasgow will study issues such as smoking rates and the acceptability of heavy drinking. The new Scottish School of Public Health Research has been [...]

10 June 2011 last updated at 07:14 ET Share this page more young offenders are being dealt with through community penalties The number of young offenders in custody in England and Wales is at its lowest level for at least a decade. The Ministry of Justice figures show there were 1,890 under-18s locked up in April – 193 fewer than the previous month. The monthly figures published by the ministry date back to April 2000, [...]

10 June 2011 Last updated at 01:28 ET Share this page By Maggie Taggart Education Correspondent the number of teachers being made redundant is expected to be about 314 The BBC has learnt that 314 teachers are being made redundant from schools in Northern Ireland this summer. Provisional figures compiled by the BBC show that 314 teachers are taking redundancy deals and the vast majority of them are going voluntarily and there is a generous [...]

8 June 2011 last updated at 05:55 ET Share this page Businesses in London have been asked to donate £3m to improve child numeracy and literacy skills in the capital. The Mayor's Fund says four out of 10 London children are living in poverty and helping them to read and write will give them better opportunities. Flying start for London will set up proven numeracy and literacy programmes in seven of London's poorest boroughs as [...]

10 June 2011 last updated at 06:49 ET Share this page by Victoria King Political reporter, BBC News The culmination of this year's Blair Government course was a chance to quiz the former prime minister himself at his London offices With the ink barely dry on his page in history, university students are already able to study a course on Tony Blair's government. During the past year they've had the chance to quiz some of [...]

9 June 2011 Last updated at 05:33 ET Share this page The bank is under fire for not telling customers about the May breach Hackers have stolen data from thousands of Citibank customers in the US, the bank has confirmed. The breach exposed the names of customers, account numbers and contact information. But other key data, such as date of birth and card security codes were not compromised, the bank said in a statement. Citigroup [...]