As Director of Community Partnership Solutions, it is my job to develop Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies for some of the largest organisations in the UK, the most recent being a youth engagement strategy for HRH the Duke of York's, community initiative.

Schoolchildren are more likely to disrupt lessons if they have a male teacher, a survey suggests.

Commenting on the figures obtained by the Conservative party, ASCL general secretary, Dr John Dunford, said;

"This is scaremongering. In fact, schools are havens of calm, even when the communities they serve may be riven with conflict and violence. Parents and pupils should not be scared by these stories - they should be reassured that, when violence does occur in school, it is dealt with quickly and firmly."

Abalance of around £1.6bn is left by schools in England at the end of the financial year. The Government is considering a claw back of 5% - some £75m a year.

Children and Young People's Minister, Beverley Hughes, has unveiled £9m for a new scheme to help young people spearhead and deliver ideas for positive activities, helping them at the same time to become young social entrepreneurs.

The Government has confirmed a new £15m package to pave the way for the nationwide roll out of one-to-one tuition for children falling behind in English and maths.

Figures show that more than 311,000 full and part-time teachers took sick leave in 2008, resulting in the loss of nearly 3,000,000 working days - the equivalent of 15,000 teachers calling in sick every day.

Daycare Trust publish the findings of the eighth annual childcare costs survey, sponsored by Imagine Co-operative Childcare.

David Cameron has unveiled a package of proposals aimed at improving numeracy, including a maths task force headed by former Countdown host Carol Vorderman.

Apprenticeships are now no longer a thing of the past. The Prime Minister has announced a further £140m for schemes in England (an extra 35,000 apprentices next year).

Effective from September, the Government is planing to offer teachers an extra £10,000 in order to recruit good teachers to teach in schools with disadvantaged children.

Schools, colleges and other learning providers have been slow to take up the use of Virtual Learning Environments, according to Ofsted. It says that the success of the schemes depends on the enthusiasm of teachers and learners.

Oxford University Press says that the content and structure of its Project X books will appeal to boys up the age of nine and encourage them to read more. They are illustrated with computer- generated images.

Young National Children's Bureau members have released key findings from a research project they completed on the portrayal of young people in the British media and the impact of negative media coverage on young people's lives.

Commenting on the first report on public expenditure (2008-9) by the House of Commons Children, Schools & Families Committee, Christine Blower, Acting General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said:

To the six million people dyslexia affects in the UK, it is very real. Dyslexia is not the same as just having a reading difficulty. It is a combination of abilities and difficulties that affect the learning process in one or more of reading, spelling, writing, mathematics, memory or organisation.

The Koya Secondary School for Girls in Northern Iraq is one of the latest additions to Rafi.ki, the international online community for schools. The network now stretches across 100 countries with the newest additions coming from Iraq, Cote d'Ivoire and El Salvador. 

The Department for Children, Schools and Families is starting an initiative to teach primary schools students as young as five years old about the works of William Shakespeare.

Teachers and parents across the country will be able to request support and training on how to help school children access the internet at home for learning, from a new foundation to be set up by Becta.

A new national anti-knife crime website and series of practical toolkits for local campaigners was launched today by Home Office Minister Meg Hillier, as part of the Government's It Doesn't Have to Happen (IDHTH) anti-knife crime campaign.

This summer, GapGuru, the India gap year specialist, is looking for 30 more inspirational teachers to work with underprivileged children in India for three weeks over the summer break as part of ‘Travelling to Teach' Summer Holiday Programmes for Teachers‚ an exciting initiative aimed at teachers across the UK.

A major new study by the Institute for Child Health gives new evidence supporting this by showing that children with mild autistic traits, not severe enough for a diagnosis on the autistic spectrum, are more likely to experience the sorts of behavioural, emotional and social difficulties we see in autism. 

Off-site construction specialist and Portakabin subsidiary, Yorkon, has completed a striking new school building for one of Britain's oldest schools -Christ College in the Brecon Beacons National Park.

Flu is a significant public health problem, it is associated with higher general practice consultation rates, increased hospital admissions and excess deaths. 

The ‘Classroom Voting' system is a powerful interactive teaching aid for use in all levels of education. It can be run entirely with the provided software or with independent applications such as Microsoft Power Point. All types of multimedia can be incorporated into the presentation including pictures, videos and audio files.

Foremans Relocatable Building Systems, supplier of pre-owned modular buildings, has completed its eighth construction project for Leeds City Council - a single storey training and enterprise centre that forms part of a £20m regeneration initiative spearheaded by the Council.

The team at Market Link integrated marketing agency went back to school after securing a contract to produce the new prospectus for the Sixth Form Centre at Clapton Girls Technology College in London.

Noyna, producer of high quality protective aprons, smocks and overalls is brightening up the Food Technology classroom with the launch of its stylish new apron called:  ‘I love cooking'.

Holland Park Pre-Prep and Day Nursery school has chosen Dorgards to protect fire doors in busy corridors, classrooms and admin offices throughout its elegant 1850's terrace buildings. Dorgards have been fitted to fire doors in busy corridors and classrooms enabling them to be legally held open, allowing an unrestricted flow of pupils and staff using busy traffic routes throughout the day.

As the job market for graduates becomes ever tougher, 2009 will see Doosan Babcock, the leading global energy services company, buck the trend by announcing its largest ever planned intake of graduates. The company will recruit in excess of 60 graduates on its prestigious graduate scheme, offering them a range of opportunities across the business. In addition, Doosan Babcock will take on 18 Trainee Planning Engineers as well as offer 35 undergraduate internships.

Aladdin Knowledge Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALDN), an information security leader specializing in authentication, software DRM and content security, has announced details of a successful project to help the Piggott School to strengthen its IT security and prevent the use of anonymous proxies which had proven difficult to block under its previous content security system

With the recession swinging its scythe through many industries due to the economic crisis, there will be many looking for a change of career at the moment. It is a situation that the Government is looking to make the most of in its bid to attract more teachers. Its latest initiative called Transition to Teaching, is aimed at professionals who could bring their skills and experience in the workplace into schools that are looking to strengthen their links with industry.

There has been nothing less than a revolution in school food and drinks in the last three years since 2006, with the introduction of the ‘School Food Trust' - a major government backed initiative which was originally prompted by Jamie Oliver's attempts on TV to change the way we deliver food and drink in schools.  It has undoubtedly been a positive sea change and one which we support wholeheartedly.

Soft drinks that appeal directly to children are nothing new.  Traditionally these have been about drinks that offer a sweet refreshing taste and a fun angle that stirs the imagination (children's TV characters or inspirational sports stars performing this role in most cases).  For so long this has been the domain of the traditional fizzy drink - canned, carbonated and loaded with added sugars, sweeteners and preservatives.

3G Food Service and Seafood Solutions, distributor of chilled and frozen foods to the food service sector, has added over 100 new chilled and frozen fish and seafood products to its Seafood Solutions range. Full details of the new products can be found in 3G's new Seafood Solutions brochure or online at www.3gseafoodsolutions.co.uk.

Winterhalter's Energy+ warewashers are helping school kitchens save thousands of pounds in operating costs, every year.

The human body is 70 per cent water and the average British body loses around 21⁄2 litres of water per day. Whilst some of this loss is replaced by eating foods containing liquid, we all still need to drink up to 2 litres of liquid a day as all this water loss can affect brain function and when it comes to children, dehydration can affect levels of concentration in the classroom.

The UK is undergoing the most radical overhaul of the curriculum since it was first introduced. Schools are becoming more closely associated with industry in a bid to make our education more relevant to the job market. The idea is to encourage more students to carry on studying for longer by giving them more options, including developing practical skills as well as traditional academic pursuits.

Education Today asks Clare Bourke, Hope Education's Furniture Buying Manager, for her advice on choosing school furniture.

David Bailey Furniture Systems has supplied fitted furniture for TreeHouse's new Pears National Centre for Autism Education, which runs a specialist primary and secondary school for children and young people with autism.

The 2009 catalogue from Gresswell is now available and brings to your desktop 440 colour pages, packed full of of innovative ideas and  products sourced for the library professional.

Gopak's table gets set for fun

Playtime takes to the head of the Activity Table with Gopak's all new product that features the qualities of its acclaimed Contour table - adding three stunning and stimulating visuals for kids.

The teaching of valuable life skills has become a vital part of education for young people today. Teachers, parents and caregivers have begun to recognise that these skills inevitably contribute towards the growth of wisdom in a child - and it is wisdom that will enable the children of today to discern, distinguish and evaluate, guiding them to make the choices which will better serve them in their lives.

That are schemas and why do they matter? This book provides an introduction to understanding and supporting schemas and schema play in young children. Practitioners will find an overview of schemas with guidance on where they fit within the EYFS.

Why is it that, when children play, some behave like butterflies, flitting around among the flowers of the activities on offer, landing for a moment before moving on to the next attractive flower (activity) while others behave with the single minded concentration of bees?

This book draws on the knowledge and experience of a distinguished team of international educationists. Each chapter can be accessed as a resource on a specific topic but the chapters are also grouped into three section to provide an invaluable source of thinking and knowledge from leading thinkers and practitioners in their fields: Perspectives on Education; Supporting the Learning Process; and Teachers and Professional Development.

This book provides a factual and analytical introduction to the systems and processes of multi-agency work with children and families.

This book takes children on a colourful trip through the history of painting with Picasso as guide. It reproduces some of Picasso's most famous works alongside the paintings that inspired them, from Velazquez's Meninas to Manet's notorious Dejeuner sur l'Herbe, exploring why Picasso loved them so much and how he re-created them in his own inimitable style.