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The Guardian - UK

National

Judy Friedberg

Cribsheet 02.11.10

Michael Gove listens to applause — Demon of the Lower Sixth. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Not again, Gove Minor. The prefects have had to step in this time to extricate him from his latest scrape.

I mean, it's one thing the headboy putting him in charge of bringing back Latin, and Milton, and 1066 and all that, but quite another giving him responsibility for the important stuff. Who on earth thought he should be allowed to make the rules about school sport?

He's only gone and abolished the whole kitty. Now the prefects will have to find a whole new way of bringing it back, but making it look different.

Andy Burnham, shadow education secretary, says the decision to cut sports funding has sparked a "remarkable grassroots revolt".

"In the last 24 hours we have heard a huge change in tone on this issue from both the prime minister and Michael Gove. It seems they now admit they got it wrong and that school sports partnerships have been a success."

And Estelle Morris says she fears Gove's schools policy of devolving power threatens the whole education service.

More education news from the Guardian

• Jeevan Vasagar reports that a school is planning to create its own accommodation centre for homeless pupils after discovering that a sixth former had spent four months sleeping rough in a London park.

Jeevan writes:

"The school fears homelessness among pupils is likely to get worse as cutbacks to social services and education spending start to affect them.

"Every sixth former at Quintin Kynaston school currently claims the education maintenance allowance – a weekly payment of up to £30 for poorer teenagers staying on in the classroom that has been scrapped by the coalition."

Headteacher Jo Shuter says:

"We have currently got about 10 students in the sixth form who are living in hostel accommodation, and probably another 30 who are right on the precipice and could drop over.

"Sixteen to 18 is the most vulnerable age. That's the time when kids cope with significant hardship."

Are other schools likely to follow their lead? Jeevan says there's an academy in Kent that is exploring the option.

• We now know that the parliamentary vote on tuition fees will take place next Thursday, and students have called for a mass protest to coincide with it. The authorities at UCL now seem determined to put an end to perhaps the most vocal student occupation of the lot. And if anyone has not yet watched this video of Tuesday's protests, you really should. It certainly upends the idea that only middle-class kids are engaged in the action.

• Newcastle University computer students have made electronic beermats to help shy pubgoers break the ice with opposite sex.

Fielding's blog

We know schools hide cheeky pupils from inspectors, but Fielding says it's not just naughty kids who get squirrelled away. One open evening he was put in a cupboard.

Christmas in the classroom

Today we're making Christmas angels out of clothes pegs. Go on, you know you want to.

Education news from around the web

• Allison Pearson went to visit the Cambridge occupation, on behalf of the Telegraph:

"I came away very glad that the young people inside care enough to object. A notice outside their room says that Smoking and Alcohol are Forbidden; but no stimulants are needed. The students are high on righteousness.

"The calm, defeated pragmatism of maturity (and parenthood) is still decades away, and it would be cruel of me to tell them about it now. They will never be this angry again, or this happy."

• The BBC rounds up all the weather-related school closures and asks whether schools really need to shut in the snow.

• Laurie Penny has written an impassioned account of the student protests in her New Statesman blog:

"Sitting on a fountain in Trafalgar square, slurping a nice hot cup of tea in the freezing rain and snow, watching the children's crusade brave the elements and police lines to chant for the downfall of a government it sees as corrupt and illegitimate, I have never felt prouder of my generation."

• Local Schools Network reports on the costs of building a new free school:

"Having axed millions from the BSF programme in Wandsworth, it has come to light that the building for the proposed Northcote free school, Bolingbroke academy, is going to cost £13m! It is clear that the council are supporting affluent parents who don't support existing local schools (only 27% of 11-15 year olds in this area attend Wandsworth state schools) in diverting funding to set up their own school."

Competition

Do you have a clever way of using technology to teach children at your school? Enter the Classroom Innovation awards by sending us a short video of what you can do. There is a primary and secondary category and each winner will get £7,500 of Asus computing kit. Take a look at some of the entries so far.