Parent Pages information for families

It was one year ago today that our car was speeding to the maternity ward of Homerton hospital in Hackney, east London. In the car were me and your mum Bridget; in Bridget was you. I remember how you arrived. It was past four in the morning and Bridget had been pushing for more than [...]

Read the full story

Freedom of information requests have revealed that pregnant women may not have been given all the facts before taking an experimental treatment to prevent female fetuses from being masculinised as a result of a rare genetic disorder. Research has provided some evidence that dexamethasone, a drug normally prescribed to relieve inflammation, can prevent girls with [...]

Read the full story

Not every PE teacher understands every sport. Some sports, such as hockey, may appear too complicated to teachers, who are consequently deterred from teaching them, according to England Hockey. “Hockey is sometimes seen as a technical sport because of all the rules,” Holly Woodford, the organisation’s development director, said. “People do not always understand why [...]

Read the full story

A child rapist has been targeting French campsites popular with British holidaymakers. The sex attacker has struck seven times in recent weeks in the picturesque Ardeche region, in southern France. The victims have all been girls aged between seven and 12, who have been molested or raped in their tents at night during the past [...]

Read the full story

A mother who made a promise to name all her children after her husband, Walter, ended up living to regret it – after having 15 sons and daughters. When Brazilian Erotides Brandao got pregnant for the first time she decided to call the girl Walterlucia in homage to the baby’s father. But Walter liked the [...]

Read the full story

This weekend all eyes will be on London, but I for one won’t just be watching the Olympics. Instead, all my attention will be focusing on a crucial meeting that will bring together world leaders in science, business and development with government representatives. They will be brought together by David Cameron to talk about one [...]

Read the full story

The family of a two-year-old girl found dead in a swimming pool in Spain said today: “The brightest light in our lives has been switched off” as it emerged relatives had battled to revive her. Isabella May Crump was found in the water at her great-grandparents’ villa in the Costa Blanca region on Wednesday afternoon. [...]

Read the full story

Four-month-old Aalihya Jordan-Fellows suffered a fractured skull and died after being thrown into her cot by her uncle, Jason Roberts, at her home in Kings Heath, Birmingham, in December 2008. Roberts, 25, was jailed for manslaughter last year but cleared of murder after a jury heard he had been “stressed and frustrated” because the baby [...]

Read the full story

Mel Stuart, the director of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, has died aged 83. His family said he died at his Beverly Hills home after suffering from cancer. He began his career mainly directing documentaries. The 1971 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s book was Stuart’s second feature film. He was nominated for an Oscar in [...]

Read the full story

Pupils as young as 14 are being given breastfeeding lessons as part of a GCSE. The teenage students in Merseyside have been taught how to express milk in a bizarre lesson involving puppets and knitted breasts. Now health bosses want to roll the scheme out further. But the lessons risk incurring the wrath of those [...]

Read the full story

My 22 year old daughter, who has just completed her first year of teaching, recently applied for a credit card – and was refused.  As the only credit she has ever had is a student loan, this was of concern to her. She subscribed to Experian to obtain her credit record, which proved that there [...]

Read the full story

A top barrister who left his judge partner for an Oxford graduate 50 years his junior has claimed he has won the approval of his new lover’s mother. Anthony Arlidge QC jilted Constance Briscoe, 55, who famously wrote her memoir Ugly based on the neglect and cruelty she overcame during her upbringing, after 12 years [...]

Read the full story

He may not be the obvious subject for the prize piece at an urban art auciton in California, but auctioneers have estimated that Banksy’s black and white stencil of AA Milne’s cuddly creation could fetch a sum of £51,000. The 2003 stencil will go on sale at Bonham’s urban art sale in Los Angeles on [...]

Read the full story

A boy who stabbed his foster carer to death after he was grounded has been detained for seven years. The 14-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, attacked 34-year-old Dawn McKenzie at a flat in Hamilton, on 24 June 2011. She bled to death after being stabbed 10 times on the head and body. [...]

Read the full story

A close friend’s daughter spent her gap year teaching in a charity school for primary-age children in Mexico. “The children thought I had travelled there by donkey. I had done Spanish GCSE alongside my A-levels but I ended up teaching them Spanish as literacy levels were so low.” She lived with a local family. “Their [...]

Read the full story

When Francesca Pitcher’s reptile-mad daughter Claudia begged her for a spooky-themed birthday party, she knew exactly how to make the day extra ssspecial. So the 37-year-old, from Maidstone, Kent, did what any mother would for their little girl… and decided to bake a birthday snake. She spent three days whisking, beating and carving delicate sponge [...]

Read the full story

The Prime Minister insisted that in order to build on the Olympic legacy it was necessary to improve the culture around sport in school and society, rather than focusing solely on money and targets. In a series of morning broadcast interviews, he refused to restore funding for school sport partnerships, which linked state pupils with [...]

Read the full story

A little boy wrote a heartbreaking letter begging his father not to hurt his mother anymore – after watching him kick her on the floor 20 times. Stephen Carter, 36, broke his estranged wife Amanda’s arm in the vicious beating after downing 10 pints of beer while babysitting their seven-year-old son, Oliver. The traumatised youngster [...]

Read the full story

As the colonel’s wife meandered across the sitting room of our Army bungalow in Nigeria, our African Grey parrot watched her beadily. The woman came to a halt in front of Polly’s cage, and Polly, tilting her head to one side, looked up and — in fine imitation of my mother’s voice — said: ‘Hello.’ Our visitor’s face [...]

Read the full story

Some school inspectors in Wales have not been paid for inspections carried out over the last year, the BBC understands. They were working on a freelance basis for EPPC Severn Crossing, a company run by former Labour MP Gwynoro Jones. According to accounts, the company has debts of £180,000. Estyn, the Welsh government’s education inspectorate, [...]

Read the full story

Last week, 9-year-old Jack Ariola Erenberg went swimming in Lily Lake near his home in Minnesota, trying to escape the summer heat and blow off steam before the start of hockey camp. Sometime, while he was in the water, a horrific brain-eating amoeba embedded itself in his head. The disease is so rare that only [...]

Read the full story

A woman has won a six-figure sum at the High Court over the physical and sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather as a child. The victim, now in her 40s, was awarded damages and interest totalling £470,000 by a judge in London relating to abuse in the 1970s when she was [...]

Read the full story

A Metropolitan Police officer has denied arranging to meet a ten-year-old boy for sex over the internet. PC Christopher Exley, 32, who served in the elite Special Operations Division, was allegedly caught in an undercover sting on December 5 last year. It is claimed he told the boy – who was in fact another police [...]

Read the full story

Five people are facing trial in China for illegal organ trading and intentional injury after a student sold his kidney to buy an iPad and iPhone. The 17-year-old nearly died after the operation to remove one of his vital organs, which he reportedly sold for the equivalent of around £1,900. The defendants include the surgeon [...]

Read the full story

A scramble for university clearing places is expected next Thursday as a result of a government shake-up of the system. For the first time, universities will be allowed to offer extra places to students who have achieved two A grades and a B pass at A-level when the results are announced on Thursday. University academics [...]

Read the full story

The Tory leaflet-deliverer in me almost wishes for a rerun of the Mayoral election. The Boris vs Ken final bout, a tight-run match back in May, would, if it were repeated next week, more likely resemble Britain’s Nicola Adams vs China’s Ren Cancan in the women’s boxing. Certainly the gold medal for the political Olympics [...]

Read the full story

Sarah Stevenson was the one martial arts athlete that those outside the niche world of the foot and the fist had heard of. She had inched her way into the mainstream when she became Britain’s first ever taekwondo Olympic medallist at Beijing. Her bronze inspired many — including Thursday’s 19-year-old British gold medallist Jade Jones. [...]

Read the full story

The chairman of the London 2012 organising committee, Lord Coe, has warned that the current generation of parents are likely to be the first to be fitter than their children. In a plea to politicians to capitalise on the success of the London 2012 Olympics, he implored them to recognise the complexity of the issues [...]

Read the full story

Now is the time for students taking up places at university this autumn to suss out which bank account will best suit them through the financial rock climb ahead. It is far better to take your time during the summer break to compare what different banks have to offer than to make a rushed decision [...]

Read the full story

Jake Butler runs the UK’s biggest independent student money site, SaveTheStudent.org. Here is his in-a-nutshell guide to student loans. For the full picture, download an 80-page e-Book called The Essential Student Guide To Finance, free from the site. • The maximum amount universities can charge for tuition fees in 2012 is £9,000. That’s a three-fold [...]

Read the full story

The A-level results will be the first step to university for many young people – and the start of financial independence. But there are 10 tips that every 18-year-old should be armed with before they start in October: Banks are not your friends This is the top tip from consumer campaigner Martin Lewis, founder of [...]

Read the full story

“Five Years Ti-i-ime,” my nine-year-old son is showing Noah and the Whale chords on an air ukulele to sixtysomething Liverpudlian Jack. Both play real ones back home. “Santia-a-go!” They change the words to match the moment and Lucas’s demonstration appears to be winning Jack round. He is sceptical about our presence here. We’re in the [...]

Read the full story

As my son and I fall over the lip of the half-pipe and experience a moment of freefall, I let out an involuntary cry. Then I relax as gravity returns, swinging us from one ramp to another until we finally slow to a standstill. Wow! Quarter-pipes, half-pipes and super-pipes have long been an attraction of [...]

Read the full story

When I heard my old English teacher might be coming to a school reunion, I was horrified at the thought of him, all over again. I was 14 years old and good at English, although I never felt marked out for preferential treatment. I clearly wasn’t one of those girls who blossomed early; straight hair, invariably [...]

Read the full story

A mother whose toddler son nearly died while battling cancer has slammed ‘sick’ trolls who put cruel taunts about him on the internet. Julie Wagland, from Lowedges, Sheffield, was targeted by members of a Facebook page entitled ‘dead baby jokes’ after she posted on the site to say she was offended by the nature of [...]

Read the full story

Joachim Fest was the editor of Albert Speer’s correspondence, as well as the author of an early biography of Adolf Hitler and the definitive account of the last days of the Third Reich. But if his subject matter was challenging, then he had a personality to match. Not only a noted historian, he was a [...]

Read the full story

For years they dreamed of selling up and moving to a place they considered a glorious secret: the eastern Algarve. Hallie and Tim Robinson, from London, viewed it as one of the world’s hidden gems – a place of salt pans and sand dunes, vast white beaches, wildlife-filled nature reserves and colourful ferries seemingly taking [...]

Read the full story

Britain’s poster boy diver Tom Daley scraped through the preliminary round of the men’s individual event this evening placing 15 out of 18 competitors. Languishing in 25th place just before his final dive, Daley pulled off a score of 84.15 on his last attempt with a reverse 3 ½ somersault tuck. He ended the session [...]

Read the full story

Every pupil in Britain will be expected to play competitive team sports under plans to be outlined by David Cameron tomorrow. The Prime Minister is to reveal the primary school National Curriculum will be rewritten this autumn to ensure all pupils play proper sports. The move will end the culture of ‘prizes for all’ which [...]

Read the full story

Thousands of sixth-formers with good grades face missing out on degree courses as leading universities shut their doors to applicants who achieve less than AAB at A-level. Students receiving their results next week can expect a ‘two-tier’ clearing system with an abundance of places for those with top grades and from outside the EU but [...]

Read the full story

My father’s car is marooned in a quagmire, miles up a dirt track in remote Berkshire countryside. Dad stands beside it, having abandoned the fruitless task of exhuming it from its boggy grave. He is beaming. It is my 12th birthday and he has contrived this adventure as a special treat for me. He has [...]

Read the full story

Until this week, Gary Jones had never been to watch his daughter compete in taekwondo. The prospect of seeing his eldest child, Jade, 19, get kicked in the head for trophies was ‘too scary’ to see. But on Thursday a very proud – and sometimes still scared – Mr Jones was feet away when she [...]

Read the full story

Competitive team sports will be made compulsory for all primary school children in England, Prime Minister David Cameron has said. A draft new curriculum this autumn would require participation in sports such as football, hockey and netball. Mr Cameron has been urged to set out how he intends to secure a sporting legacy from the [...]

Read the full story

Tom Daley, who for so long has been a delight of the sporting nation, was last night fighting not just for his Olympic life but his status as an authentic contender for the highest prizes of his sport. It was as though he was in the dock rather on top of a diving platform. He [...]

Read the full story

Fans of mid-century furniture might find it hard to hold on to their purses in Jay and Jade Blades’ showroom. The whitewashed space above the couple’s furniture restoration and upcycling workshop, in High Wycombe – once the epicentre of British furniture manufacturing, with great homegrown firms including Ercol, G-Plan and Parker Knoll based in the [...]

Read the full story

This is me aged 12 at my mixed comprehensive, Maelor, near Wrexham in North Wales. I was going through a chubby phase and was bullied a bit as a result – nothing major, just snide remarks, but at that age you hate to stand out. I was only about 5ft 4in then, and by 17 [...]

Read the full story

Put out the bunting, crack open the beers, stand there in the kitchen smiling from ear to ear, because he’s home – our student son is home and the family is together again. And after supper, after the washing up is done, the others – his younger siblings – drift off to watch television, and [...]

Read the full story

Summer fruits have to be among life’s greatest sensual pleasures. And one of the joys of having a young baby in the house is poking delicious little slivers of whatever is ripe into her mobile, responsive mouth, then watching her squirm and kick with pleasure. She, the three-year-old and I gorge together in sticky abandon. [...]

Read the full story

Children as young as eight are loaning their pocket money to their cash-strapped parents, a study has found. Some 58% of eight to 15-year-olds surveyed by Halifax said they worry about the state of the family’s finances, showing how the intense pressure on household budgets is affecting young people. Almost a third (31%) of 1,132 [...]

Read the full story

My father’s body is in the dementia ward of a nursing home in Cornwall, being washed and sung to, fed and dressed. I don’t know where his mind is. That mercurial, original, perceptive mind I always respected. It’s ebbed away. But everything else tangible that remains of him is locked in a filing cabinet in [...]

Read the full story