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A 15-year-old youth is facing a life sentence after being found guilty of stabbing a student to death in a row over conkers. The youth was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering architecture student Steven Grisales, 21. Mr Grisales died after he went over to remonstrate with three boys throwing conkers still in [...]

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Some of London’s most deprived children will be damaged further by being struck off the special needs list, a leading headteacher warned today. Children who act as carers, those who are homeless or whose parents have died could lose out on extra support, Jo Shuter, head of Quintin Kynaston school in St John’s Wood, claimed. [...]

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It’s a hairstyle favoured by celebs from Rihanna to Justin Bieber and often copied by their young fans. But a leading optometrist has warned that having a side fringe that falls into the face can cause long-term eye damage. Andrew Hogan told the Australian Daily Telegraph: ‘If a young emo chap has a fringe covering [...]

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Charities, teachers’ leaders and campaigners yesterday condemned plans that could remove thousands of children from the special-needs register. Ministers have announced a series of reforms in the belief that too many children at schools in England have been wrongly labelled as having special educational needs (SEN). There will be a new single category of SEN [...]

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Plans to change the “special needs” system in schools will have a big impact upon teachers like me, as well as millions of pupils and their parents. That said, the system does need an overhaul. Far too many pupils are judged as having “special educational needs” (SEN). Last year, an Ofsted investigation found that one [...]

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Under the biggest shake-up of the system for 30 years, ministers will toughen up rules on the diagnosis of behavioural and learning problems. It follows concerns that schools are abusing the system to disguise poor teaching and climb league tables. For the first time, rigorous screening measures will be introduced to prevent pupils from being classed [...]

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The Government will not ring-fence the £2.5bn a year to be handed to schools for the most disadvantaged pupils to ensure all of it is spent on them, Nick Clegg admitted yesterday. The Deputy Prime Minister said it would be wrong to “micro-manage” every school from Whitehall by dictating how money allocated under his “pupil premium” scheme [...]

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Name: Keepon Big Idea: Keepon is a little robot, developed in Japan, that is used to research childhood communication and interaction. The consumer version, MyKeepon, funds the construction and distribution of Keepons to labs around the globe. Why It’s Working: Keepon’s simple design and mannerisms make it an effective communication tool that doesn’t intimidate kids [...]

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As many as 450,000 children could be removed from school special needs registers because they have been wrongly labelled as requiring extra help, the Government will announce today. Campaigners fear the cuts could leave thousands of children “cut adrift”. One in five schoolchildren in England is on the register. The rules are designed to toughen [...]

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Parents in England are to be given control over their children’s special educational needs (SEN) budgets, allowing them to choose expert support rather than local authorities being the sole provider. In what the government described as the biggest reform of SEN for 30 years, the measures will also legally force education, health and social care [...]

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The primary school was in Surrey, the head teacher recalls, but its catchment area was far removed from the affluent image enjoyed by much of the county. Among the four-year-olds joining the reception class, she had several who had not been toilet-trained. She put it down to inadequate parenting and sent them home until they [...]

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First they blamed the child, then the parents, then even the doctors. A few later pointed to modern life: computer games or too much television. But after decades of work begun by two remarkable British women, we are now closer than ever to understanding that genetics are responsible for the prevalence of autistic spectrum disorders [...]

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These days, work stress, postnatal depression and anxiety are addressed with compassion. But just a few generations ago, the women who suffered from these conditions, were confined to an asylum. The compelling portraits shown here, taken by Victorian photographer Henry Hering in the mid-19th century, have a haunting quality. But apart from the women’s pensive [...]

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Yesterday, I watched the film of Lionel Shriver’s novel We Need to Talk About Kevin with my teenage son. The story of how a mother’s dysfunctional relationship with her son results in a high-school mass murder shocked him into thinking, for the first time, how difficult parenting (as opposed to being parented) can be. “He’s [...]

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A teenage boy is accused of heading a group of hackers who targeted Tony Blair, MI5 and the BNP. TeamPoison claimed responsibility for hacking Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist hotline and posted recordings on YouTube. The 17-year-old was arrested on Friday and police seized all of his computer equipment. He was released on bail over the weekend. [...]

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I.M.writes: I am coming to terms with my diagnosis of terminal cancer and I am sorting out my financial affairs. I wish to leave my wealth divided equally among my four children, but my youngest son lacks full mental capacity. How can I arrange for him to have his share as an income, not a [...]

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David Cameron is planning to stem the tide of child yobbery blighting Britain – by giving families £100 vouchers for parenting classes. Mothers and fathers will be able to collect the free vouchers at some branches of Boots from tomorrow, entitling them to up to ten two-hour sessions on how to bring up their children. [...]

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A schoolboy may never be able to smile again after he was shot in the face by a sniper with an airgun. Jordan Winstanley, 13, was blasted by a gunman hiding in bushes as he walked with friends. The teenager collapsed to the ground with blood pouring from a hole in his cheek. He was rushed to [...]

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Pupils at Nick Clegg’s old school sang Hey Jude during prayers and staged a water fight in a Facebook-organised end-of-term rebellion. Students at the £23,000-a-year Westminster School refused to sing Deus Misereatur during Latin prayers and instead gave a rousing rendition of the Beatles classic. Up to 80 were said to have staged the water [...]

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A pair of teenage twin girls have been banned from a market town for repeatedly causing mayhem over a three-year period. The 18-year-old pair are not allowed to enter West Malling’s historic centre after being handed a two-year Asbo by magistrates. Sevenoaks Magistrates court heard that Chelsea Shannon Scott and her twin sister Leonie Vicky [...]

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A popular Mormon ‘Mommy blogger’ who survived an horrific plane crash with 80 per cent burns to her body has spoken about the ordeal – and how she overcame it to give birth to her fifth child. Speaking on the Today show, Stephanie Nielson, who writes about motherhood on her blog the Nie Nie Dialogues, [...]

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An autistic teenager with the mental age of five-year-old was left locked in a school bus alone for 45 minutes after a driver failed to notice that she was there. Ellie Wales, 16, was returning home from school when she was left on board the vehicle at a bus depot in Dormanstown, East Cleveland. Her [...]

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Eleven-year-old Courtney Barnes shows me the patchwork of scars that criss-cross her midriff, pushing her tummy button several inches out of place. Her mother, Juliet, smiles proudly. ‘Brave, isn’t she?’ she says, kissing her daughter on the forehead. Next to her, another mum shows me a picture of her one-day-old son, Leon, lying on his [...]

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Sir Michael Wilshaw, chief inspector of the education watchdog, said disruption during lesson times was often down to the use of mobiles and that the issue had to be stamped out.   In an interview yesterday, the former headmaster revealed a tough new inspection regime would be introduced in schools from next term. Under the [...]

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Pupils face a ban on mobile phones in school as part of a new Ofsted crackdown on classroom discipline. Schools will be penalised for failing to tackle persistent low-level disruption in lessons under a tough new inspection regime being introduced next term. This could force teachers to forbid mobile phone use by pupils – including [...]

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A three-year-old girl suffers from a rare digestive condition which means she can’t gobble down her food – because it could kill her. Milly Williams must carefully chew every mouthful because she is unable to swallow properly and is liable to choke. The condition means it takes her four minutes to eat a single strawberry. Her [...]

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When the school holidays arrive, Andrea Antunes makes sure her son Ruben, ten, has a break — not just from classwork, but from the Ritalin pills he takes each day. Four years ago, Ruben was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a syndrome which causes hyperactivity, restlessness and inattention. His school told Andrea Ruben [...]

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Thousands of households, including families with disabled children, have been incorrectly told they are likely to see their welfare payments cut, charities and social security advisers say. From next year, couples or single parents in England who receive more than £500 a week in benefits will have their payments cut. However, it has emerged that [...]

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Prescriptions for ‘chemical cosh’ drugs to treat hyperactivity have soared four-fold in a decade amid evidence that children as young as three are taking the medication. The number of prescriptions for Ritalin leapt from 158,000 in 1999 to 661,463 in 2010, NHS figures have revealed. Psychologists said they were seeing a sharp rise in the [...]

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Prescriptions of Ritalin for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder have quadrupled in a decade, prompting fears it is being pushed on children at the expense of alternative treatments and without appreciation of long-term effects. Figures released by the NHS business services authority to the Liberal Democrat MP Tessa Munt reveal the number of prescriptions of methylphenidate [...]

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Fertility treatment increases the risk of birth defects in babies, according to the largest scientific study of its kind. Babies conceived by assisted techniques are at least one-third more likely to suffer from congenital problems than those conceived naturally, the new research has found. Birth defects including heart, spinal and urinary tract problems, limb abnormalities [...]

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Research on more than 300,000 babies found those born following a fertility treatment used when men have low sperm counts or motility problems had a significantly higher risk of developing abnormalities than those conceived naturally. Babies born as a result of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) – where a single sperm is injected directly into the [...]

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Poor parenting and weak teaching are driving a rise in the number of children labelled as having special needs, it was claimed yesterday. Many diagnosed as having behavioural problems have simply been brought up with ‘very few books, very poor diet and very late bedtimes’, experts said. It was also claimed that schools were labelling [...]

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Pupils as young as four are regularly being labelled with behavioural problems and learning difficulties as an excuse for a bad upbringing, it was claimed. Almost 1.7m schoolchildren in England – more than one-in-five – currently have some form of special educational needs requiring particular attention from teachers. In some schools, more than half of [...]

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To the outside world, they may look different from everyone else. But for the Johnston family, the only difference between them and everyone else is that they are a little smaller. Amber and Trent Johnson, from Barnesville, Georgia, and their five children are the largest family of achondroplasia dwarfs, with a type of dwarfism that [...]

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A council is having to re-house six families after after a blunder meant their personal details were passed on to a gang about which they had complained. The families were left fearing for their lives after the embarrassing administrative error led to all data on them being sent to each of the gang members. Staff [...]

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A play centre which counts David Cameron, Liz Hurley and Elton John among its patrons has been targeted by burglars eight times in a year. Kids Adventure Playground in Hackney, where most of the children are disabled or have learning difficulties, has been repeatedly ransacked by intruders. Parents of the nearly 200 children who use [...]

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Teresa Atkins first noticed something out-of-the-ordinary when she began taking her son to a “mums and tots” group near her home in Northamptonshire. While other children were happy to stay in the main hall and play as their parents chatted, Jacob preferred to escape the hubbub and sit in a quieter side room where the [...]

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Avery Canahuati was six months old when she died on Monday from a genetic disease called spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). For months, her parents Mike and Laura Canahuati chronicled her life on a blog that is still inspiring millions of people worldwide. When she was born on Nov. 11, 2011, doctors predicted she would not [...]

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Friday Night Lights author, Buzz Bissinger, loves to take a road trip to find inspiration for the stories that so far have won him critical acclaim and a plethora of awards. But an 11-day sojourn in 2007 with his disabled son to all the places they had lived as a family had far higher stakes [...]

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The six-month-old girl with a rare genetic disorder and a ‘bucket list’ blog created by her parents died of complications from the disease yesterday, her father wrote today. Avery Lynn Canahuati was born in November with spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA) and was given only months to live. Her father Mike had chronicled his [...]

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A Chinese boy living behind a hard shell of scar tissue after he was horrifically burned has enjoyed a special treat before treatment to rebuild his face, after donations flooded in from all over the world. Surgery is expected to start in the next couple of weeks and the brave youngster was this week given [...]

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Matthew and Michael Clark have steadily regressed to the point where they now have the mental age of young children and need round the clock care. They were diagnosed with terminal leukodystrophy last year, a condition so rare it estimated that only around 100 adults in the UK are affected.   Michael, 42, served as a [...]

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A Lincolnshire girl who suffered serious injuries at birth and needs 24-hour care has been awarded compensation worth £10.8m. A judge at London’s High Court approved the award to Milly Evans, 11, the daughter of a former Red Arrows pilot. Milly was born at Lincoln County Hospital on 1 March 2001, but later suffered a [...]

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The mothers of a string of babies born with a birth defect on the same Kent street are convinced they’ve found the cause – a banned weedkiller that’s the subject of a legal battle being fought in the US by famed lawyer Erin Brockovich. Across a period of 12 years, at least nine children have [...]

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Parents Mike and Laura Canahuati received heart-wrenching news only weeks ago – that their five-month-old daughter Avery has only months to live. Doctors diagnosed their baby girl with Type 1 spinal muscular atrophy, the most severe kind, and gave her only 18 months to live. Rather than bemoan their tragic circumstances, the young couple decided [...]

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On the night that Jude Richmond and her daughter Millie went missing last March, I received an email from Gloucestershire Police asking me to call them. I read it again to make sure it wasn’t a hoax, then telephoned the number on the screen. The police had found my email address on Jude’s computer. An [...]

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Children from a riot-hit area will be put into US-style summer classes to stop them forgetting what they learned at school the previous term. Disadvantaged youngsters from Edmonton will be enrolled into special lessons to give them a boost before starting at secondary school. The move follows research suggesting that poorer children go backwards academically [...]

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Women who smoke during pregnancy could be more likely to have a child with high-functioning autism, say researchers. ‘It has long been known that autism is an umbrella term for a wide range of disorders that impair social and communication skills,’ said lead author Professor Amy Kalkbrenner from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. ‘What we are [...]

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Facebook has apologised after the social networking giant ordered a mother to take down pictures of her son, who has Down Syndrome. North Carolina woman Diana Cornwell posted the photos of her 7-year-old son competing at a local Special Olympics event on the weekend. When she next logged on, she received messages from Facebook’s monitoring team, [...]

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