NASUWT annual conference backs plan for staff trained in mental health first aid in all schools and colleges

All school leaders should receive suicide prevention training to help tackle a “mental health emergency” among teachers, under a plan unanimously backed by a vote by union members.

A workforce survey of members of the NASUWT teaching union found some teachers were driven to the point of suicide by the stress of the job.

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Exclusive: Chris Skidmore says restrictions on international students risk a funding crisis

• Analysis: from boom to bust on international students

The Conservative party’s “scorched earth” immigration policies risk UK universities becoming increasingly reliant on students from China to avoid financial crisis, a former universities minister has said.

It comes as estimates suggest 25% of tuition fee income at leading British universities already comes from China.

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In response to Charlotte Higgins’s article on a collapse in arts funding Neil Mendoza says Arts Council England boosts cultural projects across the country; plus letters from Dr Alexis Bennett and Andrew Dailey

Charlotte Higgins makes the familiar charge that “Arts funding has collapsed under 14 years of Tory rule” ( Opinion, 19 March ). Frankly, we are in a different universe from 14 years ago. All government ministers and departments now agree, as Higgins says, “The arts are one of Britain’s strongest suits.” The Treasury has set creative industries as one of five key sectors of economic growth, adding billions of permanent tax relief support to help fund work, from film to orchestras.

During the pandemic, the arts was the only sector to receive its own support package from the £2bn culture recovery fund. The last Arts Council England budget was increased (not cut) , bringing 275 new organisations around the country within its portfolio. Levelling up funds have prioritised further billions in cultural projects. Places such as Liverpool, Bradford, Barnsley, Leeds and Waltham Forest continue to invest in culture – understanding what it means for society. I could go on and talk about the opening of the Aviva in Manchester or the incredible East Bank quarter in Stratford.

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Fundamental restructuring must happen, along with an honest debate about what – and who – higher education is really for

Imagine a beach before the tsunami. Out at sea, the wave is gathering force, yet on the sand people are still sunbathing, blissfully unaware. That’s how it feels, one professor tells me, to be working in higher education. Academics by their nature don’t look outwards much, he argues, so not all have registered the risk to their profession. “But something absolutely dreadful is coming.”

As a scientist working in cancer research at a top British university, he’s not the kind of academic I expected to be worried about the recent nationwide flurry of threatened redundancies in higher education, the scrapping of what, so far, are mainly arts and language courses, or shrill political attacks on supposedly “woke” campus culture . But lately almost everyone in higher education seems jumpy.

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Union says cuts will make the ‘creative powerhouse’ unrecognisable and risk ‘unprecedented industrial unrest’

Staff at Goldsmiths, University of London have voted to strike over plans for an “almost incomprehensible” number of redundancies , a trade union has announced.

More than 87% of University and College Union (UCU) members at the south London institution voted for strike action in a ballot with a turnout of 69%, as well as backing action short of a strike, such as a boycott on marking papers and submissions.

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Union claims up to a quarter of all academic roles at financially pressed London institution face the axe

Plans for mass redundancies at Goldsmiths, University of London, have been called a “horrifying act of cultural and social vandalism” and the “biggest assault on jobs at any UK university in recent years”.

The job cuts, which are now subject to a consultation, are the latest in a series of redundancies at Goldsmiths and elsewhere in the higher education sector, as universities struggle with financial pressures.

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Former schoolboys at the private school gave raw testimonies about abuse meted out by John Brownlee

• ‘Sadistic’ teacher found to have assaulted pupils for 20 years

The enormity of the abuse suffered at the hands of the Edinburgh Academy housemaster became clear when the first witness was asked a simple question about the moment his mother left him alone at the elite private boarding school.

John Graham, now a trim 56-year-old with a goatee beard, was asked: how did he feel? Until then fluent and factual in the witness box, Graham froze. His face crumpled. In that moment, Graham again became the eight-year-old boy who had felt “not good” that day, but with the awful adult hindsight of the abuse he would endure there.

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John Brownlee, deputy head at private Edinburgh Academy, inflicted pain on children as young as eight, sheriff hears

• Beatings, humiliation and a loss of self-worth: how Edinburgh Academy victims were scarred

A “sadistic” deputy headteacher at one of Scotland’s most prestigious private schools has been found to have conducted a systematic campaign of violence and torture against children as young as eight over a 20-year period.

John Brownlee was found by a sheriff on Wednesday to have committed more than 30 assaults after the former Edinburgh Academy housemaster was formally excused from trial due to his advanced dementia.

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How did a small, relatively poor country become an educational powerhouse? Creativity, autonomy and a deep embrace of the digital age

Today’s subject in the sci-fi class at Pelgulinna State Gymnasium is Blade Runner. Thursdays are “voluntary” lesson days, where students at this upper secondary school in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, can choose from a range of subjects; others taking place today include a rights and democracy course, programming and creative writing in English. The seven 17-year-old students in the sci-fi lesson have just finished watching 30 minutes of the film and are preparing to discuss it when I sneak in at the back, switching to perfect English for my benefit. “We’ve talked about Jungian archetypes, persona and the superego,” says Triin, one of the students. “It has been really helpful for me to understand the different aspects of being human and how to create deeper characters.” They’ve also studied Brave New World and 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the few minutes I am there, the students touch on US history, child labour, empathy and more. “I have so many questions,” says Triin.

Me too. How did Estonia, a small country that is relatively poor compared with most of the EU, become an educational powerhouse? In the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) rankings, which measures 15-year-olds’ abilities in maths, reading and science, the top spots are held by a handful of Asian countries, but Estonia ranks next – the best in Europe. Its teachers are highly educated, the focus is on social and personal skills as much as academic learning and the typical curriculum is packed with a wide range of subjects, from robotics to music and arts. British politicians are taking note. In 2022 Labour’s shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, visited to see what Estonia is doing right.

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