Sexual harassment in schools is a huge problem. When I was teaching, I often heard boys talk about how girls were "asking for it" and who saw no problem with cat-calling and wolf-whistling. We have a responsibility to make sure all girls can go to school and not face offensive name-calling, groping and unwanted sexual attention. Schools should be held accountable for tackling sexual violence and harassment - and teaching children how unacceptable this kind of behaviour is should be in the curriculum. The classroom is the perfect setting in which to tackle, and put an end to, the toxic behaviours that impact girls every day. But unless it’s the priority of all schools, it’ll always get put to the bottom of the list.

It costs £380 per year per child to travel to school by bus. The council thinks the children that live within a 3 mile radius of the secondary schools could walk. By the time they got to school in wet weather they would be soaked. In low temperatures they could fall on untreated paths and roads. It's a long walk especially after a long day in school. But since the council sees it as a walkable journey each day they allow local bus companies to provide a service at the cost of £10 per week per child. This service should be free of charge. As it is in some other Welsh local authority areas. This school year without any consultation with parents the price of travel increased by a massive 21% per year. The council says it has nothing to do with them. I believe it has everything to do with them when they decide to allow the bus company to charge in the first place. The council should be paying the bus company and providing a free service to the children.

The ACC are pitching to build a new school in Torry when we have a perfectly good school that they have abandoned and left to rot. Instead of trying to find another location in Torry and demolish this one, we need to put the £20 million into restoring this beautiful building and reopening it. The ACC simply cannot keep destroying our heritage.

As parents are being made to support 2 schools and face logistical nightmares up and down the country.

From Monday 1 August this year, students starting university courses in England will no longer be able to apply for grants towards living costs. Grants for students from low-income homes will now be replaced by loans. Previously, students from families with annual incomes of £25,000 or less received a full grant of £3,387 a year. The National Union of Students have said the move was "disgraceful" and meant poorer students would be saddled with a lifetime of debt. The switch from grants to maintenance loans was announced in July 2015 by the then Chancellor, George Osborne, in his Budget. Mr Osborne said at the time that there was a "basic unfairness in asking taxpayers to fund grants for people who are likely to earn a lot more than them". But is it fair that the very MPs who belong to a generation whose further education was largely funded by the tax payer are now denying the same opportunities to learn to the poorest in our society? Isn't it true that we as a society benefit when those people whose studies we've helped to fund go on to bring us innovations as scientists, better health care as doctors, consultants and surgeons, or improvements to industry and infrastructure as engineers for example? To say that we can't afford this investment is ridiculous. If we can afford to invest in a weapon system we've said we'll never realistically use then surely we can afford to invest in our future generations? So please sign to urge the government to think again and return maintenance grants to those who simply can't afford to study without them.

The actions of the NEC are so undemocratic they do not belong in this country. All across society they have excluded members and supports with bitter choices. This cannot be allowed to go on in The Labour Party.

We believe that the DfE is damaging the mental health of children through its excessive testing and is devaluing education by promoting rote learning of age-inappropriate grammatical concepts. If we do not suspend tests this year then we are setting our children up to fail by forcing them to be part of a system that does not consider them individuals, but instead data on a page to be analysed. We are creating children who are stifled and demotivated due to continuous and unnecessary teaching to the test. We are setting schools up to fail and leaving them open to academisation. • The focus on the EU referendum has meant little focus on education – we are about to face the same situation as in 2016 again with our children potentially labelled as failures due to tests which are inappropriate and demoralised teachers forced to teach a curriculum they feel is wrong. • The new tests have been developmentally inappropriate for the age groups involved. Children have been set up to fail. Thus supporting the Government’s plans for academising all schools. 47% of children ‘failed’ Yr 6 SATs this year. • English children are the most tested in Europe. • Mental health experts and teachers agree that excessive testing is harming our children. • Testing has become ‘high stakes’ due to pressure on teachers as tests are linked to performance related pay. • The testing structure in 2016 was filled with flaws including leaked papers. • The NAHT have called for a ‘complete overhaul’ of the current system, supported by a motion carried by 99.6% of delegates. • The NUT described the situation as a ‘car crash’. • 97% of teachers surveyed by the NUT agree or strongly agree that preparation for the SATs has had a negative impact on children’s access to a broad and balanced curriculum. • 90% of teachers surveyed think that changes to primary assessment this year have had a negative impact on children’s experience at school. Expressing the damage that the new system has done to pupils, teachers write of demoralisation, demotivation, and physical and mental distress – effects, they predict, will be lasting. We want teachers, unions and mental health experts to be able to work together with the Government to create a curriculum that encourages our children to develop inquiring minds and a love of learning. This takes time... We are very concerned that adequate time has not been taken in the current political climate to ensure another assessment ‘car crash’ does not take place in 2017.

The government’s Prevent strategy, a centrepiece of its national counter-terrorism policy, is stifling the freedoms of children in classrooms across the United Kingdom and is counter-productive. It is leaving a generation of young Britons fearful of exercizing their rights to freedom of expression and belief and is counter-productive by driving children to discuss issues related to terrorism, religion and identity outside the classroom and online where simplistic narratives are promoted and go unchallenged. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQR0QZDPMvU Recent legislation in the form of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places an obligation on public sector workers, including teachers and child care providers to report individuals including children considered at risk of being drawn into terrorism based on their perceived association with non-violent extremism. Yet this obligation is based on a vague definition of extremism that includes opposition to ‘British values’, and a set of prescribed indicators of vulnerability to extremism that include ‘a desire for status’ and ‘a need for identity meaning and belonging’. Children in classrooms across the United Kingdom have been impacted by Prevent. For example, a 8-year-old boy was interviewed, without a parent or guardian present, and ‘cautioned’ for wearing a t-shirt with Arabic writing on it. Since the incident, the child is reluctant to return to school and is experiencing stress related health problems. A 16-year-old student with learning disabilities was referred to Prevent for borrowing a book on terrorism from the school library, and a 17-year-old boy who was questioned by police officers about his political and religious views after he was referred to Prevent for expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people. This 17-year-old student also discovered that the police had collected information on him without his or his parent’s knowledge or consent, and was told that this information would be held indefinitely by the police and may be used against him in the future. Prevent is jeopardising the rights of children in the United Kingdom to freedom of expression and education in the name of counter-terrorism. We’re demanding an immediate repeal of the policy. For more information on the impact that the Prevent strategy is having on children in the United Kingdom see Rights Watch (UK)'s landmark report Preventing Education? Human Rights and UK Counter-Terrorism Policy in Schools http://rwuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/preventing-education-final-to-print-3.compressed-1.pdf

It is important because it is proven to increase the academic performance of students of all ages, increase health and safety,

We have the right to expect that those in government with responsibility for children’s education will take their well-being fully into account when making changes to the education system. It is becoming increasingly apparent that many experts in child development, neuroscience, education, and child mental health have serious concerns that the current education system is unfit for purpose and damaging to our children’s well-being. As concerned parents, carers, teachers, and members of the community, we call on the Department for Education to: - Provide independently verifiable proof that child development, well-being and mental health were taken fully into account and given due consideration during the process of reforming the National Curriculum and testing regime; - Provide endorsements from independent experts in child development, neuroscience, education, and child mental health that these changes are in our children’s best interests and contribute positively to nurturing their education. If these conditions cannot be met and the education system remains open to serious allegations of being damaging to children, immediate action must be taken to make the necessary changes. This petition will be delivered to Damien Hinds MP, Department for Education. Experts who have spoken out against the changes to the education system include: • Professor Mary James, Professor Andrew Pollard, Professor Dylan William – three of the four members appointed to the Expert Panel by the government to advise on the construction & content of the new curriculum, who later distanced themselves from the finished curriculum • Dr Margot Sunderland, Director of Education & Training at the Centre for Child Mental Health • Professor Terry Wrigley, Visiting Professor at Northumbria University & Editor of international journal Improving Schools • Natasha Devon, appointed by the government as Mental Health Champion for Schools, a role which was axed after she criticised current education policies as detrimental to children’s mental health • And many more academics, educationalists, teachers, subject leaders… Follow the campaign and find out more at https://parenteducationhub.wordpress.com/

In the wake of the EU referendum result there has been a massive rise in hate crimes and incidents. Young people ss well as adults have been subject to low level abuse such as colleagues and classmates asking them "when are you going home?" to physical assaults. The DfE have instructed schools to collect this data and schools are sending letters home to parents demanding it with little or no explanation as to why it is required. These actions are causing particular distress to EU citizens living here at a time when they are unsure about their future in the UK. This needs to stop now so EU citizens know that they and their children are welcome in the UK.

This will help decrease the democratic deficit in the UK, and will abolish the argument that 16+ year olds are clueless about politics. Our aims also include to educate the basics of taxing, saving and living well with money, eradicating debt in our future generations lives.