I feel this is important because it could save lives and encourage young people to join the medical profession.

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.

Currently only Secondary Level Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics teachers are on the Shortage Occupation List which exempts foreign nationals from outside the European Union from working without restriction in the UK. A £35000 minimum has been imposed on teachers of all levels from outside the Euro-zone no matter their qualification or current status in the UK. Teachers up and down the country are retiring in droves as the baby boomer generation reaches the end of their working life. Those teachers left are facing a crisis of under staffing being made worse by the governments failure to secure foreign teachers who train within the UK and often practice here. The standard of teaching in most schools up and down the country is suffering thanks to shortages which could easily be lessened with the help of international teachers. My partner who is fluent in English and qualified at one of the most respected universities in the world has been denied her Visa meaning she will have to seek work elsewhere. She would have taught for decades, filling one of the thousands of job shortages up and down the country. One class a year will go without her passion for the job and the same is true for countless others who have been turned away during the worst teaching crisis in UK history.

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.

Bullying is defined as any unwanted and harmful verbal, physical, psychological, sexual or social act committed by an individual or group, as well as any real or perceived threat or imbalance of power. In the UK 50% of young people have bullied another person, out of half of all young people 30% of those bully others at least once a week - and as a result of bullying 29% self harmed, 27% skipped class, 14% developed an eating disorder and 12% ran away from home. These statistics are far too high, I'm passionate about this because when I was younger I got bullied and I developed an eating disorder but I didn't know then how frequently this happens. If you report bullying to a teacher you're supposed to feel safer and that they CAN help you but what if those teachers are being told to keep bullying 'under wraps'? How can young children feel safe being at School when the very teachers that teach them are getting told to keep the bullying at that School quiet? I'm a mental health blogger and an anti bullying campaigner, if you tell someone high up like a teacher or a headteacher that you know someone is or that you're getting bullied you EXPECT a change to happen. Not to feel like you're in the wrong and you shouldn't speak up. Please do NOT let another child go without the help and care they need. Nobody needs to suffer in silence.

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,

I'm concerned about the candidate Amanda Speilmans experience and business interests in Academies and Qualifications is not wide enough to support, care or protect all the different aspects of Ofsteds remit. The Education Select Comittee had this to say amongst other concerns : "While Ms Spielman, through her work at ARK and Ofqual, has gained experience of secondary education, she did not convince us that she had a clear understanding of the other aspects of this complex role, such as: early years; primary education; children’s services; child protection; looked-after children; special educational needs; further education; and the educational support role for which local authorities are inspected. We did not leave the session feeling that she was prepared for the vast scope and complexity of this important role. Notwithstanding our views on the candidate, we have been concerned for some time about the lack of expertise on children’s services amongst Ofsted’s senior management, particularly as Ofsted does not currently have a permanent director of children’s social care. Ofsted’s social care work is currently overshadowed by that on education. In context of recent high profile failures in children’s services over recent years, it deserves a higher profile and is an issue on which strong leadership from Ofsted is needed." These are important recommendations and should not be discounted!!!

Over the lifetime of the Hub, students developed and led their own sustainability projects through our WHOLE EARTH? Fellowships Programme, helped local enterprises recognise and develop their sustainability potential in the Green Impact Enterprise project, reviewed the university’s focus on sustainability in the study programmes working as Sustainability Researchers in the Education for Sustainability initiative, and worked on a number of other projects such as Grow At Home and Behind Your Screen. The Hub provides a great example that illustrates the institutional responsibilities and provides a programme that helps utilise our knowledge, skills, creativity and passions to act responsibly and as active, engaged citizens. The proposed closure of the Hub takes away this opportunity that helps not just the students on many different levels, but also the University, the Students’ Union and the wider community. We also have a crowdfunding page for anyone who would like to help keep the Hub alive - we would be so grateful for any donation, big or small. https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/sustainability-hub