Currently if you are a university student and living in rented accommodation you can receive a maintenance loan. The councils in UK include this as an income when evaluating a housing benefit claim! I have also found out the even if you do not take out a maintenance loan the council includes it, so a student would have to take one out anyway. This is a loan to be paid back after graduation, not an income.

Daffodils Outdoor Nursery is a family run business which has just registered with Ofsted to provide childcare for children in the Arthingworth and surrounding areas. We are a unique nursery following an outdoor approach to learning and offering something different to families in the area. Someone has put in an application for permission to open a nursery directly opposite ours. It has come to our attention that a previous application for permission to build 27 houses was rejected, and that the change in application to incorporate a nursery is in fact a ploy to gain permission for a housing development. As a brand new business, we do obviously have concerns about the sustainability of two day nurseries in such a small village. But we also have concerns about the increased traffic more housing and another nursery will bring, as well as the change to the village that a large housing development will have. We urge you to please consider the application and the motives behind it, and to consider the detrimental affect it will have on not only us as small family run business that has not yet had a chance to establish itself, but on the beautiful village of Arthingworth as a whole.

Students should not have to have to pay a higher rate than the base bank rate. It is wrong that these rules have were changed , this has been mis sold to students. For students seeing this debt mounting in physiologically oppressive.

Many hours are covered in schools by supply teachers and external agencies who employ the majority of cover staff, can inadvertently create a barrier to connecting good schools to good supply teachers. Examples are supply teachers wear a visitors badge instead of a staff badge, they have no keys to open doors often children can have more access, they have lessons in one part of the school then have to go to the opposite end of the school for the next lesson, often when they turn up late to a class, and have managed to find staff or pupils to open the door, the cover work provided is non existent or inappropriate. Children and staff in general have lower expectations of supply staff and this is counter productive for good classroom management. Supply teachers often have no relationship with senior management or TAs, no real meaningful access to IT system and this and many more challenges are often met by talented NQTs at the beginning of their career with predictable consequences. This could easily be sorted by schools recruiting their own supply teachers as they used to and this would mean schools could use their own part time staff or retired, or left but willing to come in for a couple of days. This in time would improve the quality provision of supply cover and drive up standards. Over my 24 year teaching career I have seen state education improve enormously and this is one of the ways to drive it up further.

Because we have generations of parents and children who are unable to cook and are not aware enough of how to provide healthy and nutritious food to their families, hence the health issues and sometimes misguided use of wages or benefit money on poor quality foods by some parents. It is the responsibility of more than the Education Minister. Jamie Oliver tried hard to help with this but even he needs more support to make it work.

There is a huge difference in each LEA's procedure for children being deferred. Currently, in my local authority, you have to provide evidence that it is in the child's best interest. The only evidence they will accept is proof of medical need. I feel, that as a parent, I am capable of and should be responsible for making that decision for my child. It should be about what is right for the individual child and not about making the council's life easy. Promises have been released in the press but nothing has happened since. Councils are not going to change policy without legislation.

I feel this is important as people needed to be educated on the causes and effects of mental health issues as his could prevent people developing them. I have been personally affect by mental health issues and believe education could of prevented or reduced the severity of them. 1 in 10 children and young people aged 5 - 16 suffer from diagnosable mental health issues, this needs to change and I believe education can help change this. Having experienced the stigma and negative views of mental health issues I do not wish for anyone else to have to suffer it.

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

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.

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.

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