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* Fruit juice will be banned in schools. The DfE has announced new standards for school meals designed to increase nutrition and reduce salt and fat content. The standards include; limits on cakes, cheese and fried goods like chips, an increase in high fibre foods, vegetables and pulses, as well as a ban on juice and nuts. For the first time all standards will also apply to school breakfasts and menus and prices will have to be published online. These standards will be especially challenging in the ‘grab and go’ format in which food is generally served in secondary schools and consequently there will be a phased roll-out. Meanwhile, a review of the free school meals programme in London found no impact on attainment but very positive impacts on family income and stress as well as more students eating healthily and together. The report identifies positive peer pressure encouraging students to make healthier choices about what and how they eat. This is encouraging but the new standards will challenge schools to provide food that students will eat in spite of the gap between what is served and what is familiar.

* What if we banned setting? Writing in the TES last term, David Hatchett, CEO of Anthem Schools Trust argues that, based on his research with students, setting has a very negative effect on the self esteem and the progress of students in lower sets. James Marsh concurred that the positive impacts of a no setting policy in schools in the south west of England was very significant. Hatchett concedes that setting helps teacher workload, an important consideration in any decision, but argues that this is not a good enough reason to set when weighed against the negatives. But this is an issue which presents very differently according to where you are. Ben Christophers identifies the compounding of disadvantage for some students, e.g. economic disadvantage, low social capital and low expectations influenced by family or geography. Meanwhile, Charlotte O’Regan of the Sutton Trust shares, ‘Best performing schools have the fewest disadvantaged pupils’ meaning that schools experience a wide variation in the range of students they educate and therefore a wider variation in the complexity of issues to address.

* Teachers do not get time off for running trips. When Teacher Tapp asked teachers whether they got the time back from taking trips outside schools hours, over 90% of secondary and 70% of primary teachers said no. This is probably not news to most people but perhaps the real concern is the compounding of expectations and impacts this is having on different parts of the system. A survey into Initial Teacher Training says providers are struggling to find mentors because teachers cannot cope with the additional work. As we have discussed previously, AI may help in this but Kornferry suggests that there are issues here too, the adoption of AI has not reduced workload where companies are not hiring and learning to use AI is creating additional work. Based on his own experience, Paul Collin suggests that one solution is to share simply the fact that you are facing challenges without passing on the details, may be enough to relieve stress simply because you have shared your burden. This chimes with Louis Valentino’s suggestion that in a time when teachers are very aware of trauma informed practice for students, healing leadership of staff may be necessary to take account of their trauma too.

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