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A report claims popular faith schools are becoming a means of preserving privilege rather than tackling injustice.

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Schools can tell parents and children to "respect" the school's ethos, under the new admissions code ministers unveiled today.

The revised School Admissions Code lets schools advise parents of their ethos during the application process for school places.

But it bans schools from holding interviews or asking parents to make financial contributions or offer practical support.

Ministers want to encourage schools to develop a distinctive ethos to create a system that offers a wide range of schools and allows parents to make informed choices when deciding on schools.

The new rules will have the most impact on faith schools in England, which are largely over-subscribed.

All admissions authorities have to comply with the legal requirements set out in the new code, which will bind them to consulting with parents and the local community to make sure their proposals meet local needs.

Admission forums should also be improved to be representative of parents and the local area and consider the fairness of that area's admission policies.

Authorities will have to improve the information parents receive on the admissions process and the code prescribes national closing dates for primary and secondary applications in an attempt to create a simpler and more uniform system to help parents.

Children of parents in the armed forces must be given priority over state boarding school places.

The new appeals code will allow MPs and elected councillors to support parents at admission appeals hearing provided there is no conflict of interest.

Ed Balls, the schools secretary, said the purpose of the code was to ensure that parents choose schools rather than the other way round.

"It is my intention that the measures set out in this revised code will ensure parents are listened to and their views shape school policies.

"They will also enable schools to have a balanced and representative intake that reflects the local community and enables them to be a community resource, raising standards in all schools, not just a few."

He said schools were a public service that should give every child a fair and equal chance of getting into a school of their choice.

"Of course, having more good schools in every community is key to this and we are getting closer and closer to making this a reality with the highest number of good schools ever and the lowest number of failing schools.

"The vast majority of parents today are getting their children into the schools they want with 94% of families receiving an offer of a place at one of their top three schools."

The schools minister responsible for admissions, Sarah McCarthy-Fry, said the appeals system was now "even more robust".

"We encourage own-admission schools to contract organisations, including local authorities and religious authorities, to handle their appeals administration – as already happens in many areas.

"This will help to remove a burden from schools while ensuring parents have a fair hearing."

Ministers announced plans to revise the code following findings by the current chief schools adjudicator, Sir Philip Hunter, which showed that half of schools breached it.

Ian Craig, currently acting director of children's services for Kent, will take over from Hunter in April, it was announced.

Balls said: "His wide experience within the education sector will bring new insights to this important role."

The revised codes will come into force in February next year in time for the 2010 admissions round.

• School admissions
• Schools

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Jonathan Romain: The Runnymede Trust is right: faith schools can and should operate without discriminating on the basis of belief

New York Daily News
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A new admissions code for England aims to close loopholes that have allowed some schools to select by the back door.

Far from a day in the library, female students have been having their waists and chests measured in competition for the title of "Miss University London".

Reports suggest that about 400 students flocked to the capital to compete, dismissing the disgust of their protesting peers, who labelled the contest "misogynistic and degrading" and called for it to be banned.

Hundreds of undergraduates apparently aspire to win the student beauty contest.

Demonstrators picketed West End nightclubs this week during heats for the London School of Economics, School of Oriental and African Studies, Queen Mary College and Regent's College.

There are also entrants from University College London and King's College London, suggesting that even the most serious of students are far from put off. Should they be?

University women's officers understandably are outraged. Soas's, Elly James, likens the competition to a "cattle market" with women having to have their waists and chests measured.

But Christian Emile, founder of 121 Entertainment, the company behind the contest, says women find the event "empowering".

Certainly Keelin Gavaghan, the 19-year-old accountancy student crowned Miss LSE, doesn't see anything wrong with it. "We hardly sold our souls," she told the Evening Standard.

A spokesman for LSE said it was up to students what they do in their private lives. Do you agree?

• Students
• Higher education
• Women

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A major reform of the way that NHS hospitals pay for legal liability insurance has led to improvements in patient safety, according to research funded by the ESRC.

The Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP), presents its major conclusions on 24th and 25th November, after nine years of investigations across all sectors of education, from the importance of preschool education to lifelong learning. Funded by the ESRC, the TLRP is the largest research initiative into education related topics ever undertaken in the United Kingdom.

Economics research in the UK is exceptional by international standards, second only to the United States, and thriving. Moreover, UK economics research has high policy impact, based on top-quality applied work and strong relationships between the academic and policy communities.

Professional standards programme falls short of an "A", suggests research.Official professional standards in both Scotland and England which aim to nurture the development of new teachers pay too little attention to what 'becoming' a teacher is really like. New research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), finds that existing standards ignore the emotional, relationship and personal issues which are the real challenge for teachers starting out in their careers, focussing instead on the acquisition of skills and knowledge. Resulting from the study, researchers propose a new model which aims to improve existing standards by capturing the multi-dimensional experience of new teachers.

Government ownership of banks - something unthinkable until very recently for the 'Anglo-Saxon' model of capitalism - became a reality early in 2008. This was a policy response to an unprecedented global financial crisis, aimed at preventing financial meltdown. It succeeded in doing so, according to Professor Panicos Demetriades, an Economist funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) at the Department of Economics of the University of Leicester.

The experience of global crises shows that new guidelines tend to be aimed at the problems that caused the last crisis rather than anticipating the next source of weakness, according to research by Professor Catherine Schenk, from the ESRC-funded World Economy and Finance Research Programme at the University of Glasgow.

Against a backdrop of stories about Britain's "broken society" there are examples of community action bringing positive changes. A new study, funded by the ESRC, centred on one recent example of such community spirit in London, where 'London Citizens' recently fought for - and won - higher wages for some of the city's lowest paid.

The global market in education is changing beyond recognition. Getting to grips with it will be crucial to the UK's status as a world leader

Universities could benefit from the economic downturn as more overseas students choose to study in Britain because of the weaker pound, the British Council will claim today.

International students contribute £2.5bn to the UK economy in tuition fees alone and British universities increasingly rely on that income.

But the credit crunch will mean fiercer competition for students in the global higher education market, today's British Council conference on international students will hear.

However, the council's research, which it will unveil at the going global conference, predicts growth in the numbers of students from India, China and Nigeria coming to the UK to study as a result of the drop in the value of sterling.

"Our baseline forecast estimates a rise in market share for the UK in the forecast period compared with the competitor set of countries, from an estimated 12.5% in 2006 to almost 26% by 2015," the report says.

"This suggests a continuation of the trend since 2000 of a steady increase in the UK's market share. But the major driver of this increased market share in the forecast period is our substantial projected decline in the value of the pound, not only against the rupee but also against the currencies of almost all the competitor countries. We are currently forecasting a 20% depreciation of sterling against the US dollar and a 13% depreciation against the rupee in 2009 alone.

"In relative terms, the pound's expected protracted weakness throughout the forecast period makes a UK education much more competitive price-wise. As the total potential number of international students (to all countries) is set to continue to grow throughout the forecast period also, this results in a potential increase in demand for education in the UK from international Indian students to over 30,000 by 2010 and almost 60,000 by 2015.

"Demand for higher education in India is at a historic high and is forecast to continue growing, founded on rising income levels and a significant increase in the population of the relevant age group," the report suggests.

The percentage of the population of student age is expected to grow 8% by 2015.

Demand for higher education tends to increase during an economic downturn as more people seek to ride out the recession by studying to improve their qualifications and career prospects.

The global higher education market is much more competitive now as the countries from which UK universities traditionally recruit international students have developed their own university systems.

The council's economic forecasting research shows that shifting demographics, price awareness among students and growing opportunities for them to study in their home country may add up to a fall in demand for undergraduate courses overseas.

While demand for postgraduate education is expected to continue to grow, recruiting students at this level can be less cost-effective since they may only stay in the UK for one or two years.

Universities that fail to change their recruitment tactics and the way they operate overseas stand to suffer substantial losses, the council will warn.

Pat Killingley, the council's higher education director, said: "With the economic downturn coinciding with unprecedented change in the multi-billion pound global education market, universities face a unique situation that presents new opportunities and threats.

"To survive and thrive in the new market conditions, it will not be good enough to just provide more of the same.

"Universities that want to emerge big winners rather than significant losers are going to have to change the way they operate overseas."

Martin Davidson, chief executive of the British Council, added: "The UK future economic competitiveness and prosperity will depend on our ability to work internationally and across different cultures.

"International education links provide vital opportunities for students and institutions to build our national capability to develop the skills and knowledge we will need. The best response to the current economic downturn is to invest in these links for the future."

• International students
• Higher education
• Students
• University funding

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Four British teddy bears this week ascended to the outer edges of Earth's atmosphere.

Boldly going where few cuddly toys have gone before, the teddynauts were dressed in special spacesuits designed and made by 11- and 12-year-old pupils from Parkside and Coleridge community colleges as part of a project with Cambridge University's spaceflight student club.

The space mission, aiming to get pupils excited about science and engineering, launched from Churchill College, Cambridge on Monday. From there the four intrepid space pioneers, floated upwards to a height of 30,000 metres with a foam padded box containing cameras attached to a helium balloon.

The teddy bears spent two hours and nine minutes in flight, reaching near space, above 99% of the Earth's atmosphere. They endured temperatures of between -40C and -53C, depending on the effectiveness of their spacesuits. All four landed safely just north of Ipswich to be retrieved by the team of student scientists who had travelled from Cambridge by car, following their progress via an onboard GPS system.

"This was a really fun thing to do. The best bit was when we set the balloon off with the bears," said Aiyana Stead, 12.

Megan Makinson, also 12, added: "It was really fun when the balloon was blowing up. We had to hold it in the freezing winds. It felt like we were being smothered by a giant dumpling."

Teacher Steve Hinshelwood, who runs science clubs at Parkside and Coleridge, said the children had great fun as they tried to turn their original spacesuit designs into something they could actually make.

"Suddenly scientific ideas such as insulation, convection, conduction and radiation became important. Thinking about weight made ideas of buoyancy, pressure and the composition of the atmosphere relevant," he said.

"The need to get the teddies back gave the students a chance to think about computer control and radio communications.

"I don't think that the students realised how much science they were learning – they were just having fun."

• Schools
• University of Cambridge
• Research
• Space exploration
• Higher education

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