* The Government has bowed to pressure to overhaul a controversial law banning the teaching of Aids and other sexually-transmitted diseases from the science curriculum. The Conservatives introduced legislation in 1993 that schools could only be required to teach the subjects in the context of personal, social and health education lessons, from which parents had the right to withdraw children.
Meanwhile, ministers have also accepted a Liberal Democrat call to tighten up the rules on admissions to city academies, the new state-run independent schools.
