School nurses dish out pill to girls, 13

The Sun

- Girls as young as 13 are being given the morning-after pill at school. Nurses dish out emergency contraception to teens at lunchtime “drop-in” clinics. And it has emerged the meds are being prescribed to young girls without their parents’ knowledge at seven Dumfries and Galloway secondaries.

Osborne’s pound;10 billion welfare cuts mean no housing benefit for school- leavers

The Times

- Young people who have never worked will be denied housing benefit under George Osborne’s proposals to cut welfare spending by pound;10 billion. Mr Osborne asked: “Is it right that school-leavers should be able to move directly from school to a life on housing benefit without finding a job first?” Housing benefit could be limited to people over 25.

Taxpayers subsidise pensions of private school teachers

Sunday Herald

- The public purse is subsidising the retirement nest eggs of teachers at the country’s most elite schools. Teachers in local authority schools pay their pension contributions into the Scottish Teachers’ Superannuation Scheme. However, despite it being a public sector scheme, STSS also takes in the pension contributions of 3,441 private school teachers.

Deprived hit most by music charges

Scotland on Sunday

- Children from deprived areas are missing out on music lessons because of the cost of tuition. A new analysis of Dundee primaries has found that those who attend classes in affluent areas have a far greater chance of learning to play an instrument than their counterparts in impoverished districts.

Under-threes should not watch TV, says study

The Guardian

- Doctors and government health officials should set limits, as they do for alcohol, on the amount of time children spend watching screens - and under-threes should be kept away from the television altogether, according to a paper in the influential medical journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood, published on Tuesday.