Education

Are you as smart as an 11-year-old?

The number of children applying to receive free school meals in Hertfordshire has increased – even though the number of families eligible to claim them has gone down.

A local healer is holding a free online event to help heal the bodies and minds of participants, and the spiritual energies of Chequers.

There are just days to go until the biggest football game of the club calendar - the Champions League final.

Two pupils from Westbrook Hay Prep School in Hemel Hempstead have been selected to play for the England Independent Schools’ Football Association (ISFA) team.

A controversial private school was subject to allegations of sexual abuse going back more than a decade - and the scale of the problem may have been even greater.

While the school’s recordkeeping is strongly criticised in the report, at least two previous incidents are believed to have occurred over the past 15 years.

While safeguarding was first raised as a problem at RSSKL by Ofsted inspectors two-and-a-half years ago, the investigation found that schools bosses “failed to keep records appropriately” until its final 12 months.

Following the suspension of one teacher at RSSKL, parents who were believed to have complained were sent anonymous threats.

The report also makes a reference to drug-dealing at the site, as raised at a meeting of trustees in 2016.

Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley shut its doors last May 2018, following a saga which lasted years.

Earlier this year a former RSSKL teacher appeared before a professional conduct panel for a hearing which saw him handed an indefinite ban from teaching.

Although RSSKL closed 11 months ago, this was far from the end of the story.

Headteachers are asking parents to help buy classroom essentials as they struggle to balance their budgets.

During a three-week hearing a range of allegations were made against Denis McCarthy, relating to six different students.

Denis McCarthy taught at Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley (RSSKL) for 34 years until he was dismissed in January 2017.

A teacher has been handed a lifelong ban from his profession, after it was found his behaviour “amounted to misconduct of a serious nature which fell significantly short of the standards expected”.