News Round Up
KIDS today!
The Independent says that a survey by the Halifax reveals that children and teenagers are receiving the most pocket money on average since 2007.
Apparently the typical weekly amount being handed out to eight-to-15-year-olds by their parents and grandparents is £6.50, a 52 pence-a-week increase on a year ago.
The survey also reckons that there has been a rise in the proportion of children receiving pocket money over the last year across Britain as households ease their purse strings, from 77 per cent in 2012 to 84 per cent.
And a story in the Daily Mirror reports that one in 10 children is given their own mobile phone at the age of five.
According to a poll by uSwitch, parents typically give youngsters a handset at 11 as they start secondary school, but 9% provide them for infants barely out of nursery, quoting the child's safety as the main reason.
A spokesman for uSwitch said: “As well as arming kids with mobiles for emergencies and peace of mind, I’d imagine many parents bought their kids smartphones just to stop them commandeering their own when bored.” 1,420 parents were contacted and children’s average phone bills were £11 a month.
A report in the Daily Express cheekily suggested 'sat nav error' as the reason that a dolphin swam 30 miles up a river and ended up a city centre.
The dolphin was spotted by walkers in the River Dee, half a mile from the centre of Chester and it is thought that it swum into the river estuary from the Irish Sea while chasing fish and was then carried inland by the tide.
Stephen Marsh, from the charity British Divers Marine Life Rescue, said: “Reports from the public said it was swimming and clicking quite a lot, so it was probably feeding. Unless it got into difficulty we didn’t need to intervene.”
It used to be one of Britain's most popular holiday spots but Skegness in Lincolnshire has now been classed as the most deprived seaside resort in the country in a report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The Independent story says that the town has been hit by the effects of a rise in cheap foreign package holidays and an ageing population.
Local councillor John Byford said: “Opportunities around here are few and far between. There’s no industry. People like it that we don’t have the fast motorways, but that’s also a problem because it means we don’t get the industry.”
Another story in The Independent listed the top 10 most unusual place names in the UK with Splott in Cardiff coming out as number one. Second was Pity Me in County Durham and third, the Bat & Ball railway station in Sevenoaks.
A leading headmaster has told the Daily Telegraph that children will be turned off Shakespeare after being “force fed” plays such as The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth at secondary school.
Tim Hands, the Master of Magdalen College School, Oxford, claims that the Government's new National Curriculum will take a “backwards step” by increasing the number of compulsory plays by the Bard that pupils must study between the age of 11 and 14.
He added that pupils were best taught Shakespeare by learning about his language and dramatic techniques before moving on to one play at GCSE level.
“Too much specification and too much Shakespeare – particularly too early – will hold back pupils, not liberate them.”
The Guardian quotes a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank which says that compulsory first-time voting is necessary to ensure turnout gap between young and old does not get larger
One of the authors of the the report, Sarah Birch, said: “First-time compulsory voting could well be very effective in engaging young people in politics. There are many other things that young people are required to do, not the least of which is go to school.
“Adding just one more small task to this list would not represent an undue burden, and it could well help to reinvigorate democracy.”
New research claims that British seaside piers are under threat from rising maintenance costs and rocketing insurance bills.
The Independent says the People's Piers report by the trade association Co-operatives UK, suggests that too many piers are trapped in a cycle of neglectful ownership with only periodic attempts at conservation.
Seaside piers remain as popular as ever, with six million people a year visiting them, according to the research.
Reference lists:
The Express(www.express.co.uk)
The Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk)
The Independent (www.independent.co.uk)
Daily Mirror ((www.mirror.co.uk)
Daily Telegraph (www.telegraph co.uk)