Education research in brief: mindfulness, video games and social mobility in early years

Education research: evidence shows that teenagers who took part in a mindfulness programme increased their feelings of well-being. Photograph: Alamy

Studying mindfulness in schools has been shown to reduce depressive symptoms, lower stress and increase well-being in teenagers, researchers have found.

Academics from the universities of Exeter, Oxford and Cambridge compared results from a cohort 522 secondary school pupils who took part in either the Mindfulness in Schools intervention programme or studied the usual school curriculum.

The programme of mindfulness training consisted of nine lessons given weekly and the pupils were assessed before the intervention and again at both two months and three months after the end of the course. After the course the researchers found strong evidence of lower depression scores and also increased feelings of well-being and lower stress.

The authors are now hoping to build on the study and continue their research looking into how long the effects of mindfulness last and also examining key processes and outcomes.

Video games could be the key to helping more youngsters stay interested in education.

Researchers from Lancaster University's Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) have discovered that basing educational projects around video games can offer disengaged students a bridge to help them rekindle an interest in learning. It may also help to encourage more pupils to follow a career path into the games and technology industry and reduce the amount of teenagers who end up not in employment, education or training (NEET).

The project involved more than 100 children in 15 secondary schools in the Wolverhampton area. As part of the scheme teachers were encouraged to bring together teams of young people to use the PlayStation 3 game Little Big Planet 2 to create new levels that would be published and used by other players.

The relationship between social class and achievement in the early years of schooling has been the subject of a new piece of research.

Researchers from the Institute of Education and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health used data from the Millennium Cohort Study to examine the extent to which social class inequalities in early years' cognitive scores can be accounted for by parental education, income, social resources and parental behaviours.

The researchers found that the links between social class and education on the one hand, and children's test scores on the other, were only very modestly mediated by family social resources and parenting. However, the study found that parents' educational qualifications were the strongest predictors of children's scores. It also found that authoritative parenting and, surprisingly, TV viewing, had positive effects.

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EU graduates' unpaid fees top more than £50m in past five years

The Cypriot capital, Nicosia. More than ￡15m of loans for graduates from Cyprus are not being repaid. Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features

More than ￡50m of tuition fee loans to EU graduates have not been repaid over the last five years, according to the Student Loans Company. The SLC has hired specialists to track down hundreds of overseas graduates from UK universities who have gone off the radar.

More than ￡15m of loans for graduates from Cyprus are not being repaid and the SLC lacks information about where some European graduates are living, as well as whether they are working, in regard to loans totalling ￡41m. The figures are contained in a reply to an Independent on Sunday freedom of information request.

Kevin O'Connor, head of SLC repayment, said "international trace agents" were being used to find missing borrowers. "We are in the process of reviewing accounts of both UK and EU borrowers who are known to reside overseas and are in arrears, with a view to issuing further legal proceedings against those who do not respond to us."

The SLC appointed a UK-based tracing agency for overseas traces and collection in January 2010.

Tuition fees for students in England and Wales are now capped at ￡9,000 a year.

Conservative MP Andrew Percy told the Independent on Sunday: "With British students paying more in tuition than ever before, many people will not understand how it is possible that foreign students from the EU are able to turn up to the UK, run up taxpayer-backed debts and then leave.

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said: "The overwhelming majority of overseas borrowers are honest and want to repay the loans they have received.

"However, all borrowers need to know that they cannot evade their obligation to repay simply by moving overseas.

"We actively trace those in arrears and will obtain court orders in other jurisdictions to require repayment if necessary."

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Headteachers want four years to teach about the dangers of porn

Delegates to the National Association of Head Teachers' (NAHT) Conference in Birmingham warned that children were being stripped of their innocence by material sexually explicit on the internet as well as television, often projected before the 21st of the watershed.

The call came as a survey of parents showed four in 10 want their five years gave lessons on dealing with child pornography, at the same time as they learn to use the internet.

Amanda Hulme, elementary school principal Claypool in Bolton, said "completely inappropriate themes" such as rape, murder, domestic violence, child abuse, self-destructive abuse, bulimia, alcoholism, prostitution and drugs were now being broadcast before the watershed.

Distinguishes Got Talent of Britain, saying it had helped Sandra Broadbent to sing "you were lying there naked ass with a woman between your thighs", 20:10, followed by a chorus of "kisses" my ass.

ITV Emmerdale SOAP also came under fire for allowing a single character Cain Dingle, shouting "I will kill him and slag I catch with ' at 7.20 pm.

On pornography on the internet, Steve Watkins, head of the school of Millfield primary in Leeds, said schools to talk to children of age maternal 'things that shouldn't be there' if one hardware access by mistake.

A survey of 1,000 parents by the NAHT has shown more than four out of five were happy for their children to receive lessons on the dangers of pornography. In addition, 88 percent said sex education lessons should be compulsory in schools.

Parents are divided as to when the lessons should begin, though, with 42% saying five - and six years were in need of guidance. However, more than half (51 percent) felt the lessons should not start until the children were dressed in their teens.

They were United, however, supporting the idea that all facilities offering internet services should have a block by default on pornographic sites, forcing users to "opt in" rather than to "withdraw." 90 percent of respondents agreed.

Russell Hobby, general Secretary of the NAHT, said: "young people should be protected from pornography and children should receive appropriate sexual education and relationships advice."

On violence on television, Ms. Hulme said leaders should "at least fight to keep the basin in place'.

"Perception is the child has already been reduced from 16 to 12 and one-third of those polled [by Netmums] believe that childhood exceeded 10," she added. "How far are we willing to let this go? -eight? six? I already talk to children in year two (six and seven years) on the inappropriate sexual language. This has to stop".

Meanwhile, parents sign children as young as eight illegally on Facebook, said Mr. Watkins.

He revealed that the majority of its 10 or 11 - years (a class of 33 24) had been signed – despite the fact that the rules of Facebook say that they should not do so until they are 13.

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