The government has announced the distribution of the £600 million of school funding, designed to tackle a shortage of school places in England, announced by the Chancellor in his Autumn Statement. Relocating families with children approaching school age are likely to be watching this news carefully as the money is being used primarily where the government forecasts there will be a shortfall in school places as at 2013-14.

Relocating parents looking to secure a place for their child at one of England’s top state primary schools are willing to pay on average 42% more to live close by, according to new analysis from a property website.

The announcement in yesterday’s Budget that the government will set up a new £100 million fund to support investment in major new university research facilities is ‘good news’, according to UK University groups and think tanks. The fund will allocate its first bids in 2012–13 and will attract additional co-investment from the private sector.

Around 74,000 children have missed out on a place at their first-choice secondary school in England, official figures reveal today.

However, the government are keen to stress that is around 5,000 fewer than last year. Schools Minister, Nick Gibb welcomed the improvement but said that too many (around one in seven) would still have to attend a secondary school this September that was not top of their list.

The statistics reveal the breakdown of the secondary school offers made to more than 503,000 children on 1^st March this year; a date which has become known to parents as, ‘National Offer Day’.

The number of international students choosing to study in Britain is set to rise faster than overseas student enrolments anywhere else in the world outside of Australia, according to a new study from the British Council.

This growth is set against an expected global slowdown in the number of internationally mobile students, and will be significantly smaller than the increasing intake of overseas students experienced by UK higher education over the past ten years.

Chief Inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw told the BBC’s Newsnight programme last night that “standards have stalled” in reading and literacy in England’s schools and that “other nations have being doing better than us”.

Sir Michael, who took up the role of chief inspector in January this year, is expected to highlight the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey, in a speech to teachers today, which showed that the UK had slipped from 17th to 25th place in a world-wide comparison of children’s reading standards.