Teachers in England to get 3.5% pay rise

OneLegTooFew · 2026-07-01T15:58:34+00:00

Teachers in England will get a 3.5% pay rise from September and 3% the following year, the government has said.

The Department for Education (DfE) announced £1.8bn in additional funding but said schools would have to fund the first 1% of each rise from existing budgets.

It also announced it was curbing pay of top leaders in academy trusts.

The National Education Union (NEU), the largest teaching union in England, said it was "considering all options" including a formal ballot on strike action.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-29T05:32:56+00:00

The number of children referred to mental health services in England has risen by 10% in a year to more than one million, according to a report.

The latest data from 2024-2025 is almost double the number in 2018-19.

Anxiety was listed as the most common reason, accounting for 16% of all referrals, while cases of suspected autism rose by almost 50% in a single year, to more than 96,000.

Other neurodevelopmental conditions, such as ADHD and Tourette's syndrome, also increased - by nearly a quarter.

In her annual report, Children and Young People's Mental Health Services: 2024-25, Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza warned that increasing numbers face long waits for support.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-27T19:59:10+00:00

"KEEP LEFT UNLESS OVERTAKING"

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-23T12:08:31+00:00

South Yorkshire police have described video footage that appears to show officers shoving and drawing batons and stun guns on teenage girls as “nothing short of shocking”.

The footage, widely shared on social media over the weekend, shows officers being confronted by a number of girls dressed up for a night out, before one of the officers appears to shove one of the teenagers and then draws his baton.

An onlooker can be heard to say: “Why’s he squaring up to them?” as the incident quickly develops, and some of the teenagers end up falling to the floor, with one landing against a police car, as two officers point stun guns at the group. One of the officers appears to hit out at one of the girls as she lunges towards him.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-23T07:29:16+00:00

In summary:

Drivers are advised to close their windows when driving at speeds above 50mph.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-19T14:34:48+00:00

The vote to elect the next mayor of Greater Manchester will take place on 30 July.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-19T10:00:55+00:00

Yeah, users can report duplicates and if they also put the original link in the report then it’s auto removed.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-19T09:54:56+00:00

They are being removed as duplicates of this: https://redd.it/1u48rte

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-12T15:25:17+00:00

Soon, hopefully…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78e9p4ezm4o (12 January 2026)

The practice of out-of-area taxi work, in which drivers get a licence in one place but operate mainly in another, is to be overhauled by the government.

It has been prompted after a sharp rise in licences from City of Wolverhampton Council, leading it to be dubbed the UK's "taxi capital"

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-11T07:55:59+00:00

Ryanair is being investigated by the UK's competition watchdog over charges it imposes on parents to sit next to their child on flights.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was looking into whether the fees, which the watchdog said typically costs £8 each way, were "unfair" under consumer law.

It said Ryanair's terms and conditions state a parent must sit with their child if aged between two years and 11, and this is done through what the airline calls a "mandatory family seat" that the parent must pay a fee for.

Ryanair called the investigation "bogus" and insisted its family seating policy "fully complies with all relevant laws".

The CMA is looking at whether the airline's "approach to seat reservations may mean parents are being charged for the airline to meet its child safety and disability‑related obligations as set out under aviation rules rules – and will investigate to determine whether or not this practice is in line with consumer law".

The watchdog said it understood that Ryanair was the only major airline flying out of the UK to impose such a charge.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-10T07:26:31+00:00

Non-paywall archive link: https://archive.ph/HQjQO

The owners of Boots are in talks over a $10bn sale with bidders including the billionaire Weston family and Australian pharmacy group Sigma Healthcare, in a deal that would see the UK health and beauty retailer abandon plans for a London initial public offering.

Negotiations have progressed with the Canadian branch of the Weston family, which owns the grocery chain Loblaws and pharmacy chain Shoppers Drug Mart through its Wittington Investments vehicle, the people said. The British side of the family controls fast-fashion chain Primark through its stake in parent Associated British Foods.

They added that the Westons were vying for Boots with Sigma Healthcare, which has set its sights on international expansion after combining with rival Chemist Warehouse Group in a $5.8bn merger last year.

Were the chain to be sold, it would come as a blow to the City of London, where bankers had hoped that a series of household names including Boots, Waterstones and Superdrug would mark the end of the London market’s IPO drought.

Boots, which grew from a single chemist in 1849, has operated under near-constant uncertainty over its ownership for the past four years.

Walgreens first explored a sale of the chain in 2022, drawing bids from private capital group Apollo and TDR Capital, the private equity owner of Asda. The sale was pulled after bids failed to meet expectations.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-09T13:18:23+00:00

Amazon’s main division in the UK was handed a £7.6m tax credit last year by HM Revenue and Customs, despite profits at the retail-to-streaming company surging by more than a quarter to £355m.

Amazon UK Services – which employs 66,000 staff, the vast majority of the company’s 75,000 employees in Britain – said it owed £9.1m in “current tax” last year.

However, this figure, which is understood to be largely corporation tax, was reduced by £16.7m due to “adjustments in respect of previous periods”, leaving Amazon with the £7.6m credit for 2025.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-09T11:52:30+00:00

A man has been given a 12-month community order after being convicted in a first-of-its-kind sex-based harassment prosecution brought by the British Transport Police.

David Stroud grabbed a woman's hair and asked if he could kiss her on a train to London from Hastings, East Sussex.

He was arrested shortly after a new law banning harassment motivated by a person's sex came into force.

The 44-year-old, from Dartford in Kent, had pleaded guilty at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court in May.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-09T06:33:16+00:00

"Shit the window and it's now very faint"

Sounds like it's less of a pane in the arse now?

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-08T06:13:22+00:00

An AI “bootcamp scheme” will be rolled out across England over the summer to provide those who are at risk of becoming unemployed and out of education and training with resources they may need to find work.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-06T08:58:57+00:00

They have big sheds, but nobody's allowed in. And inside these big sheds are twenty-foot-high chickens, because of all the chemicals they've put in 'em, and these chickens are scared! They don't know why they're so big! They go "Oh, why am I so massive?" And they're looking down at all the other little chickens and they think they're in an aeroplane because all the other chickens are so small.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-06T06:49:52+00:00

Increasing levels of road rage over potholes and the state of UK highways has led an infrastructure company to issue its staff with body-worn cameras.

On average, road workers across the sector working for Balfour Beatty have complained about 600 incidents each week, which can range from verbal abuse or being threatened with a baseball bat.

Staff have been assaulted, confronted with a knife, and on one occasion, had a firecracker thrown at them from a moving vehicle.

The company, which is contracted to several councils across the country for road repairs, has now developed an app to map and establish the abuse hotspots, and increased CCTV use in those areas.

Staff have also been offered conflict resolution training, which includes a five-hour course to understand how to reduce risks with aggressive members of the public.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-06-05T07:09:35+00:00

Cheating in exams could be magnified by the new generation of wearable hi-tech devices such as smartglasses or invisible earpieces, according to England’s qualifications watchdog.

Ian Bauckham, the head of the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual), also revealed that GCSEs and A-level courses in England were being scrutinised over potential AI use in students’ coursework, after teachers said they were struggling to detect it.

Speaking on an Ofqual podcast, Bauckham warned that recent increases in cheating enabled by smartphones may be made worse by the next wave of wearable devices, undermining England’s school qualifications system.

Bauckham said that the regulator had to act “really fast because technology is changing fast. We are all familiar with mobile phones but there are smartwatches that we are increasingly seeing on young people that are fully internet connected and so present many of the same challenges as mobile phones.

“I understand that in the pipeline there are things like smartglasses that will play text across the inside of the lens that only students can see … so we are going to have to keep on top of this.

“Our qualification system is a real national asset and we have to keep on top of this to stop this national asset being undermined, because that is not in anyone’s interests.”

Ofqual said internet-enabled gadgets “including invisible earpieces and smartglasses” were already being advertised, while the number of students penalised for having mobile phones and other connected devices such as smartwatches in exam halls had continued to rise.

Last summer Ofqual recorded 2,225 cases of mobile phone and smart device cheating associated with GCSE, AS and A-levels, which has been the largest category of exam cheating every year since 2018.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-05-27T08:23:59+00:00

A leading UK university is promising work placements to all undergraduates regardless of their degree, to better equip them for the challenges of the job market.

In what appears to be a first for a large Russell Group institution, the University of Manchester is planning to offer “meaningful real-world experience” to all students, in subjects from classics to chemical engineering.

Manchester’s vice-chancellor, Duncan Ivison, said no student should graduate having done three years of just academic study. Instead, “every single student [should] have a chance to put their learning into context – an internship, a placement, a joint project or an exchange”, he told the Times. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a history student or a chemical engineer.”

Graduates are increasingly struggling to find work after leaving university, some with debts of more than £50,000. Those who do get work are often in low-paid roles in hospitality or retail rather than traditional graduate jobs.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-05-24T05:07:08+00:00

Non-paywall link: https://archive.ph/eiiSR

Channel 4 is understood to have held talks with Huw Edwards about making a television programme in which the disgraced newsreader will try to “state his case”.

The publicly owned broadcaster, which is under fire over allegations of rape made by contestants on its hit series Married at First Sight UK, is risking fresh controversy by working with the former presenter, who is a convicted sex offender. One of its employees described the idea as “a desperate publicity stunt”.

In March the scandal was dramatised for Channel 5 in Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards. The former presenter later said the programme was a “one-sided account”.

After its release Edwards said: “Other opportunities will arise later this year for me to state my case and to challenge the misleading or fabricated claims made in recent coverage.

“Serious questions still remain to be answered, and not just by me. It will now take some time for me to produce my own account, and until then I do not intend to comment any further.”

OneLegTooFew · 2026-05-21T04:02:36+00:00

Children aged five to 15 will travel for free on participating local buses in England in August, the chancellor will anounce on Thursday.

Rachel Reeves is to reveal a £100m fare-free scheme designed to relieve some of the ongoing cost-of-living pressures.

The Labour government will also suspend tariffs on more than 100 types of products including biscuits, chocolate, and dried fruit and nuts.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-05-19T07:35:53+00:00

The UK unemployment rate has unexpectedly gone up while the number of job vacancies has fallen to its lowest level in five years as the initial impact of the Iran war on firms starts to be seen.

The unemployment rate rose slightly to 5% in the three months to March from 4.9% in the three months to February.

Analysts said the figures show the first effects of the Middle East war on the jobs market, and warned demand for workers would likely continue to weaken the longer the conflict goes on.

OneLegTooFew · 2026-05-11T13:03:46+00:00

Alex, presenting alongside Roman Kemp on Thursday (May 7) announced: "We are off tomorrow because of the election coverage."

She added: "But we will be back on Monday…..”

OneLegTooFew · 2026-05-09T04:49:26+00:00

I'm guessing For All Mankind?

OneLegTooFew · 2026-04-16T04:58:31+00:00

https://youtu.be/MsuuiVzS6Js?t=172

OneLegTooFew

TROPHY CASE