UK News 04-02-2005 who: Chief Inspector of Schools David Bell what: Says English schools have not dumbed down when: Wednesday snippet: Ofsted`s annual report made disappointing reading with one in ten schools failing to meet targets for improvement and 332 on "special measures" by the end of the last school year. But Mr Bell insisted that people who complain about falling standards are not recognising the progress made by less academic students. "We have moved from a system that educated a few superbly and the rest indifferently to one that is attempting to educate everyone very well," he says. In other education news, school standards minister Stephen Twigg pledged to a conference of specialist sports schools in Telford that every child will have the chance to play up to five hours of sport a week by 2010. And education secretary Ruth Kelly announced plans for thousands of "sin bins" to detain children after school if they repeatedly disrupt lessons. The Telegraph`s Julian Ryall reports from Tokyo, where a new ad campaign by Nestlé has convinced teenagers that Kit Kat bars will help them pass exams and The Evening Standard says "a row over badgers has threatened plans to expand a world-famous London ballet school". [... more]

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