Free speech is under threat It must be defended. If you agree, this is the time to join us. Enjoy four months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. |  | It’s that time of year again, as children head back to the classroom. But Ofsted’s suspension of four-grade ratings has removed a key reference point for parents when it comes to picking schools. To help fill that gap, The Telegraph is pleased to launch our new tools to assess schools’ performance.
See which local schools may be best for your family:
The best primary schools near you ➤
The best secondary schools near you ➤
The best sixth forms and colleges near you ➤
We used publicly available data to rank schools across nine categories. In doing so, we found some very interesting – and alarming – trends.
Schools in constituencies represented by Reform MPs are lagging dramatically behind those governed by any other party, with fewer than one in 10 receiving a “very good” rating.
At every level, white working-class children are struggling to keep up and this will present a unique policy challenge for Nigel Farage, Reform UK’s leader. In comparison, Labour and the Tories are evenly matched after Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide victory flipped a slew of Conservative heartlands.
Overall, the Greens lead the way, thanks to having control of affluent urban cores and well-off countryside areas. Schools in their constituencies benefit from the smallest class sizes, with just 23 pupils on average.
Schools in Reform constituencies stand out for a different reason – more than a third of their headcount is eligible for free school meals.
The stark differences in the quality of schooling across the country mean the choices facing parents are even more difficult. Being able to assess your options accurately is more important than ever.
Dig deeper into the subject here ➤ |  | Charles Hymas Home Affairs Editor | Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, will have the task of settling Labour MPs when they return to Parliament today after a summer dominated by criticism over the small boats crisis and asylum hotels.
Ms Cooper’s message to the Labour troops will be that her medicine of “sustainable and workable” measures will succeed: August boat crossings are at their lowest since 2019 thanks to the hard graft by the National Crime Agency targeting people-smugglers; fast-tracked asylum applications and a streamlined appeals mechanism will help shut migrant hotels by 2029; and the one-in, one-out deal with France will bear fruit.
The big question is whether this “steady as she goes” message will assuage public doubts. Which is why Ms Cooper will also open up a new front in cracking down on loopholes that have allowed tens of thousands of refugees’ family members to come to the UK on a free ticket without any checks on whether they have the funds to support themselves.
In a world where “two-tier” justice is a de rigueur accusation in politics, the Home Secretary will point to the unfairness that other Britons are required to have a joint income of £29,000 before they can bring their foreign partners to the UK.
In comments last month to The Telegraph, she said that this unfairness was part of the “broken” family reunion system inherited from the Tories. After a year in power, however, there is only so long that ministers will be able to continue to rely on blaming the failings of the last government.
Refugees face crackdown on bringing family members to Britain ➤
The ‘ludicrous’ migrant family rule pushing councils to breaking point ➤ | | Michael Mosbacher Deputy PM’s rise from disadvantaged beginnings proves what is still possible in Britain Continue reading ➤ Iain Duncan Smith Britain is heading for a 1970s-style fiscal meltdown Continue reading ➤ William Sitwell RIP Costa Coffee, now let’s bury Starbucks Continue reading ➤ | Get full access Unlock Britain’s best news app and our award-winning website Enjoy four months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. | | Sebastian Faulks photographed for The Telegraph at home in west London | | Best known for Birdsong, his novel about the horrors of the Battle of the Somme, Sebastian Faulks has now written a memoir. He talks to Peter Stanford about his despair at current political leaders, how we need a grown-up conversation about immigration (“How many economic migrants do we need? Why do we need so many?”), his traumatic time at boarding school and why giving young people “diagnostic labels” isn’t helping our mental health epidemic. Continue reading ➤ | | | Since Donald Trump singled out India with an unexpectedly draconian double dose of tariffs earlier this month, he has reportedly phoned Narendra Modi on four occasions to seek a compromise. Each time, the Indian prime minister refused to pick up. As Adrian Blomfield and Samaan Lateef report, Mr Modi is busy taking someone else’s calls. Continue reading ➤ | | | When our 73-year-old reader came into an inheritance, she decided to pay off a chunk of her mortgage. When she made what she thought was an overpayment, though, she was left with £16,000 in a separate Lloyds account, charging her interest of almost 8 per cent. Can Katie Morley figure out where it all went wrong? Continue reading ➤ | | | ‘Lady C’ in the grounds of Highclere Castle | | If you’re a fan of Downton Abbey, you’ll recognise Highclere Castle as the majestic dwelling of the Crawley family. What does it really take to keep a hulking pile like this alive in the present day? Here, its real-life chatelaine, Lady Carnarvon, reveals the secrets to its survival – involving a line of Highclere-brand gin, linens and cigars. Continue reading ➤ | | | Douglas Adams debating metaphysics. Fyfe Robertson on life in 1970s Britain. An intrepid reporter going starkers to investigate nudist beaches… The BBC Archive’s YouTube channel is a gold mine of weird and wonderful clips. Gareth Roberts’ evening spent watching the channel showed how far the corporation has fallen. Continue reading ➤ | | | Granola appears at first glance to be a healthy breakfast option, but not all brands of the cereal are equally good for you. Ceri Roberts spoke to leading nutritionists and dieticians to reveal the truth, and rank the most popular supermarket options. Read more here.
Below are two more articles I hope you will find helpful today: |  | Matt Pritchett | Hello,
I’m back! Thank you to all of those who sent in their favourite cartoons. It’s been a real treat reading about which ones you remember, especially those that I don’t! One of you even wrote in to mention a cartoon from the early 90s, which was both lovely and made me think I clearly peaked 35 years ago.
We’re back to regular proceedings now though, so if you have a caption idea for the cartoon above, please submit it here.
As always, I’ll be answering your questions on the Your Say page, so please enter some for me!
PS For an inside look at what inspires my weekly cartoons, you can sign up for my personal subscriber-exclusive newsletter here. | Your nightmare flights Every weekday, Orlando Bird, our loyal Reader Correspondent, shares an off-piste topic that has brought out the best of your opinions and stories. Orlando writes...
It was early January, and my wife and I were on a Hebridean island. Yes, that’s our idea of a holiday. The trouble came when we needed to get home. The weather was so bad, even by local standards, that leaving our cottage was an act of deranged recklessness. Leaving the island? Out of the question.
Some days later, we got word of a flight. The four-seater plane didn’t inspire much confidence, but we were told that the pilot was an expert in reading the sky and dodging storm clouds, lightning and airborne cattle. So it was surprising when we proceeded to fly straight into a blizzard. My wife still maintains that the 45 minutes spent circling, waiting for a safe moment to descend to the mainland, were the worst of her life.
It could have been worse, though. In response to our article on nightmare flights, you’ve been sharing your experiences.
Richard Tarr recalled: “I was on a British Caledonian flight from Lagos to Gatwick via Kano in the early 1980s. As we were on short final, we flew through an intense cloudburst, touched down and aquaplaned off the end of the runway into the jungle. Fortunately there was no fire, though the aircraft was destroyed; it transpired that there was only one Ford Transit available to disembark the passengers from the wreck. I spent the next hour in the galley with the cabin crew polishing off the complimentary drinks.”
Brendan Harris added: “I once took a flight on Katale Air, the freight arm of a Zairean coffee company. They had an old modified 707, with all the seats ripped out to convert it to a freighter. I sat on the wet coffee sacks all the way from Goma to Kinshasa. I also recognised the pilot – he had been in the bar of my hotel the night before knocking back whiskey.”
Finally, Simon Teager told how, in the 1980s, he was in Malta, “sitting on a plane with my wife and kids ready to go, when I got called to the front and escorted at gunpoint by police on to the tarmac, where a bomb-squad dog had indicated that my bag was suspicious. I had to open it in full view of everyone on the plane. Of course there was no bomb, but two weeks of dirty clothes were scattered across the ground. Then I had to repack and re-board – a final walk of shame.”
Send me your stories here, or head to our Your Say page, exclusively on the Telegraph app. | Plan your day with the telegraph | Set your alarm to catch up with journalists on the Your Say page and listen to their analysis on our latest podcasts.
| From Westminster to Washington… Follow trusted coverage of the stories that are shaping our world Enjoy four months’ free access to The Telegraph. Cancel at any time. | | Find as many words as you can in today’s Panagram, including the nine-letter solution. Visit Telegraph Puzzles to play a range of head-scratching games, including PlusWord, Sorted, and Quick, Mini or Cryptic Crosswords.
The solution to yesterday’s clue was SCRAWL. Come back tomorrow for the answer to today’s puzzle. | | Thank you for reading. Have a fulfilling day and I hope to see you tomorrow. Chris Evans, Editor
P.S. I’d love to hear what you think of this newsletter. You can email me your feedback here. | |
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