A new internet watchdog has been launched to help protect children from "harmful" web content, such as cyber-bullying and violent video games.

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety (UKCCIS) brings together social networking sites and technology firms.

It aims to teach children about web dangers, target harmful net content and establish a code of conduct for sites featuring material uploaded by users.

Gordon Brown said the move was a "landmark" in child protection.

‘Minimum restrictions’

The prime minister said the growing importance of the internet in young people’s lives meant the task for government and society was to strike a balance between safety and freedoms on the web.

"The challenge for us is to make sure young people can use the internet safely and do so with the minimum of restrictions but the maximum of opportunities," he said.

He went on to say the internet offered "a world of entertainment, of opportunity and knowledge" to children.

"But just as we would not allow them to go out unsupervised in playgrounds or in youth clubs or in swimming pools, so we must put in place the measures we need to keep our children safe online," he said.

Mr Brown added that the responsibility for protecting children from online danger lay with the whole of society.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, also at the launch, said: "We are determined to do all we can to ensure that the internet environment is safe for children to use."

The council, which will report to the prime minister, will have a membership of more than 100 organisations, including technology companies such as Microsoft and Google, websites such as Facebook and mobile phone companies such as O2.

They will work together to create a child internet safety strategy to be published next year.

The strategy will:

• Establish a public awareness safety campaign
• Establish measures to protect children and young people, such as taking down illegal internet sites
• Promote responsible advertising to children online
• Establish voluntary codes of practice, with an an examination of how websites handle videos or messages posted by users.

The move follows a government-commissioned report by psychologist Tanya Byron earlier this year, which called for the setting up of a child safety council, as part of a drive to protect children using the internet and digital technologies.

‘Path-breaking’

Mr Brown praised Dr Byron’s report and her efforts in bringing the diverse organisations together as one council.

"This is the first in the world. It will be path-breaking and already I have been talking to prime ministers in other countries who are interested in this," he said.

John Carr, from UKCCIS, told the BBC the council offered a last chance for the online world to police itself.

"There are continuing levels of anxiety amongst parents, teachers and so on, about kids getting access to material they really shouldn’t be seeing on the internet.

"If the internet industry doesn’t respond and do this - clean up its act on a voluntary basis - they’re going to get legislation and compulsion."

But Camille de Stempel, policy director of AOL Europe, which owns social networking site Bebo, told the BBC the industry was already doing a lot to protect children. 

A Roman Catholic school’s decision to prevent girls receiving the cervical cancer vaccine on its premises was "disappointing", a health boss said.

Governors at St Monica’s High School in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, said they had concerns about the possible side effects of the injections.

The head teacher of the school said he could not comment on the decision.

Dr Peter Elton, the borough’s director of public health, said the governors’ concerns were "not justified".

The vaccine gives immunity to key strains of the sexually-transmitted Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), responsible for 70% of cervical cancers. Experts believe it could save hundreds of lives in the UK each year.

It is given in a course of three injections over six months and is being offered to all year-eight girls.

Dr Elton said schools were the best places to immunise children because when parents have to make special arrangements uptake was often lower.

"It is very important that we have the maximum number of children vaccinated against HPV, that all girls get vaccinated," he said.

"The way we can get the most done is by having them at school, so we are naturally disappointed when we can’t go into a school to vaccinate girls.

"They [the governors] recognise it as a very effective vaccine but they have these other concerns and we think they are not justified."

Governors at St Monica’s - which has 1,200 pupils - have sent a letter to parents outlining concerns about possible side effects.

It states: "We do not believe that school is the right place for the three injections to be administered.

"Therefore, governors have taken the decision not to allow the school premises to be used for this programme."

Although some religious groups are opposed to the vaccine because of fears it may encourage promiscuity, the governors make no moral objection to the programme.

In its advice on the HPV vaccine, the Department of Health said it had undergone rigorous safety testing as part of the licensing process.

A daily dose of computer games can boost maths attainment, according to a study carried out in Scottish schools.

Learning and Teaching Scotland - the main organisation for the development of the curriculum - analysed the effect of a "brain training" game.

It also found improvements in pupils’ concentration and behaviour.

The study involved more than 600 pupils in 32 schools across Scotland using the Brain Training from Dr Kawashima game on the Nintendo DS every day.

The project followed a pilot study in Dundee last year.

LTS worked with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education and the University of Dundee to see if the pilot results were replicated on a wider scale.

Improved scores

A group of pupils played the game, which included reading tests, problem-solving exercises and memory puzzles, for 20 minutes at the start of their class for nine weeks. A control group continued their lessons in a more traditional manner.

The pupils were tested at the beginning and then the end of the study.

Researchers found that while all groups had improved their scores, the group using the game had improved by a further 50%.

The time taken to complete the tests also dropped by five minutes, from 18.5 minutes to 13.5 minutes. The improvement in the games group was double that of the control group.

Less able children were found to be more likely to improve than the highest attainers and almost all pupils had an increased perception of their own ability.

The study also found that it made no difference if the children had the game at home and noted no difference in ability between girls or boys.

It found improvements in absence and lateness in some classes.

Derek Robertson, LTS’s national adviser for emerging technologies and learning, said the results offered the first independent, academic evidence that this type of computer game could improve attainment when used in an educational context.

He said: "Computer games help flatten out the hierarchy that exists in schools - they are in the domain of the learner as opposed to the domain of the school.

"This intervention encouraged all children to engage and get success in a different contextual framework; one in which they don’t know their place."

Parents need lessons in how to cope with their children’s unruly behaviour, new guidelines on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) say.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) says drugs such as Ritalin should be avoided - and must not be given to the under-fives.

Teachers would also benefit from training to recognise and help children with this condition, it adds.

Any primary school class is likely to have a child with ADHD, experts say.

Most of the estimated 365,000 children in Britain with ADHD receive no treatment at all.

But of those who do, most - about 37,000 - are prescribed stimulants like Ritalin (methylphenidate).

Children with ADHD have extreme difficulty sitting still, learning or concentrating.

At school they may find it hard to keep friends and suffer from bullying because of their behaviour. Looking after affected children can be exhausting for parents.

Parenting classes

The guidelines, which cover England, Wales and Northern Ireland, say parent training and education programmes should be offered as a first-line treatment for ADHD, both for pre-school and school age children.

The programmes teach parents how to create a structured home environment, encourage attentiveness and concentration, and manage misbehaviour better.

Drugs remain a first option for children over five and young people with severe ADHD, say the guidelines, but only as part of a comprehensive treatment plan that includes psychological and behavioural interventions.

Dr Tim Kendall, a consultant psychiatrist from Sheffield who is joint director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health and helped draw up the guidelines, said: "There is an over-reliance on medicines.

"Quite commonly, people tend to revert to offering methylphenidate or atomoxetene. When they do that it’s not always because there’s a good balance of risk and benefits. It’s because the child has got what appears to be ADHD and that’s what’s available.

"Its easier to prescribe a drug when other options like parent training programmes are not available."

Dr Kendall said it was important to diagnose ADHD correctly, rather than label all bad behaviour as ADHD. The symptoms of ADHD persist in all settings - both at school and at home - and cause real impairment.

Andrea Bilbow, chief executive of the ADHD charity ADDISS, welcomed the NICE recommendations but questioned how helpful the parent training programmes would be to parents.

"Parenting programmes are extremely important, but they need to be specific for ADHD.

"The ones that NICE are recommending were designed for the parents of children with conduct disorder, which is completely different from ADHD," she said.

The Scottish InterCollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) is rewriting its guidelines on ADHD diagnosis and treatment and will take the NICE guidelines into consideration.

Their new guidance will come out in the first half of 2009.

All primary school pupils are going to be offered free school meals in a pilot scheme in two areas of England.

In a third area, means testing for free meals will be altered so that more pupils qualify.

The government, education authorities and primary care trusts will share the £40m cost.

A number of areas have already tried a variety of similar ideas. Unions have pushed for universal entitlement, with a cost estimated at £1bn a year.

The Scottish government is about to decide whether to give free meals to infant pupils, after a year-long pilot in five areas.

England’s national trial scheme would start in a year’s time and run for two years, with what ministers say would be a rigorous evaluation.

This would look at the benefits in terms of increased uptake of healthy meals and children’s behaviour, obesity and general health and well-being.

It is not yet known which areas would be involved but the trial would be funded to the tune of £10m apiece by the health and schools departments, who want to see matched funding from local authorities and primary care trusts.

Feeling the pinch

In July, union delegates at Labour’s National Policy Forum in Warwick are believed to have tabled an amendment calling for free meals for all.

Labour MP Sharon Hodgson - inspired by what she had seen in Swedish schools - wrote in the Fabian Society magazine: "All parents are feeling the pinch and universal free school meals would ease the pressure on purse strings at home and, eventually, in the Treasury."

She said: "Serving up a free healthy lunch in every school would bring benefits to the nation’s collective health, educational attainment and environmental credentials."

The biggest experiment so far in England was in Hull, which offered a free breakfast, lunch and afternoon snack for every primary school child for several years.

The Labour council’s scheme was stopped by the incoming Liberal Democrat administration, although it is now reported to be having a re-think.

Officials at the Department for Children, Schools and Families say there was little formal evaluation of the scheme although teachers claimed that children concentrated better in class and were more engaged with lessons.

Feasibility study

It saw about 65% of children taking school meals, compared with the current national average of 43.6% - which includes some 20 areas where no school meals are provided at all.

Liverpool City Council is studying the feasibility of providing a free school meal to every primary school child, in collaboration with the local primary care trust.

Across England’s primary schools, 15.9% of children come from homes poor enough to qualify them for free meals at present.

Scotland’s trial - which began a year ago in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, Fife, East Ayrshire and the Borders - is being independently evaluated, with a report expected soon.

If this is positive, the aim would be to provide free school meals to all pupils in classes P1 to P3 from August 2010.

The Scottish Government has also promised to offer free meals to all primary and secondary school pupils with parents or carers in the lowest income brackets.