According to the Daily Express London's Hackney City Academy, due to open next September, will not have lockers and only a few textbooks. Instead students will use pdf copies of texts which the school claims they will access using computers or mobile phones. Two factors have influenced the decision: cost of text books and the damage caused to the spine by overloaded rucksacks. Presumably a risk assessment has been done to evaluate the likelihood of pupils developing RSI in their texting thumbs and eyestrain.

In another story carried by several papers Charles Clarke has called for classrooms to be issued with sturdier chairs. Research has revealed that today's pupils are an inch taller and somewhat heavier than those of 40 years ago. Unfortunately furniture has not followed suit.

Charles Clarke - photo by Kit Logan
(Creative Commons Licence: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitlogan/2556442874/)