Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Morning has broken records
Show’s highest ratings in a decade as Alison & Josie get new travel spot
THIS Morning’s ratings are the highest in a decade as fan favourite Alison Hammond is rewarded with a new travel slot on the show.
Its ratings have soared to 1.2 million, which is up a huge 45% on the year to date so far.
Now Alison has landed a new travel segment on the ITV daytime show with Josie Gibson, in which the pair will seek out the UK’ s quirkiest destinations. Hammond is highly thought of by ITV bigwigs after she did a good job standing in for Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby during the summer break.
Gibson, who won the 11th series of Big Brother in 2010, has also won plaudits for her infectious presenting style.
The new segment, called Josie & Alison – Travel Top Trumps, will be a competition between the much-loved ladies to find the strangest, most exciting places to stay in the UK.
Alison said: “Josie – it’s on! Who doesn’t love a good oldfashioned game of Top Trumps?”
Josie said: “Some may have coined us the better-looking version of Ant and Dec (OK that someone might have been me).” A source added: “Josie’s always wanted to work on This Morning and when she originally got the job she asked if she could be the Judith Chalmers of the UK.”
Holly and Phil return to hosting This Morning today, with Ant and Dec as guests. This Morning is on weekdays from 10am on ITV.
ability to reopen safely. The majority of pupils will be three months behind in their studies when they return, with boys worst hit. Teachers estimate those in the most disadvantaged areas could be more than four months behind pupils in the wealthiest areas.
A Na t i o n a l Fo u n d a t i o n for Educational Research study also found the learning gap between the two groups has widened by 46% since the start of the pandemic.
The Government has provided £650m “catch-up” funding to help close the chasm as well as covering some costs related to an outbreak.
But heads are losing an average £15,915 in income from renting out facilities or cancelled fundraising events. The NASUWT union estimates if schools spent as much as 5% of their funding on Covid costs, they would need at least £2.38billion added d to this year’s £47.6bn budget.
The e Department for Education cation said: “Head “Heads, s, teachers hers and school staff have gone to enormous lengths hs to ensure children can get back into their classes es safely.
“Schools hools have continued to receive ceive their core funding, ding, with this year ar marking the first year of a three-year £14.4bn total cash boost. Schools have also been able to claim for specific exceptional costs such as additional cl cleaning eanin g du due e to con c onf irmed or suspected Covid-19 cases.” c
Gavin Willia Williamson said yesterday: ““I do not underestim underestimate how challenging the t last few months have been but I know how important impo it is for children to be ba back in school.” But the Educatio Education Secretary faces demands to come to the H House of Comm Commons today to say h how he will protect pupils after a string of delays and U-turns.
Labour leader Keir Starmer will call for a “proper plan” from him, adding: “He needs to explain how he will make up for the damage already done, bring pupils up to speed and mitigate against the ongoing pandemic risk.”
With almost all English schools set to be back by the end of the week, heads have been warned to expect unruly behaviour from some pupils after such a long absence.
The DFE admits many will struggle to adjust to routine and discipline.
A study by Parentkind charity found 26% of parents were not planning to send their child to school at the start of term, while 20% are undecided.