01/11/2013 BBC News at Six

The biggest reform to GCSEs in England for a generation, starting

with maths and English. The traditional grades will be scrapped

and replaced by a numbered scale from one to nine. The biggest reform

to GCSEs in England for a The changes will come in from 2015.

We'll be looking at them in more detail. Also tonight: what The phone

hacking trial - the prosecution claims voicemails left by Prince

Harry were hacked by the News of the World. We want is for teachers to

Barclays suspends six traders as an official investigation is launched

into rigging the foreign currency markets. Focus on the core skills.

Coming up on BBC News: Joe Hart is dropped Manchester City.

Good evening. The biggest shake-up of GCSEs in England in a generation.

The main changes are the current eight grades which currently go from

A-star to G will be replaced by grades from 1-9. There will be extra

marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. Sarah Campbell reports.

Challenging, ambitious and rigorous. A description the government has

given to the new GCSE exams. What we want to do is encourage schools and

teachers to focus on core skills which teachers really want. That is

what will help our children get good jobs when they leave school. Back in

1988, the GCSE heralded a shift away from exams to more coursework. It

seems like we have gone full circle, back to exams, but with a different

grading system. What do those who think they who are going to be first

to sit the exam thing? You are more likely to get a better grade because

coursework is more of an individual thing. You have got more time to

revise. You will be more confident in the exams than you would if you

were doing coursework throughout. You have got up your whole timings

Gaul -- your whole time in school aiming for A-star but now they have

changed it and it is completely different. I am not comfortable with

it. The new exams are designed to be more challenging so content will

change as well. In English literature there will be an emphasis

on classic addition of lists and poets. Shakespeare will be studied

but set texts will also include at least one romantic poet and one

19th-century novel. Changes as well to the maths syllabus. There will be

more content, probably requiring more teaching time. Remember these,

formulas will have to be learned by heart. We go back to this poem...

The year after the English and maths exams Orange reduced there are plans

for the rest of the syllabus to follow suit. -- after English and

maths are introduced. Having change can be effective but it is how that

change is managed and the consultation that expose with the

teaching profession is a concern of mine. GCSEs are taken in Wales and

Northern Ireland but these will not be affected. Scotland has a

different exam system. It is only pupils in England who will have to

be prepared for change. Sarah is with me now. Where has the push to

change GCSEs come from? Originally, Michael Gove the

education Sarah Terry wanted to scrap -- secretary wanted to scrap

GCSEs altogether. They have tried to portray this as a new qualification.

The obvious change is the grading. And also the exams which will be

taken in Wales and Northern Ireland. The government says the

reason these are being changed is to make people more employable. On top

of the changes which are happening to new A-levels, the new primary

curriculum and the academies programme, you can understand why

teachers are saying this is more change. Michael Gove's answer is

there is only one chance children have that education and they are

trying to get it right. Thank you. In the phone hacking trial, jurors

have heard how the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson had

told people working on a story about a TV celebrity to do his phone.

Andy Coulson, along with seven other defendants deny all the charges

against them. Tom Symonds reports. Phone hacking, illegal payments to

public officials and a cover-up. Rebekah Brooks is being accused of

being involved in or three. Today, the prosecution set out in detail

the evidence against her and the other defendants, including Andy

Coulson. For the first time, the detail of how the private affairs of

Princes William and Harry were allegedly targeted by phone

hacking. While doing his homework at Sandhurst, Harry left this message

for his private secretary who had served in the SAS.

News of the World's Royal editor Clive Goodman turned that into a

story that the Prince was getting his aids to do his homework for him.

Andy Coulson was aware of how that story had been sourced. The court

heard there was a problem with phone hacking. If stories like this were

challenged, the paper could not get the evidence to back this up because

they had been obtained illegally. The fact they came from voicemails

might be spotted. The prosecutor, Andrew Edith, said important

evidence would centre on e-mails between Andy Coulson and the News

editor Ian Edmondson. They were trying to break a story about Calum

Best, the son of footballer George Best, and they were worried he might

find out and leak it to a rival newspaper.

The prosecution said this was a clear sign that Andy Coulson knew

about and ordered hacking. More evidence to come that MoD sources

were leaking stories for money, including news of the death of

active service personnel. Rebekah Brooks is charged with agreeing the

payments while editor of the Son. It is claimed the legal sources were

paid by cash transfers to branches of Thomas Cook. The prosecution will

continue its case next week. After that the jury will begin hearing

detail in a case which will last five months. The defendants have

pleaded not guilty to all charges. Barclays has suspended six traders

following an investigation into foreign exchange markets.

The bank is one of seven which have been contacted by financial exchange

regulators. They are looking at whether currency markets could have

been rigged. London is the most important hub account for 40% of all

foreign exchange trading. Hugh Pym is in the city. Potentially, this

sounds rather serious? This is an investigation which has been running

for a few weeks but it has hit the headlines this week following the

revelation that Barclays has suspended six foreign exchange

traders. RBS has suspended two. Three other banks have sent traders

home on extended leave. There is no evidence of wrongdoing at this

stage. The investigation is at a very early stage. Regulators are

looking at suggestions that the setting of a key exchange rate every

day at four o'clock was vulnerable for manipulation with dealers trying

to get that fixed at a rate which suited their own trading position.

It affect pension funds, and other investments out there. The city will

hope this will not turn into a repeat of last year's LIBOR scandal

with all those damaging revelations about alleged rigging of interest

rates. Thank you. In the last few minutes, the BBC broadcaster Paul

gamba genie has been arrested following allegations of historic

sexual abuse. It follows revelations following the

Jimmy Savile scandal. Full. Paul Gambaccini is the latest person to

be arrested under operation you chew. We are told he comes under the

category of others which meant he had no link to Jimmy Savile --

operation you to. He spent the day answering questions about historic

sexual allegations. He has been bailed until January. There has been

no statement from him or his lawyer. We have not heard from his agent

either. He has a show on Radio 2 tomorrow which we have been told has

been pre-recorded. We think we will get a statement from the BBC later

tonight. Thank you. Our top story this evening: The

exams regulator announces the biggest reform to GCSEs for a

generation. And she disappeared without trace ten years ago, now

police in Lancashire are two review the case is of 14-year-old Charlene

Downes. Coming up in Sportsday, Kimi

Raikkonen says Lotus have not paid him this season. He has considered

not racing in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has announced it will not split its

business in two as it tries to recover from the financial crisis,

but instead has created a separate internal bank to deal with bad

debts. It will ring-fenced the 88 Ilium pounds worth of bad assets

such as loans it does not expect to be repaid -- 30 ?8 billion. Shares

in the bank fell by 7.5%. Our business editor Robert Peston

reports. The Royal Bank of Scotland, a bank

still in need of mending, unveiling a plan today to quarantine ?38

billion of poisonous radioactive loans with the hope of getting rid

of all of them over three years. Chancellor, given that this ?38

billion of toxic debt is absolutely the most poisonous that RBS has, it

is the stuff they simply cannot shift, wouldn't it be better to

extract it and put it on the taxpayers' balance sheet? The best

advice I got was the internal bank so we are splitting RBS into the

good bank and the bad bank. A new chief executive at RBS, breaking

with tradition. A former deputy governor of the Bank of England

savaged its small business lending. This report is shocking. It says

your people have not got the right skills, the targets the bank set

were inappropriate, there has been fragmentation of the management of

this business, you did nothing right in that area, did you? Five years

ago we were broke. Because you have lent money to the wrong people and

cannot get it back, you tighten an organisation up and that is what we

did five years ago. What is showing in that report is we probably

tightened up too much. We need to get the bank back to normal and how

it works with customers. Chums again, the Chancellor and bank boss

visiting a small business customer, in agreement that RBS should give up

its global ambitions and become focused on being a mainly UK focused

retail bank. Mending the bank is plainly a big job, is there any

chance that we will begin to get some of the ?47 billion that we as

taxpayers have invested in it before the general election? Frankly, I

think it is unlikely that we will be able to sell RBS before the general

election, just because there is a lot of work to be done to make sure

RBS cleans up the mistakes of the past, gets out of its big American

operations and focuses on Britain. Five years of low, RBS was the

biggest ranking the world and the most dangerous to taxpayers' well.

Now just wants to get act to the basics of British banking.

The head of Pakistan's Taliban has been killed in a US drone strike in

the region of North Waziristan. Hakimullah Mehsud, who the BBC

interviewed five weeks ago, was one of the most wanted men. James

Robbins is here. This was a man America had had in its site for the

last few years? That is right. The American government had a

million-dollar bounty on his head. He was responsible for the deaths of

thousands of Pakistanis. The Americans' particular interest in

him was they blame him for the murder of seven CIA employees by a

suicide or murder inside Afghanistan for 2009. It will be a very serious

blow to the Pakistani Taliban. It looks like Taliban sources at have

confirmed he is dead, they are announcing his funeral for

tomorrow. He will be replaced quite quickly. Many of his predecessors

have been killed and that has not been any trouble in finding a

replacement. The Taliban in Pakistan has been responsible for training

many militants which have gone out there, including for Britain. Not

just Washington but London will be quietly pleased by this news if it

is confirmed. Thank you. Ten years ago, a 14-year-old called Charlotte

Downes has appeared in Blackpool. Two murder trials followed. Now the

case is being reviewed. Ten years ago, a schoolgirl vanished

from the streets, never to be seen again. Lee said Charlene was groomed

for sex by older men in Blackpool, then murdered to protect the

abusers. Today, her parents remembered their daughter. They

prayed for answers, and detectives said they are launching a new appeal

to find the killers. We know Charlene was a vulnerable young

girl. She was exploited in Blackpool. The disappearance of

Charlene Downes exposed the darker side of Blackpool. Her family

believe she was groomed by takeaway workers, but new information

suggests a different story. Today, the lease sources confirmed that up

to 100 men from all backgrounds could have abused Charlene. They

said she was exposed to paedophiles from birth. Some were friends of her

family, and one met the 14-year-old on the night she disappeared. All

claims denied by Charlene's family. They say a grooming gang in

Blackpool killed their daughter. My daughter was abused by grooming

gangs. I live to get her killers behind bars, and I pray that one

day, that will happen. Two men were charged with Charlene's murder, a

Jordanian kebabs shop owner and an Iranian, but the courts decided

there was no case to answer. Whoever is responsible remains free. I was

not aware she was sleeping with older guys. This woman says she was

Charlene's friend from school and is also a victim of grooming. How bad

is the problem now? Really bad. Some of my vulnerable friends still do

it. They just go with them for beer and sleep with them. Police believe

someone here knows who killed Charlene Downes. Their message to

them is that ten years on, they are not giving up.

Police investigating the murder of a graduate working as a pizza delivery

man in Sheffield have arrested a 25-year-old man and a 17-year-old.

Thavisha Peiris, who was 25 and from Sri Lanka, was stabbed on Sunday

night. He was working his final shift for starting a new job as an

IT consultant. A lorry driver has been arrested for

suspected dangerous driving following a crash that closed the

M25 in both directions near Potters Bar in Hertfordshire this morning.

The motorway was closed between junctions 24 and 25 after a lorry

overturned across the central reservation. Four people were

injured, with the accident causing long delays.

Firefighters in England and Wales are about to go on strike in a

dispute with the government over jobs and pensions. This is of course

the weekend when most Bonfire Night displays will be taking place. Sian

Lloyd is at a display in Stoke. Firefighters say that by holding

their dispute this evening and for two hours on Monday, they hope it

will have less impact on the public. This is of course traditionally

their busiest weekend of the year, when the night sky is lit up by

bonfires and fireworks. These performers are the warm up act here

before the bonfire is lit at 6:30pm. At is exactly the same time as

thousands of firefighters across England and Wales will go on

industrial action for four and a half hours. It is part of a

long-running dispute with the government over pensions. They

object to proposals to raise the pension age to 60. They say many

members will be physically unable to do the work at that age. The

government is warning people to take special care this evening for those

for the half hours when there is a reduced service. So whether you are

cooking the dinner or lighting a fire work, and firefighters say it

is safer to come to an organised display like this.

The Welsh government is to get a bit more powerful. David Cameron was in

Newport and Cardiff today to give its assembly more control over its

own finances, including plans to let it control the money it raises in

stamp duty on house sales. There could even be the chance to raise

different rates of income tax, subject to a referendum on the

issue. Building a new housing estate in

Newport. When these plots are ready to be sold, the buyers will have to

pay stamp duty. But rather than being set in Westminster, in future,

it will be set down the road in Cardiff. The Deputy Prime Minister

Nick Clegg today made it one of the taxes that will be controlled by the

Welsh government. It has also been given borrowing powers for the first

time. A few miles away, David Cameron was shown the area where a

new ?1 billion relief road could be built with that money. At a news

conference in Cardiff, he said it was all part of developing a strong

Wales in a strong UK. It is good for a government to be responsible for

raising the money it spends -- at least some of the money it spends.

That leads to better conversations about how to spend the money. The

First Minister, Carwyn Jones, has been calling for Wales to have

parity with Scotland, which already has these powers, and Northern

Ireland, which has some powers over borrowing, but not over taxes. The

announcement today shows that we are being treated as equal partners in

the UK both as a government and a people. The Welsh government is also

being given the power in the future to a referendum on gaining some

control of income tax. At the moment, it does not want that

control. If it does in the future, the test it will have is persuading

the Welsh public that it can trust the politicians here with a chunk of

their earnings. On the streets outside the Welsh assembly, there

were mixed thoughts. I would not be happy about it. I would feel happier

the way they are. They control Wales, and they should control what

the Welsh people do. A significant milestone for devolution in Wales.

The challenge now is for the Welsh government to make the best use of

it. England face Australia at Wigan

tomorrow in the first of their autumn rugby internationals.

England's Geoff Parling will miss the game because of concussion. It

is now the main reason why players mismatches. There is growing concern

about the impact of head injuries. They are the head-on collisions that

are making rugby stop and think. The sport is currently trialling a

policy that will allow players who suffer head injuries to return to

the field of play after a five-minute medical assessment. Some

are angry. For 15 years, Barry O'Driscoll was medical adviser to

rugby's world governing body, the IRB. But he resigned after watching

his own nephew, Irish legend Brian Driscoll, being cleared to play on

in this match despite signs of concussion. I don't think anyone has

given us a mandate to experiment on players' brains like this,

especially when the arena they are going into is to talk. It is not

just an issue at the elite level. Here at the sport's grassroots, an

awareness campaign is being launched, but currently, there is no

mandatory concussion awareness training for junior rugby coaches.

That is something Peter Robinson wants to change. His 14-year-old son

Ben died after he was allowed to play on, despite concussion. Nobody

wants to talk about it. If rules are changed at grassroots in schools,

that can only be a good thing. I know Ben is gone and nothing will

bring him back, but if one person is taken off on a Wednesday or Saturday

afternoon, it has not been in vain. In other contact sports like

American football, there is mounting evidence that repeated concussion

and lifted -- lead to degenerative disease and neurological problems

later in life. A settlement of ?500 million has just been reached after

a player sued the NFL over it. So with the similarities to its

American cousin, could rugby be next? With players bigger and

heavier than before, it is no surprise that concussion is now the

number one cause of missing matches through injury at the top level of

the English game. Gone are the days when we could put player welfare at

risk. The priority for any medical team is the player. We have to abide

by that. The rugby union has taken a good stance on this. The IRB insists

that player welfare is a priority and that their approach towards head

injuries is not just backed by experts, but has in fact reduced the

number of players staying on the field while concussed. But it is

clear that rugby's big hitting culture is forcing the game to

tackle some uncomfortable questions. Now the weather. Another buffeting

this weekend. It will be windy once more. There will be heavy showers as

well, but there will be some sunshine in between. There is a

decent chance of seeing a rainbow or two. Today it was wet across

Lincolnshire and the Midlands. That rain will stay overnight. The bulk

of England will stay cloudy and mild. But the far north of England

and Scotland have clear skies, meaning it will be cold. Some

sunshine to start the weekend in the north-east corner, turning wet or

across Northern Ireland. This arm of rain then moves across northern

Wales, northern England and Scotland. The far north of Scotland

may stay dry, but as the wet weather arrives, heavy snow is likely over

the top of the Grampians. Showers for the afternoon across Northern

Ireland after a wet morning. There will be sunshine between the showers

across England and Wales. But those showers will zip through because of

the strength of the wind, which will steadily increase, getting very

lively through the evening, gusts of up to 50 mph, maybe more around the

coast. Equates expected, to. Lots of celebrations are going on this

weekend, so bear that in mind. Strong winds do not mix well with

bonfires. Heavy showers, and it will feel on the cool side. It does not

warm-up for Sunday either. Then more rain starts to spread from the south

on Sunday evening. Could be a soggy one across parts of the South.

The main news: While we have been on air, a man arrested earlier this

week in relation to historical allegations of sexual abuse has been

named as the BBC broadcaster Paul Gambaccini.

And the exams regulator has announced the biggest change to

GCSEs for a generation, with major changes to grading and assessment.

That is all from the BBC news team. Now we go to our