Assaults by youngest pupils 'rising'

Assaults by children aged five or under led to 2,600 suspensions from schools in England in 2007-8, figures show.

The figures, highlighted by the Tories, show an increase of 150 suspensions on the previous year and reveal that of the assaults, 1,650 were on adults.

The Conservatives say there is an "increasing problem" with the behaviour of very young children.

The government says exclusions across the school population are falling and its behaviour policy is working.

As a whole, permanent exclusions - or expulsions - have fallen in all types of state schools in recent years, but there has been an increase in suspensions or temporary exclusions.

Teachers' powers

England's schools inspectorate Ofsted, in its annual report this autumn, said behaviour in 95% of primary schools was good or outstanding and that it was satisfactory in 5%.

The new figures show the total number of suspensions of the youngest pupils for assault but not the actual number of pupils involved as the same child might have been suspended several times.

The data was given to the Conservatives in response to a parliamentary question.

The vast majority of infant and primary schools do not exclude any children Iain Wright, Schools Minister

Shadow children's secretary Michael Gove said: "Children cannot learn if there are other pupils in the class that are acting violently.

"There is a real and increasing problem with the behaviour of the youngest children in primary schools and it makes life impossible for their teachers."

He said the Conservatives wanted to make teachers' lives easier by giving them more powers to keep order, so that possible problems could be "nipped in the bud before they spiral out of control".

A study earlier this year by Ofsted said that exclusion of children aged under seven was still "very rare".

The government says exclusions should be used as "a last resort" - although it backs head teachers' rights to exclude children even for a first or one-off offence.

Schools Minister Iain Wright said: "The vast majority of infant and primary schools do not exclude any children and a recent report by Ofsted, on exclusions of young children, found that almost all children in the schools they visited knew how to behave properly.

"Ofsted are clear that behaviour standards have significantly improved over the last decade, but we know there is more to do to ensure all children learn in an orderly school where discipline is tough and bad behaviour that disrupts the learning of others is not tolerated."

'More aggressive'

He said the government had given teachers and head teachers tough new powers to discipline pupils and would be legislating in the coming weeks for home-school agreements to make sure parents took their responsibilities seriously too.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) recently surveyed its members in primary schools on behaviour in the classroom.

It said that three-quarters of the 1,078 members who responded to the survey said they thought children in primary schools were becoming more aggressive at a younger age.

Just under 61% said they thought behaviour in the classroom had got worse in the past 10 years.

The US virtual economy is set to make billions

Paying real money for products that do not exist is big business

Virtual goods such as weapons or digital bottles of champagne traded in the US could be worth up to $5bn in the next five years, experts predict.

In Asia, sales are already around the $5bn mark and rapidly growing.

For many, virtual goods are one of the hottest trends in technology and are fuelling huge growth in the social gaming sector.

"This is just an exploding part of the gaming business right now, said venture capitalist Jeremy Liew.

"It is the most exciting area in gaming," he said.

Mr Liew, whose firm Lightspeed Venture Partners has invested $10m in virtual goods companies, said the rapid growth of the sector was unprecedented.

"We have seen companies go from nothing in the last 18-24 months to tens and hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue."

Revenue model

Playfish is a social gaming company that started two years ago. Today it has 11 online games and more than 61 million people who play those games worldwide.

Playfish believes virtual goods will continue to lead to more riches

Crucial to its success is the sale of virtual goods, ranging from furniture for your pet to menu items for your own restaurant in games like Pet Society and Restaurant City.

"Virtual items within the Playfish games are the centre point of the way in which Playfish derives its revenue," Tom Sarris of the firm told BBC News.

"We have two different revenue models. The primary is the sale of virtual goods and the second is in-game advertising, but that is a very minor aspect at this stage."

Mr Sarris would not reveal how much Playfish makes from the sale of virtual goods, but admitted that it accounts for the lion's share of the company's revenue.

That, according to Mr Liew is fairly typical.

"Virtual goods is the whole story in the world of social games. It accounts for 90-95% of revenue for a lot of these social game developers."

The new gamers

And it is not just the stereotypical gamers that are spending their hard earned cash on goods that only add up to a handful of pixels on a website

Emma Cox is probably fairly typical of the new breed of social gamer who plays as a way to stay connected to friends and family.

Ms Cox buys virtual goods to get ahead in the game

"I am not a traditional gamer. I don't buy console games or go out and spend $40 on a game for my PlayStation," said Ms Cox.

"I am playing online games for a different reason and it's instant gratification, playing with friends, showing off to others and have them see all the virtual goods you have bought for yourself and even for them."

Ms Cox told the BBC she spends about $10 a month per game on virtual goods and plays two to three games. Her favourite is Country Store where players trade real money for coins allowing players to move ahead in the game or to buy goods.

The game bills itself as an opportunity to let players get away from the hustle and bustle of life by hanging out in the country tending crops and breathing the country air.

On her last visit, Ms Cox bought fertiliser and seeds for corn and peppers.

"These virtual goods are easy to buy, they are accessible, they are online," said Ms Cox.

"The immediate impact is being able to move throughout the game a lot more quickly. It also enhances your overall experience of the game - it is about total entertainment."

Playfish's Mr Sarris said that is the main reason people are willing to purchase products that do not exist.

"The way we look at it is it's no different from paying money to go and see a movie or rent a dvd. What you are paying for is the experience and that notion of entertainment."

Social is key

Central to the early growth of this virtual goods revolution have been social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

Ten of the top 15 apps on Facebook are social games

Users of these networks can also pay for virtual goods, such as digital birthday cards, champagne or flowers.

"Increasingly as people's relationships migrate online, your interactions occur there," said Lightspeed's Mr Liew.

"That makes it more natural for those acknowledgements of how important someone is to us to occur there also. Buying something like virtual champagne or a birthday card is telling someone they are important to you."

However most of the momentum in this virtual goods market happens through social games which Mr Liew said is responsible for bringing a new type of new gamer to the fore.

"We have found tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people playing these social games and many would never consider themselves as gamers. Yet they spend real money to play these games and in some cases really meaningful amounts of money.

"That is what makes the expansion of this market so exciting," added Mr Liew.

Bright future

The market is clearly one with a lot of life in it.

About two thirds of the top 15 applications on Facebook are games, according to analytics firm AppData. Those ten games are said to draw more than 100 million users a month.

Mr Liew said the virtual goods revolution will remain big news in 2010

Earlier in December, one of the biggest social gaming companies, Zynga, sold a stake in the firm to Russia's Digital Sky Technologies for $180m (£113m).

And in November, Electronic Arts, agreed to buy Playfish in a $400m deal (£251m).

Proof of how successful the virtual goods business has become is evident in moves by Facebook itself to test a payment system to get a cut each time an online-game player buys a digital tractor or pair of flip flops.

"We are still in the growth stage of this industry," said Mr Liew.

"We are still seeing people come out of nowhere and become a leading player. Five years down the line, it will become more stable with five to ten companies becoming more valuable.

"The virtual goods industry is one of the most exciting categories of 2009 and will remain an exciting category in 2010," he added.

Picasso toy guitar found in Italy

Italian police have found a toy guitar sculpture created by Pablo Picasso for his daughter Paloma, which had been kept in a shoe box by a businessman.

Rome police tracked the sculpture down to the businessman's apartment in Pomezia, a town south of the capital.

The businessman, who was not named, was charged with fraud and is now on bail.

Picasso gave the piece to an Italian artist, Giuseppe Vittorio Parisi. He then lent it to the businessman, who was to make a glass showcase for it.

The plan was for the priceless piece to go on display at the civic museum in Maccagno, a small town on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy where Parisi was born.

But the piece disappeared after Parisi handed it over two years ago. When Parisi died in January this year his widow told police that it was still in the businessman's hands.

The Little Guitar will now go on display at the museum in Maccagno, Italy's Ansa news agency reports.

An expert is reported to have authenticated the work, which bears the inscription "Paloma".

Celebrated as a pioneer of Cubism, Picasso is widely regarded as one of the 20th Century's greatest artists.