In a remarkable experiment, a class of 13-year-olds learned twice as quickly when they were not allowed to put their hands up in response to a teacher’s question.

Instead, the entire class was forced to write answers on small whiteboards and raise their answers in the air together.

The technique, which was tested for a two-part BBC2 documentary, did not just help the shy and less able children, the programme makers say. It also boosted the results of confident pupils.

The Classroom Experiment – which will be broadcast later this month – also found that making pupils exercise at the start of each day helped academic performance.

Professor Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of the London University Institute for Education, who led the project, said: ‘The kids and teachers hated it at the beginning.

‘The kids who were used to having a quiet time were rattled at having to do something; the ones who were used to showing off to the teacher were upset.’

The methods were tested on 25 pupils at Hertswood school in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, for a term.

Professor Wiliam said he wanted to stop the minority of bright pupils dominating the class and to encourage the whole class to take responsibility for their behaviour.

As well as banning hand raising, work was only graded when pupils had finished an entire project to encourage them to take account of the teacher’s feedback, not just their mark out of ten.

The teacher also monitored a single pupil’s behaviour each day – without telling the class which student was being placed under scrutiny – and then offered a reward of a day at Alton Towers if the student behaved.

The move was intended to encourage the whole group to take responsibility for earning the reward.

Professor Wiliam also made children do PE at the start of every day ‘The changes we made gave the quieter children confidence, made all pupils know they are expected to participate and created a more supportive atmosphere – nobody laughs any more if someone gets something wrong,’ he said.

‘I hope this programme shows how difficult high-quality teaching is.’

After one term, pupils learned at twice the speed of peers not taking part and the school was so impressed by the experiment it is continuing with the techniques.

Hertswood head Jan Palmer Sayer said: ‘The difference was tangible – both in achievements and the dynamics of the class.

‘Teachers were given clear strategies for improvements which didn’t involve spending lots of money on new technology.’

Traces of the metal in milk from some of the UK’s leading products were found to be much higher than is legally allowed in water, according to scientists.

One formula made by Cow & Gate – specifically marketed for premature babies – had the highest level of all, with more than 800 micrograms per litre.

European law states water can contain no more than 200 micrograms of aluminium per litre. Chemist Dr Chris Exley, who led the study at Keele University, Staffordshire, said: ‘We’ve known about the high aluminium content in infant formula for many years and there is evidence to show it is potentially quite dangerous.

‘It has been linked to neurological diseases and bone defects in later life and there are even links with dementia.

‘Everyone has aluminium in their bodies but infants are especially prone to absorbing it and are not so good at getting rid of it.’

But he stressed: ‘It is not the case that a child is not going to drop down dead if they drink it.’ Manufacturers say they do not add aluminium to their products, but many formulas are often packaged in aluminium foil.

It also occurs naturally in soya plants due to the acidic soil they are grown in, so experts advise soya milk formulas should be used only on the advice of a GP.

The Food Standards Agency does not provide a ’safe’ limit for aluminium in formula milk, but Dr Exley wants manufacturers to lower the level dramatically or print it on the label so parents have an informed choice.

Dr Exley, whose team tested 16 of the UK’s leading formula milk brands for children up to the age of one, said: ‘It is concerning, especially when the product with the highest level of aluminium we found was aimed at premature babies, who are likely to be the most vulnerable of all. It is really shocking.

‘Millions of parents have no choice but to feed their children this milk. I would advise if they are using ready-made milk to switch to powder as it contains lower levels.’

The research is published in the journal BMC Pediatrics.

On a sunny station ­platform in a pretty Cornish town this summer, holidaymakers may have witnessed a touching, but at first glance unremarkable, scene.

A mother and teenage son were ­nervously watching a train pull onto the platform, scanning the emerging crowd for the face of a loved one. Had she missed her train? Had they got the right time?

And finally, there she was: a pretty, petite 16-year-old, peering furtively through her fringe. Suddenly the boy broke away with a whoop. ‘It’s her!’

The three immediately became tangled in a hug, babbling, crying, their words tripping over each other. ‘You’ve grown so much!’ ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe you are here!’

A very unusual emotional reunion had just taken place. For Tracey Lucas, a 38-year-old mother from Truro, had just kissed her 16-year-old daughter Winona for the first time in nine years.

What took place on that station platform was a scene that the State had worked very hard for years to ensure didn’t happen. In fact, there is still a question mark over whether Tracey could face prosecution, even prison, for what happened that day.

For nine years previously, Winona and her ­little sister, now 12, were taken from their mother and adopted by another family, given new names and told to forget their natural mother. All contact between them was prevented.

Yet in a story that raises profound questions both about British social services and the power of the internet to challenge their secretive workings, Winona traced her birth mother through the Facebook social networking site and the pair are now determined never again to be parted.

Tracey, Winona and her sister were subjects of a forced adoption, which critics — including family solicitors, MPs and wronged families — say are happening on a scandalously regular basis, on the ­flimsiest of evidence, in order to meet government targets to raise the number of adoptions by 50 per cent.

There have been cases cited of babies taken from women considered too young or not clever enough to look after them. One boy was removed on the grounds that his mother might shout at him in the future.

In Tracey’s case, her children were sent for adoption because they were deemed ‘at risk of emotional abuse’.

No one can really know the truth, and doubtless social services would argue they acted in good faith and in the ­children’s best interests, but Tracey is adamant she never abused, neglected nor abandoned them.

Yet because she was a young single mother, who by her own admission sometimes struggled to cope, she was forced to surrender the most precious things she had. Worse, she says the children believed that she had simply stopped loving them.

‘For years the girls believed I was a bad mother, a horrible person who didn’t love them, while I was told the girls didn’t want to see me and were ­settled into a new life with new parents they loved. All lies,’ says Tracey.

‘The birthday and Christmas cards I wrote were never passed on. The letters Winona wrote to me never reached me. That’s real emotional abuse.’

‘Yet my son, who’d refused to be adopted, was returned to me after a year, and I went on to have another two ­children with a new partner, neither of whom has come to any harm. How could I have been a danger to my girls?’

Winona is just as angry as her mother about the stolen years: ‘Everyone told me what a terrible person she was, but all my memories of her were good: making Christmas decorations, reading Roald Dahl’s James And The Giant Peach in bed. I never felt anything but love from her.’

Today, that love is palpable. The pair cannot stop sneaking looks at each other as they hold hands on the sofa of their ­modest but cosy home.

The question is: are they ­victims of a heavy-handed State as they claim, or does their reunion set a troubling precedent that other adopted children may be tempted to follow?

The nightmare began the day Ben was born, shortly before Tracey’s 19th birthday, in June 1992.

The children’s father, another 18-year-old, who Tracey admits was a ‘tricky character’ who’d spent a lot of his childhood in care, had a deep suspicion of social workers.

‘Once they knew who Ben’s father was, I was visited in ­hospital by a social worker and we were told to sign a ­document saying we would work with them,’ she recalls. ‘I trusted the system and thought once we’d proved ourselves, they’d leave us alone.’

Tracey is the first to admit that to many people, her family may have seemed less than perfect: young, unmarried and living on benefits in rented, ­frequently changing, council accommodation as they struggled to find a decent home.

When Winona was born 18 months later, Cornwall Social Services were a frequent ­presence in their lives.

‘We didn’t do drugs and my partner was never violent towards me or the children. Money was tight, but we were doing our best. We loved our little family.’

But they felt persecuted. ‘They were constantly putting us down, accusing us of being bad parents,’ says Tracey.

‘I remember one social worker telling me to take the children to a bird ­sanctuary nearby, as that was what “good” parents did. I wanted to shout that I already had plans that day and what business was it of theirs? But I couldn’t win any argument.’

The crunch came in 1997 during Tracey’s pregnancy with Winona’s younger sister, when her partner assaulted a social worker, a crime for which he was rightly prosecuted.

Realising she could lose her children, Tracey left her partner, for nothing was more important to her than being a mother.

Yet even with him off the scene, the children remained on the ‘at risk’ list. ‘It felt like they’d made up their minds about me and nothing I did could convince them otherwise.

‘I did everything they asked of me: assessments, IQ tests, drug tests, a spell in a mother-and-baby unit (a specialist home for mothers and young children where both can be monitored). Nothing worked.’

In May 1998, Tracey suffered a ­nervous breakdown due to stress. She spent two months in a psychiatric unit, during which time the children were, quite properly, placed in temporary foster care. ‘I refused to see them. I couldn’t let them see me in that state, in that place,’ she says.

But when Tracey returned home, social services was already looking into a permanent new home for the three youngsters.

Ben, by now a feisty seven-year-old, refused flatly to be considered for adoption and was returned to Tracey after a year. The girls remained in care, however, and Tracey was told an ­adoptive family had been found for them: a housing manager and his wife, a police clerical worker.

In doing so, Cornwall Social Services had taken a step towards fulfilling former PM Tony Blair’s target, announced by New Labour in 2000, to raise the number of UK ­adoptions annually by 50 per cent. Blair, whose own father was adopted, promised millions of pounds to councils that succeeded in getting more vulnerable children out of foster care and into permanent, loving homes.

Although introduced for the right reasons, critics say the reforms didn’t work and meant younger, ‘cuter’ ­children were fast-tracked — with ­councils spurred on by the promise of extra money — while more difficult, older children were left behind.

Tracey fought the adoption every step of the way, arguing that even if she was deemed an unfit parent, then her mother or other relatives would gladly look after the girls.

But in October 2001, a judge at Truro County Court ordered the adoption should go ahead. Tracey was given an hour to say goodbye.

‘Winona, then seven, reeled off this rehearsed speech, obviously prepared for her, saying: “I know you will always be my birth mother and I will always love you,” ’ recalls Tracey. ‘Her sister, aged just three, grabbed hold of my legs and wouldn’t let go. They had to prise her off. And all the time a social worker was in the corner with a ­camcorder, filming it all. It was the worst moment of my life.’

Winona remembers that day, too. ‘I didn’t really understand that I wouldn’t see Mum again. I’d been seduced with tales of this new home, with ponies and cats, but I thought it was just temporary and that I’d go home eventually.

‘They [the girls’ adoptive parents] told us they loved us, but it was not an affectionate, cuddly relationship. We looked the part, with a three-­bedroom semi-detached house and family holidays in Spain, but there were a lot of rows and tension. I felt more like a pet than their daughter. I wanted my mum and my real family.

‘Every Christmas and birthday I’d sift through the mail to see whether Mum had sent a card. I devised childish plots to get a message to her, and tried writing my telephone number in invisible ink on letters.

‘I’d ask my adopted parents to drive around Truro, saying I wanted to see the parks from my early memories, but really I was looking for Mum.’

Her younger sister, however, refused to discuss their mother, believing she was a bad person who’d given her away. ‘When I tried to talk about her, she’d clam up,’ says Winona. ‘She was too young to remember Mum as she really was.’

Meanwhile, Tracey had formed a relationship with a new partner, ­construction worker Ian Yendle, 29, and they had two daughters: Teegan, now seven, and Talia, five.

Banned from making any contact with her older girls, she had given up hope she would ever see them again, though she continued to send birthday and Christmas cards through social services in the hope they would be passed on. They never were.

Then, when Winona turned 16, she discovered a tool powerful enough to prise open any legal gagging order: Facebook.

‘It took only a couple of hours,’ she says. ‘I knew Ben had my old surname, and it was easy to find Mum through his profile. I sent them a ­message: “Hi, I think I might be your sister/daughter.” ’

Tracey wept with happiness when she read the message, but her elation immediately gave way to terror that she could be hauled before a court and the children whisked away when she replied.

So Tracey, Ben and Winona arranged to meet in secret at Truro Station days later. Numerous clandestine meetings were subsequently set up with Tracey’s sisters and extended family.

Eventually, after seeking advice from a forced adoption support group, they decided to let Winona’s younger sister into the secret, and she spoke to Tracey on the phone.

‘After my sister hung up, she said she couldn’t believe how nice Mum was,’ Winona recalls.

Winona eventually came clean to their adopted parents.

‘My adoptive father called while I was with Mum and asked where I was. I told him I was with my mother, and he was confused, saying: “But your mum’s here.” When I explained I was with my real mother, he told me I was in terrible danger and that he’d come and pick me up immediately.’

Tension in the house became unbearable after that. It is hard to imagine the pain the adoptive couple must have ­suffered, having been rejected by two children they’d raised as their own for nine years. Yet Winona’s emotions are still too raw for her to feel sympathy.

‘I couldn’t feel sorry for them. No one forced them into this situation. If ­everyone had been honest, it wouldn’t have happened. I didn’t love them; I couldn’t. I loved my mum,’ she says bitterly.

That was a month ago. Both girls have now left their adopted home — they packed a bag and went without saying goodbye. Winona’s sister is with Tracey, while Winona herself is staying minutes away at her aunt’s, due to lack of bed space.

‘For the first time in years I feel I’m where I belong,’ says Winona.

She has since opened a page on Facebook entitled Anti Social Services Forced Adoption — We Can Help! to assist other children in the same plight.

She is being supported by Oxford University law graduate and businessman Ian Josephs, who has championed the cause of parents whose children were forcibly removed by social workers, ever since he was a Tory county councillor in the 1960s.

Tracey has been visited by a social worker about Winona’s younger sister and still doesn’t know what will ­happen long-term. Yet she is still acutely aware of their power — a fact that hasn’t escaped her daughters from her new relationship.

‘Talia asked me recently whether I would still be able to love her when she gets older, or would she have to go away like her sisters,’ says Tracey. ‘I told her no, she would always live with Mummy and Daddy.’

Pondering her own future, Winona says: ‘I used to want to work in ­childcare, but I’m not so sure now. One thing’s for certain, though, I won’t be a social worker. I have seen what they can do.’

A spokesman for Cornwall Council said she was unable to comment ­specifically on Winona’s case, but said: ‘Social services do not unnecessarily take children into care to be adopted. It is dangerous to suggest that this is happening and that the care system is not the right place for children who are at risk.

‘Children are only adopted when it can be shown that it is in their best interest, and this decision is scrutinised by an independent guardian, as well as an adoption panel with a majority of members independent of the local authority, and by the court.’

The kind that has given Disney a special position in our house. To us, the brand suggests a world of family values and bygone traditions. A place where, no matter the adversity faced, good WILL triumph over evil.

Disney films speak to our heart and embroider the lives of our children with a sense of security in an uncertain world.

So it was, this rain-soaked day, we laughed and cried our way through a hat trick of Disney favourites: the heart-rendingly beautiful Bambi, the gloriously regal Lion King and the eternally charming Finding Nemo.

But later, I realised something else that binds Disney films, other than good old nostalgic charm: an absence of parents.

Bambi, abandoned by his father before birth, experiences the hunting and subsequent shooting of his mummy. A tragedy that still reduces me to uncontrollable sobs four decades after I first saw it with my own mother.

That’s not all. In the Lion King, Simba is implicated in the death of his father and runs away in a vain attempt to escape his misery.

While Nemo – the rebellious fish – is the sole survivor of a violent barracuda attack on his mother and siblings and spends much of the story estranged from his father.

The realisation that these three films all drew on a parent-less theme made me reel. Surely it was only coincidence?

Apparently not. For Disney, that most child-friendly of organisations, appears to have something of a parent problem.

Since its formation in the Twenties, Disney’s output has featured a steady supply of dysfunctional and broken families.

Dumbo, like Bambi, still devastates audiences, as the fatherless baby elephant is separated from his mother after she is locked up for her apparent psychosis.

The moggies in the Aristocats – a personal childhood favourite – are also fatherless. Neither Ariel (The Little Mermaid) or Belle (Beauty And The Beast) have a mother.

Even more recently, fans worldwide have delighted in the final instalment of Toy Story, as Andy – the film’s main character – is raised by a single parent mother.

Not to worry, though, in the total absence of his father, Andy’s key male influence is a wooden cowboy.

And it’s not just Disney’s cartoon output that is subject to this parental peculiarity; its non-animation TV shows and movies are, too.

On Disney’s TV channel, the popular Hannah Montana – played by the precocious Miley Cyrus – learns the teenage ropes from her single parent father because her mother is AWOL.

On the big screen, The Game Plan chronicles a ten-year-old girl searching for her long-lost father after the untimely – although not entirely unpredictable – demise of her single parent mother.

And the Grammy- nominated Enchanted captures Giselle, an archetypal Disney princess, adapting to the harsh environment of New York as a motherless young girl.

By this point in my research, I was becoming increasingly disturbed by the absence of parental role models in the world of Walt Disney. And there was more.

Some Disney characters aren’t even fortunate enough to have one parent and are orphaned before the opening credits are over.

Baby Tarzan was abandoned in the jungle after the savaging of his parents by a leopard. And there’s Tod in The Fox And The Hound and Arthur in The Sword In The Stone, who are left to pursue their destinies without parents.

I wonder, is this distinct lack of parental care in Disney productions used for dramatic effect?

Is it there to give the main protagonist an opportunity to face their personal challenges without the guidance of a parent – or is there more to this?

Might the death of Walt Disney’s mother – and the lifelong guilt this left her son with – be the catalyst for the death of parents in Disney?

In 1938 and riding high with the proceeds from his first big screen movie Sleeping Beauty, Walt bought his mother, Flora, and his father, Elias, a house in LA as a golden wedding anniversary present.

Within days of moving in, Flora complained about the stultifying temperatures coming from the central heating boiler and her doting son arranged for a swift replacement.

Days later, Flora died from asphyxiation caused by the new, poorly-installed, boiler.

Might Walt Disney’s misplaced guilt over his mother’s death have led him to airbrush parents – mothers in particular – out of his works?

And has that motivation, after his death in 1966, become a Disney blueprint?

Certainly, it would explain the types of folk stories and fairytales that Disney has acquired for adaptation, even when there are numerous other traditional tales that feature a mother and father.

The company animated Cinderella (no mother), Snow White (no mother or father, but a wicked stepmum) and The Jungle Book (orphaned Mowgli, raised by a bear and a tiger).

But perhaps most audacious in this regard was the purchase of J.M. Barrie’s epic Peter Pan, where the boy-child not only had responsibility for a whole island of orphans (The Lost Boys) but Wendy’s parents socialised constantly and left their children in the care of the family dog.

There is a third way to explain Disney’s apparent downer on parents.

Might the company – and its output – be a true reflection of our disparate society and the obvious disintegration of the traditional nuclear family?

Or might it be the other way around? Might Disney have played its own part in the demise of family values given that we – and our children – have fallen for this wholesome entertainment for decades?

Have we subconsciously imbibed this airbrushing out of parental figures from its films?

If nothing else, Disney stands accused of failing to honour that most sacred of bonds – that of the mother and the father to their children.

Now, that is hardly family entertainment, is it?

Several hands shoot up and I say: ‘Come on then, Annie. After you, we’ll have Liz and then Becky.’ I smile encouragingly at the children and they grin back, proud to be chosen to read.

You might think there’s nothing wrong with this scenario, but it happened at a co-educational, not a girls’ school. Not a single boy was chosen to read out of my class of 28 pupils simply because not a single boy volunteered.

And it’s not just reading aloud boys show little enthusiasm for – they don’t like to put themselves forward in any subject. In fact, it’s my view that boys have been disenfranchised from education. By secondary school (the age group I teach), I would say the vast majority of them have lost interest all together.

By the time they reach 11 or 12, the idea that they aren’t as good as girls has been reinforced – and the result is lack of confidence and, quite often, a retreat into bad behaviour.

In a study presented this week at the British Educational Research association annual conference, researchers demonstrated that girls as young as four believe they are cleverer, try harder and are better behaved than boys of the same age.

Bonny Hartley, the study’s leader, said: ‘By seven or eight, children of both genders believe boys are less focused, able and successful than girls.’

But who is to blame for this? according to the research, the answer is female teachers.

Admittedly, it focuses on primary school children and 90 per cent of their teachers are female, but we do tend to castigate boys for being ’silly’ and for not ’sitting nicely’ like girls. We tell them off for wanting to play with inappropriate toys like guns, rather than showing them how to play responsibly in a boyish way.

Boys in their early teens like to run about and play-fight. On duty in the playground, I’ve often shouted at boys to ‘Stop running!’ Once – to my shame – I even yelled: ‘Stop kicking that ball so hard. Can’t you just throw it nicely?’

I was met with puzzled frowns. ‘What, like in netball, miss?’ asked young Simon, with a perfectly straight face.

Is it because I’m a female teacher that I treat the boys like this? It’s true that boys’ schools are more likely to encourage male behaviour – healthy competitiveness is encouraged and sports have a higher profile. and I hate to say it, but I believe it’s because there tend to be more male teachers and consequently a more male ethos in these establishments.

And yet my gender cannot shoulder full responsibility – changes within society are the root cause. These days we live in a culture that is risk averse. I tell boys off for running because what if a running child trips and falls? I might have some questions to answer.

A parent might try to sue us. Far better to try to insist that boys ‘calm down’ and ’sit still’ – behave more like girls in other words.

Of course, there’s more to it than that. Our society teaches that the traditionally masculine roles of father, breadwinner and protector are outdated and sexist.

Spiralling numbers of children are being brought up without fathers. Without any positive male role models in their lives, it’s no coincidence vast swathes of young men are unemployable. Thousands of boys leave education every year without a single qualification, content to spend their lives on benefits.

In 2009, 50 per cent of girls went into higher education; only 38 per cent of boys did.

But what worries me most is the recent suggestion that the medical condition attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is an example of excitable behaviour typically associated with boys.

In a culture that no longer tolerates masculinity, excessive boyishness may have been turned into an illness. ADHD is diagnosed in nine times as many boys as girls, and there were 461,000 prescriptions written out for Ritalin, the drug used to treat it, in 2007.

There is no blood test for ADHD – it’s diagnosed through a checklist of symptoms such as fidgeting, an inability to concentrate and running around.

But it’s not just as a teacher I’ve witnessed the suppression of masculine attributes. I only have to look at the books my four-year-old daughter reads to see it’s a message fed to children from a very young age.

There’s Charlie & Lola, the hugely popular series by Lauren Child. Personally, I was dismayed. Lola is a spoilt diva who bosses her wimpy older brother Charlie about.

Charlie’s role in these stories is to patiently explain to Lola why she must eat her peas or why she shouldn’t insist that all his friends eat pink fairy cakes at his birthday party.

Postman Pat, Percy The Park Keeper – they might be men, but they lack any defining male characteristics. These characters are asexual and frankly dull. Percy potters about in his shed, park or kitchen. No catching spies, cracking codes or submarine adventures for these two. They are uninspiring and insipid.

Traditionally male characteristics such as strength, competitiveness and authority are invisible in modern children’s literature because they are not valued in our society.

And I for one don’t want my daughter growing up in a society which tells her she’s in charge because she’s a girl. I don’t want my four-year-old to grow up in a culture that diminishes men and boys.

Crucially, I want her to go to a school that promotes equality and allows for difference.

It’s time to stop the senseless castigation and denigration of boys. Ultimately, it harms us all.

Those considered at ‘high-risk’ of developing a form of the disorder were far more likely to become fixated with a non-social toy when left to their own devices.

Autism is a lifelong developmental disability and part of a spectrum disorder. The main symptoms are difficulties with social interaction, impaired communication skills and unusual thought and behaviour patterns.

Autism is thought to affect one in 100 children in England and those with autistic siblings are 25 times times more likely to develop the condition than those with no family history of autism.

Researchers at the Kennedy Krieger institute and University of Delaware studied 25 six-month-old infants in this ‘high-risk’ group along with 25 of their peers.

The youngsters were placed in a chair with a simple joystick. When they moved it the musical toy was activated and they were given more attention by their caregiver. When actively engaged the children in both groups spent a similar amount of time looking at the person as they did at the toy.

However, the team found that when the babies were not being engaged, those in the high risk group spent far more time gazing at the toy than the caregiver.

Study author Dr Rebecca Landa, said the study showed a subtle early marker for autism.

‘This study shows that there is a particular vulnerability in high-risk siblings at six months of age,’ she said.

‘They are not as socially interactive and engaged on their own as their peers, but still respond typically when engaged by their caregivers, making for a subtle difference that could be easily overlooked by both parents and some professionals.’

The study suggests that like older children, infants at high risk of autism may benefit from frequent exposure to simple cause and effect lessons to aid their development.

‘Babies in both groups of the study learned the multi-stimuli task to the same degree,’ Dr Landa said.

‘The high-risk siblings still have the capacity to learn cause and effect as well as their low-risk peers at this young age.’

Dr Gina Gomez de la Cuesta, Action Research Leader at The National Autistic Society was cautiously optimistic about the findings.

She told the Mail Online: ‘There has been a lot of research which examines a child’s level of joint attention or eye gazing patterns and the potential links to autism.

‘This study of siblings is interesting as it shows more problems in initiating joint attention with others than responding to joint attention.

‘However, until the children reach an age where diagnosis is possible, it is difficult to say how accurately these behaviours can be used to predict a diagnosis of autism.’

Researchers from West Virginia University followed a group of new mothers and found, on average, the women got just over seven hours of sleep a night during their babies’ first four months.

That amount is generally what is recommended for adults, and, based on past studies, more than the average Briton gets.

But the study found that sleep is also frequently disrupted with the women typically being awake for a total of two hours a night which was worrying as sleep problems and exhaustion may contribute to postpartum depression and impact work performance.

Researcher Dr Hawley E. Montgomery-Downs, said the study challenges a central assumption about new mothers’ typical sleep patterns.

She said that the general assumption had been that most new mothers are not getting enough hours of sleep so the advice on how to combat daytime fatigue has focused on countering sleep deprivation, such as nap when your baby naps.

The current results, reported in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, suggest that new mothers’ highly fragmented sleep is the cause of daytime fatigue.

That sleep pattern, Dr Montgomery-Downs said, is similar to what is seen with certain sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea, where people log enough hours in bed, but get little restorative, good-quality sleep.

Sleep occurs in repeated cycles that each last 90 minutes to two hours. Depending on how often a new mother is waking up, she may get few or no full cycles of sleep, Dr Montgomery-Downs noted.

‘We need to think about what kinds of strategies can help consolidate sleep’ for these mothers, Dr Montgomery-Downs said.

One tactic, she suggested, could be for breastfeeding mothers to find time to pump milk and store it in bottles so that they do not have to be the one to always get up with the baby.

While quick naps might not do much, Dr Montgomery-Downs noted that ‘if you’re one of the lucky parents’ whose infants typically nap for at least two straight hours, taking that time to sleep could be helpful.

The findings are based on 74 new mothers who were followed between either the second and 13th week of their infants’ lives, or between the 9th and 16th week.

The women kept track of their sleep patterns using sleep ‘diaries,’ and also wore a wristwatch-like device called an actigraph that recorded their movements during the night.

Researchers found that modern mums have to turn their hands to the roles of at least 23 different professions as they keep today’s families ticking over.

They have to be a cleaner, children’s entertainer, chef and accountant, as well as a nanny, interior designer and even a security guard.

As the long summer holidays finally come to an end, mothers will not be surprised to learn that the average mum works more than 13 hours a day, getting out of bed at 7.16am and not clocking off until at least 8.41pm.

A spokesman for Chessington World of Adventures, which carried out the nationwide study, said: ‘The nation’s mums work so hard and have to juggle so many things at once.’

‘As the end of the school holidays draw near, it is understandable that Mums are flagging following longer days than most who have a full-time job.

‘They have to turn their hand to everything – from ferrying the kids around or booking the holiday, to keeping them occupied with a painting brush or making the bed.

‘It’s amazing how they fit it all in to one day, which explains why they have such little time to themselves to unwind.’

He added: ‘But it’s unfair they sometime receive little thanks or don’t have enough help. That means the school term might be a welcome break for them.’

Researchers quizzed 2,500 mums on what they do during the school holidays.

More than half admitted they don’t get enough help during the holidays, with six in ten wishing their partner got stuck in a bit more.

Three quarters reckoned their husband would struggle to fit as many things into one day as they manage on a daily basis.

And two thirds admit they’re ‘completely exhausted’ for much of the school holidays with seven in ten saying they deserve a well-earned break when the kids return to school.

Researchers said the average mum enjoyed just 42 minutes to themselves at the end of the day before they fell asleep on the sofa.

And as if that wasn’t exhausting enough, many said they usually look after at least three other children each week during the month and half long holiday.

Although two thirds of worn-out mums said they couldn’t wait for the kids to head back to the classroom, a third confessed they’ll miss the company.

They are reinforcing stereotypes that boys are ‘silly’ in class, refuse to ‘sit nicely like the girls’ and are more likely to indulge in ‘schoolboy pranks’.

Women teachers may also unwittingly perpetuate low expectations of boys’ academic achievement and encourage girls to work harder by letting them think they are cleverer.

Schools should avoid dividing pupils into ability groups because the practice often results in girls dominating the higher-achieving tables, concluded the Kent University research.

The study of primary schools in the county suggests that under-performance among boys in most national exams could be linked to lower expectations.

The research mainly implicates women teachers, since nearly 90 per cent of primary school teachers are female. It warned that school staff find boys’ play, such as wielding toy guns, ‘particularly challenging and difficult’.

Boys are punished and urged to conform to a more feminine style of play instead of being taught how to play responsibly with their preferred toys.

Bonny Hartley, the study’s lead author, said: ‘By seven or eight years old, children of both genders believe that boys are less focused, able, and successful than girls – and think that adults endorse this stereotype. There are signs that these expectations have the potential to become self-fulfilling in influencing
children’s actual conduct and achievement.’

Girls as young as four think they are cleverer, try harder and are better behaved than equivalent boys, her study found.

By the age of seven and eight, boys also believe that their female classmates are more likely have these qualities.

For the study, 238 children aged four to ten were presented with a series of scenarios such as ‘this child is really clever’ and ‘this child always finishes their work’.

They were then asked to point to a picture of a boy or a girl to say which they thought was being talked about.

The findings show that from the first year of school girls said their sex was more likely to record better conduct and achievement.

From the age of eight, boys were also more likely to say that girls had better performance, motivation and effort, self-control and conduct.

In the second part of the study – being presented today at the British Educational Research Association annual conference at Warwick University – the children were asked if adults believed boys or girls were cleverer and better behaved.

From an early age, girls believe grown-ups think girls have better conduct and achievement.

Boys develop the same beliefs around the age of eight.

The study drew no distinction between the beliefs and classroom practices of male and female teachers.

Further research by the same team will consider the specific gender stereotypes held by teachers.

For sisters Catherine Morris and Dawn Potts have both given birth to baby boys – on the same day, at the same hospital and on the same ward.

They amazed midwives at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire after they welcomed their boys into the world within seven hours of each other.

Mrs Morris, who went into labour first but gave birth second, was given the room reserved for her sister’s caesarean section.

On being told that the room originally intended for her had been taken, Mrs Potts sent a text message to her sister joking that she had ‘pinched my bed’.

The sisters had been expecting their babies within four days of each other at the start of September.

Mrs Potts, 31, a hairdresser from Mow Cop, Stoke-on-Trent, had her caesarean brought forward 11 days, and gave birth to Brody Lee, weighing 7lb 11oz, last Wednesday.

On the same day, Mrs Morris, 34, was taken into hospital to have her labour induced after an antenatal appointment revealed she had a low-lying placenta.

Originally due to arrive on September 9, Ethan Fletcher, who weighed in at 8lb 7oz, now shares the same birthday as his cousin.

Cardiac physiologist Mrs Morris, from Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, already has a two-year-old son, Finley.

She said of her sister: ‘We’re really close and share our problems.

‘Now we’re sharing something amazing by having babies on the same day.’

Her husband Brian, 34, a medical sales rep, added: ‘There’s more chance of winning the lottery.’

David Williams, of Ladbrokes the bookmaker, put the odds of two sisters giving birth on the same ward on the same day at 125,000-1.

The births were more unlikely than Lindsay Lohan marrying into the Royal Family, he added.

He went on: ‘We’ve never heard anything like it – and are relieved we never had to offer the odds on the eventuality.’