Tens of thousands of foreign students are to be contacted directly by the government and warned that they will be removed from the UK if they overstay their visas.

The Home Office has launched the new campaign in response to what it has called an “alarming” spike in the number of international students arriving legally on student visas then claiming asylum when they expire.

As part of the campaign, the Home Office will for the first time proactively contact about 130,000 students and their families, warning them they will be forced to leave the UK if they have no legal right to remain.

The full message will read: “If you submit an asylum claim that lacks merit, it will be swiftly and robustly refused. Any request for asylum support will be assessed against destitution criteria. If you do not meet the criteria, you will not receive support. If you have no legal right to remain in the UK, you must leave. If you don’t, we will remove you.”

Although the political and media focus this summer has been on people arriving on small boats, a similar number arrive legally with visas, then apply for asylum often when those visas run out.

Many claims are legitimate, but ministers fear that too many international students are seeking asylum to stay in the country because their leave to remain has run out. Earlier this year, the Home Office cut the amount of time overseas graduates can stay in the UK after their studies from two years to 18 months.

In the year to June 2025, 43,600 people seeking asylum arrived on a small boat – 39% of all asylum claims, according to Home Office data. Another 41,100 asylum claims came from people who entered legally with a visa, with the largest group among visa holders being students – 16,000 last year, nearly six times as many as in 2020.

Since then, Home Office data shows there has been a drop of 10%, but ministers in the department want the figures to fall further.

This week, the government has been under pressure from opposition parties including the Conservatives and Reform to declare “a national emergency” on migration and illegal immigration.

On Tuesday morning, the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, declined to guarantee that migrants would definitely be sent back across the Channel this month as part of a returns agreement with France, after telling the Commons on Monday that the first returns under the deal were expected in late September.

When pressed, she replied: “We expect the first returns to take place this month. But I’ve always said from the very beginning on this, it’s a pilot scheme and it needs to build up over time.”

She contrasted her “practical and sensible” approach with that of the previous Conservative government on Rwanda, which “spent £700m and sent four volunteers after running it for two years”.

She also told Times Radio that ministers believe asylum hotels can be emptied earlier than the end of the current parliament, after Keir Starmer said on Monday that he wanted to move all asylum seekers out of hotel accommodation before his government’s deadline of the end of the parliament, which could last until 2029.

Good morning. It’s back-to-school week, and the daily ritual (or, perhaps, panic) begins as uniforms are being donned and lunchboxes packed across the UK to start a new year. My sympathies to you teachers setting early morning alarms, and parents dragging children out of bed after six weeks of lie-ins.

Last year, Keir Starmer promised to leave “no stone unturned to give every child the very best start at life”, but how is that going? More than half a million GCSE students in England will start the year with no physics teacher, while many kids from poorer families feel they cannot afford to have their children study geography or languages, new Guardian reporting shows.

These are just a few things that reveal bigger issues about the lack of opportunities for millions of bleary-eyed children getting up for school this week. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Guardian education correspondent Sally Weale about how inequality is embedded into the system, and whether Labour is doing enough to tackle it. First, the headlines.

Five big stories

1. Afghanistan | The Taliban has called for international aid as Afghanistan reels from an earthquake that killed more than 800 people and left thousands injured.

2. Israel-Gaza war | A plan circulating in the White House to develop the “Gaza Riviera” as a string of high-tech megacities has been dismissed as an “insane” attempt to provide cover for the large-scale ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territory’s population.

3. Politics | Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has been moved to a new senior role in Downing Street as Keir Starmer attempts to get a grip on delivery before what is likely to be a tumultuous autumn for the government.

4. Health | A three-minute brainwave test can detect memory problems linked to Alzheimer’s disease long before people are typically diagnosed, raising hopes that the approach could help identify those most likely to benefit from new drugs for the condition.

5. UK news | Prominent women including cultural figures, politicians and campaigners have signed a letter criticising rightwing attempts to link sexual violence in Britain to asylum seekers. Signatories include the musicians Paloma Faith, Charlotte Church and Anoushka Shankar.

A significant challenge for some schools starts not in the classroom but with recruitment. One-quarter of English state schools have no specialist physics teachers, with maths, biology or chemistry teachers typically being roped in to do the job, according to research by the Institute of Physics. Many of these teachers have not studied physics beyond the age of 18, and may themselves have only studied the subject to GCSE level.

“Recruitment of new teachers, and then retention of teachers you’ve already got, has been very difficult for quite a long time,” said Sally Weale. Take physics: people with science degrees are likely to have a lot of better-paid employment opportunities in the private sector. “Certain school subjects have been particularly badly affected, and physics is a big one. Most head teachers I talked to said the physics teacher is a big issue for them. Very often they haven’t got one.”

Pay for teachers is typically poor, and it’s a tough job with long hours, and generally no opportunities for working from home. “You are in front of 30 students, you have to be at the top of your game all the time,” said Sally.

Students in schools without specialist physics teachers are half as likely to go on to study A-level physics. More than 300 schools in England have none taking it, the report found. Unsurprisingly it is typically kids in the poorer areas who are worst affected.

Not only does this negatively impact opportunities for individual students, it also make it difficult to recruit scientists and innovators in key sectors such as quantum, photonics, nuclear and semiconductors, the report found.

‘Baked-in inequality’

Secondary school pupils from low-income families are “bounced out” of studying subjects like geography and languages because of concerns about the cost of field trips and excursions abroad, according to a survey of children in England. Fears about extra costs prevent almost a quarter of children on free school meals from choosing certain GCSE subjects.

“The reality is that some subjects just are no-go areas for lower-income families,” said Sally. “I remember when there would be school trips and parents would just say, ‘Sorry, we can’t afford it.’ I think it’s always been part of what’s going on in schools, but these differences have become much more acute.”

Other subjects with additional costs are music, which can require lessons and instruments; food and nutrition, due to the cost of ingredients; and PE, because of extra kit and equipment. Nine per cent of pupils who did not receive free-school meals said the cost – or concerns about the cost – prevented them from studying these subjects, according to Survation for the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).

“Kids from the poorest backgrounds are always at such a huge disadvantage. It’s not just what subjects they can study and it’s not just physics teachers,” said Sally. “They could be living in areas where it’s hard to attract good teachers, or they don’t have access to the same enrichment, or their families have less capacity to support them. This is something that I’m writing about all the time, and have been ever since I started this job over 10 years ago. It’s a kind of baked-in inequality that is very hard to deal with, and it’s basically about poverty.”

What is the attainment gap?

This year, A-level results in England reached a record high outside the pandemic era, However, the stark regional divide between London and the rest of the UK, particularly the north-east and East Midlands, has widened. This is down to a range of factors, including investment in London schools during the Blair government, the higher pay and attractiveness of working in London for teachers, and gentrification of the city.

The attainment gap between poorer students and their wealthier peers had been closing from about 2010 onwards, but that progress began to stall in 2018, probably because of funding pressures on schools, said Sally. Since Covid, the gap has grown and though there have been small signs of improvement recently, the gap remains far bigger than before the pandemic.

“Covid blew it all out of the water. The government would say there’s some evidence the attainment gap is closing slightly, but it’s still absolutely huge,” Sally said. “Disadvantaged four-year-olds are already on the back foot by the time they start school.”

What is Labour doing?

Since Labour has come in it has expanded free school meals, including introducing free breakfast clubs into all primary schools in England. From this week, working parents who earn up to £100,000 a year will be entitled to 30 hours’ free childcare a week during term time for children from the age of nine months until they start school. “Critics would say it barely scratches the surface,” said Sally.

Labour’s flagship child poverty strategy will not be published until autumn. The decision to push back the strategy comes amid concerns about the cost implications of ending the two-child limit on universal credit. Experts say scrapping the benefit limit would be the single most effective way of reducing child poverty – an estimated 100 children are pulled into poverty every day by the limit, meaning up to 20,000 could be affected by a six-month delay.

“Everybody is waiting to see the sort of child poverty strategy. I think that will be key to how their success is regarded,” said Sally. “At the heart of that is the two child benefit cap. The general feeling is that it needs to go, and it’s responsible for keeping too many families in poverty. Poverty is an enemy of opportunity.”

What else we’ve been reading

• Is Donald Trump a dictator? Adam Gabbatt surveys the US president’s inflammatory actions – from deploying the national guard to his compulsive use of executive orders. He speaks with political scientists about where Trump currently sits on the spectrum of between democracy, authoritarianism and outright dictatorship. (From more by Adam, sign up to his Week in Trumpland newsletter here.) Craille Maguire Gillies, newsletters team

• More and more people are blocking out the news because it fills them with dread. This piece examines the emotional toll of “doomscrolling”, and gives tips on how to stay engaged and not fall into a pit of negativity – if you can face reading it. Phoebe

• Dr Velislava Hillman is persuasive about how AI in education is a lot less revolutionary than big tech companies might make it seem. “What is sold as the ‘democratisation’ of education may be entrenching further inequality,” she writes, as the elite opt for human tutoring and the less-privileged are offered mass, app-based instruction. Craille

• Some great news from conservationists who have found Mexico’s jaguar population has increased 30%. The main thing they’ve done is protect natural areas to keep these beautiful cats away from cattle ranchers. “Mexico and the world need good news,” said one of the conservationists. Here’s to that. Phoebe

• Perhaps I am not a better cook after listening to episode 20 of the four-part podcast Home Cooking, but I am certainly charmed by the sibling-like camaraderie of its hosts, Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway. Craille

Sport

Football | Liverpool broke the British transfer record to sign Alexander Isak for £125m from Newcastle on deadline day but were foiled in an attempt to end a stunning window with a deal for Marc Guéhi. Transfer roundup

Golf | Europe will defend the Ryder Cup later this month with 11 of the 12 players who saw off the United States in Rome two years ago after captain Luke Donald unsurprisingly opted for experience with his wildcard picks.

Tennis | The All England Club is not looking to change the format of the Wimbledon mixed doubles competition for future editions of the Championships despite the success of the “reimagined” tournament at the US Open.

The front pages

A quarter of state secondary schools in England will start the new term with no dedicated physics teacher, with schools in poorer areas worst affected, analysis has found.

The lack of specialists means more than half (58%) of pupils studying for a science GCSE will have the physics component taught by a teacher who has not studied a physics-related subject beyond the age of 18.

An estimated 700,000 pupils are affected, according to the Institute of Physics, which carried out the analysis and is calling for urgent action to tackle what it describes as a “chronic and critical” shortage of specialist physics teachers.

The IoP report says students in schools without a specialist physics teacher are half as likely as those with sufficient physics specialists to go on to study A-level physics, “a crucial gateway” to further studies leading to careers in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem).

It calculates that more than 12,000 students are missing out on taking A-level physics as a direct result of having no specialist teacher, while more than 300 English state secondaries are failing to produce any pupils who progress to study physics at A-level.

The report says the shortage is having a bigger impact on students in disadvantaged areas because their schools are less likely to have “in-field” physics teachers, while independent and top-scoring state schools cream off the best recruits.

“Data show that only 4% of students in the lowest socioeconomic status quintile take physics A-level, compared with about 11% in the highest quintile, and that 70% of A-level physics students come from just 30% of schools,” it says.

It is not a new problem. The lack of physics teachers is down to three decades of low recruitment and high attrition rates, which have left the state system in need of an additional 3,500 specialists at a time when the country is facing a severe skills shortage.

There have been signs of improvement in physics teacher training recruitment, which went up from 17% of the government’s target in 2023 to 30% last year, but the report highlights problems with retention. Nearly half (44%) of newly trained physics teachers left the profession within five years, compared with a third of teachers overall.

The IoP is urging the UK government to invest in a £120m, 10-year programme to tackle the crisis. Tom Grinyer, the IoP’s chief executive, said: “This report paints a worrying picture of an education system struggling to find and keep the physics teachers we need. That means hundreds of thousands of young people being taught physics by non-specialists.

“Despite the often heroic efforts of teachers having to work in unfamiliar subjects, inevitably many of those students are missing out. Research shows that pupils without access to a specialist physics teacher are much less likely to choose to study the subject at A-level. If we fail to tackle this challenge then we are failing to nurture the scientists and innovators of tomorrow – with serious consequences for our society and economy.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We are already delivering on our pledge to recruit and retain 6,500 more talented teachers, with 2,300 more secondary and special schoolteachers in classrooms this year, as well as 1,300 fewer teachers leaving the profession – one of the lowest leave rates since 2010.

“We’ve also seen a 25% increase in the number of people accepting teacher training places starting this autumn in Stem subjects. Through our plan for change, we will go further still to ensure every pupil has access to the expert teachers they need including continuing to offer tax-free incentives to encourage more talented people into the classroom to teach subjects including physics.”

Tom Middlehurst, the deputy director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Targets for recruiting trainee physics teachers are missed by very large margins. The underlying problem is that teaching salaries struggle to compete with the private sector, and this is compounded by workloads and responsibilities which affect retention.

“School leaders endeavour to mitigate those pressures but they’re operating under extremely difficult conditions with insufficient funding and demanding performance tables and inspections. The result is that it can be extremely difficult to put specialist physics teachers in front of classes, and schools often have no option other than to use non-specialists.”