The assessments by teachers - known as the Foundation Stage Profile - aim to show how children are developing against a set of expectations for the skills five-year-olds should have.

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He was, of course, admitting that the foundation's high-profile "small schools" initiative hadn't paid off in terms of changed outcomes--and he and his team deserve plaudits for acknowledging this.

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The annual awards are the highest profile part off what the Foundation does, and like the Academy Awards, most are related to the current year, such as Best New Chef, Best Cookbook, Best New Restaurant, etc.

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The chairman of Craig's Heartstrong Foundation, Paul Healey said the high-profile collapse of Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba last year brought the issue of undiagnosed heart defects to the public's attention.

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The Gates Foundation has since made a number of high-profile gifts.

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Mr Andrews announced in his speech that he would be reviewing the child development assessment profile for those youngest pupils entering the foundation phase for early years education.

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But many high-profile organisations, such as the British Dental Health Foundation, Unison, the National Obesity Forum, the British Medical Association and Friends of the Earth, believe this does not go far enough.

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The highest-profile is arguably ProPublica, an investigative-reporting unit set up in 2008 with help from the Sandler Foundation.

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