Management Speak - Changes to promoted posts in Edinburgh are based on...
Last month Edinburgh’s Education Committee discussed its reorganisation of secondary school management structures. By March 2013, the council will have reduced its 408 Principal Teachers, who...
View ArticleThe four stages of leadership - Tim Brighouse delivers an engaging and...
Tim Brighouse spoke at the recent conference of the Association of Chartered Teachers in Scotland. Brighouse has a powerful professional pedigree: one time chief education official in each of...
View ArticleSecond opinion needed - Diversity already exists in Scottish education, and...
Diversity is the key to improving Scottish education – so say Reform Scotland and the Centre for Scottish Public Policy. Their Commission on School Reform examined Scottish schooling. It included many...
View ArticleFreedom of expression - Repressing genuinely held but ill-informed views only...
The great problem with human rights is that one human right can conflict with another. These conflicts can become pressing issues in schools. Exercising religion, the right to worship freely but also...
View ArticleFrom the Chalkface - A teacher writes
Edinburgh University has appointed Dr Rowena Arshad, OBE, as Head of the Moray House School of Education. She is currently Head of the Institute for Education, Community and Society at Moray House, and...
View ArticleFrom the Chalkface - A teacher writes
The National Parent Forum has launched ‘Let’s Talk’, a resource to support parental engagement with schools (bit.ly/11psQtd ) and advising on how to build such engagement. It touches on a range of key...
View ArticleFrom the chalkface: a teacher writes - Sometimes the old guys simply do it...
I’m sure Keir Bloomer will forgive me for so labelling him but he was already a senior EIS official when I was a young school rep in the 1975 strikes. Keir Bloomer moved from being a union official to...
View ArticleDriving kids crazy - Walking to school is a learning experience that should...
East Lothian Council has established a 300-metre exclusion zone for cars around two primary schools in Haddington during school-run hours. The motoring lobby’s reaction has been predictable. AA...
View ArticleFrom the chalkface: a teacher writes
Healthy Pupils in Healthy Schools was the focus of this year’s Scottish Centre for Studies in School Administration Conference. Sergio Della Sala opened the morning with a salutary warning to...
View ArticleEducating a nation - Scotland's education system has been on a journey since...
Education and schools in Scotland in 1999 seem like a world away from where they are now. Some of the changes have been for the better; some have not. Attainment continues to rise, and that is welcomed...
View ArticleA matter of faith - The creationism in schools crisis reveals a conflict...
The crisis at Kirktenholme Primary in East Kilbride is one aspect of the increasing disputes over religion in schools. In Kirktenholme the job-sharing headteachers have been suspended from duty...
View ArticleBridging a divide - Time to look at the middle school model
The latest proposal to resolve some of the dilemmas (insufficient room in its primaries) which beset the City of Edinburgh Council’s schools has implications beyond the capital. Edinburgh is proposing...
View ArticleTools of the trade - The story of Annaliese Briggs is one we should all learn...
We need to keep our eyes on educational developments in England, to watch, analyse and learn. In April, the governors of Pimlico Primary, a newly established ‘free school’ in Westminster, appointed a...
View ArticleBrought to book - Moving libraries out of schools is a potential disaster
It’s that stressful time of year again. Council budgets are being struck. While schools will certainly be affected, there is another sphere of local authority expenditure reductions which will impact...
View ArticleEnding educational inequality is central to defining the kind of society we...
Michael Russell, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, recently opened GlasgowUniversity’s Robert Owen Centre for Educational Change. Social reformer and entrepreneur, Robert Owen...
View ArticleOh, the humanities! - The focus on an economic return from education...
A senior civil servant’s recent off-duty comment, about the role of higher education, sent shivers down my spine. “I can’t see why the taxpayer should pay for young people to study English or History....
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