Published in the Herald, Tuesday 24 September 2013. Born June 24, 1935. Died September 15, 2013. A proud Scot and a Francophile, Professor Charles MacCallum was a dedicated teacher and an academic as well as a practising architect with an interest in showcasing design features in the buildings he helped to create.
Obituary of Dr Stephen Churcher. Born: 9 February, 1967, in Edinburgh. Died: 30 August, 2013, in Midlothian, aged 46. From the Scotsman September 13 2013.
Published in the Education Guardian, August 6 2013
Their exam system may differ from the one in England, but Scottish students face the same anxious wait for their results. Jackie Kemp takes a closer look at Highers and university entrance north of the border
The new Scottish national curriculum will emphasis research and thinking skills
Today, across Scotland, young people will be whooping or groaning as the results of their endof – school exams, the Highers and Advanced Highers, are revealed. “The people who do really well will post them on Facebook,” says student Ellie Small, “and some of those who do really badly might post them for comedy value, but I don’t think I will be posting mine. I’m really nervous. The closer it gets, the more I feel I won’t have got what I need.”
Jackie Kemp -The Guardian, Monday 20 May 2013 19.30 BST
Pupils at Glasgow’s Douglas Academy debate Scotland’s independence ahead of next year’s vote. Photograph: Martin Hunter
Rosie Duthie and Euan MacIntosh, both 15, have made up their minds on how they plan to vote in next year’s referendum on Scottish independence. For Euan the answer is a clear “yes” because he believes it will be his best guarantee of a free university education. Rosie is a “no”. She says: “We should be arguing that what we think is better for the future of young people in Scotland is better for England too and for the European Union.”
By RORY REYNOLDS AND JACKIE KEMP
Published in The Scotsman newspaper on 29/04/2013 00:00
FOREIGN language learning in Scotland’s schools has dipped to “worrying” new levels, education experts warned last night. The warning that the decline will have an negative impact on Scotland’s standing in the world came after it emerged that only about one in ten S5 pupils is taking foreign language courses.
An analysis of education statistics by The Scotsman has found the number of Higher course entrants for modern languages has fallen by nearly a quarter over the past 20 years, from 10,179 to just under 7,887 in 2011.
It’s difficult, unfamiliar, and far from a traditional educational choice. So why are more Scottish pupils bucking the UK trend and venturing out of their comfort zone to study Mandarin? Jackie Kemp speaks to some of the people involved in the pursuit of oriental excellence. From The Scotsman April 29 2013
A group of girls in brightly coloured silk costumes are conversing animatedly in Mandarin – performing a short play for visitors to their school, Leith Academy, Edinburgh. The city comprehensive’s staff are clearly proud of this high-achieving group of six girls, all the children of immigrants from Africa, Asia and diverse parts of Europe, who earlier this year beat stiff competition to make it to the finals of the British Council’s Chinese-speaking competition, for the second time in a row.
Born: 29 September, 1934, in Liverpool. Died: 26 December, 2012, in Edinburgh, aged 78
Father Edward McSherry – known to everyone as “Father Ted” – was parish priest of St Mary’s Star of the Sea in Leith, Edinburgh. At the time of his death he was working and leading a full life, having recently returned from a visit to South America.
At his funeral, the church was packed with mourners, many of whom had travelled for long distances to mark the passing of this popular priest and to give thanks for what was described as a “simple life – and in the end he died as he lived – very simply”
Could Scottish students lose out as university places are offered to English school-leavers with lower A-level grades?
The McEwan Hall and Bristo Square at Edinburgh university. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian
Ridgway – who runs the adventure holiday company founded by her father, the yachtsman John Ridgway – takes her two children, Hughie, eight, and Molly, 10, to school each morning in an open boat with an outboard motor from their home in Ardmore, in Sutherland.
JACKIE KEMP from online publication “Journalist’s Handbook” April 4 2011.
The i – a concise version of the Independent newspaper priced at a very reasonable 20 pence a day or £35 a year – appears to be doing rather well. ABC sales figures at the start of this year were around 130,000 and are reportedly heading for 160,000 now. That is double the number of people who subscribe to the Times website and, at a time when in many newspaper groups resources have been migrating from print to online editions, it presents an interesting idea.
Could it be that there is still some mileage in the hoary old newspaper? Could there be something too in this new, sexy concept of concision?
From the Herald 28 Dec 1995
Scots pioneered the technology and techniques for one of the most amazing pieces of medical equipment in hospitals today.
Yet, as Jackie Kemp discovers, lack of insight and investment meant that their innovation was ignored here and taken over by other countries.
From the Daily Telegraph Jan 4 2011 – by Jackie Kemp
Despite budget cuts of almost £1 billion next year, Holyrood is about to pick a Children’s Commissioner, and give them a multi-million-pound budget, for six years. Tam Baillie, the incumbent, is the clear front-runner, but Jackie Kemp asks whether he is the right man for the £70,000-a-year post and if MSPs are bothering to find out.
Akakpo Kangni-Soukpe and his three-year-old daughter Rose, from Togo, are among more than 1,000 asylum seekers in Glasgow being moved on. Photograph: Murdo Macleod.
A similar article appeared in the Guardian on November 24. All reference to the housing group ‘Angel’ was removed after a polite request for a comment was greeted with a letter from libel lawyers Carter Ruck.
With tuition fees in England set to rise in 2012, the divergence between Scottish and English higher education looks likely to grow.
Edinburgh University: there are four universities in Edinburgh alone, so there is some scope for merging of functions and facilities.
Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian
Five centuries ago, while the gilded youth of England headed off to Oxford each autumn with their retinues, the kilted sons of Scottish fisherfolk and farmers – tradition has it – walked to Scotland’s ancient universities, each carrying a bag of oatmeal on their shoulders – rations for an entire term.
Born: 26 July, 1943, in Gillingham, Kent.
One of those will be in the cafe of the Edinburgh Filmhouse where the internationally known film theorist often sat in lively discussion with students or fellow cineophiles, chewing the fat over what they had just seen. On 13 November, the Filmhouse is to show a tribute screening of one of his favourite films – Ingmar Bergman’s Winter Light.
Evening News October 4 20010. by Jackie Kemp.
THERE have been good times and bad over the years but, up or down, win or lose, there are few games that John Rudden has missed at Easter Road since he first walked onto the terraces holding his dad’s hand on a Saturday afternoon in 1936.
Not many of the familiar faces he first saw at games are still there, but the 79-year-old lifelong Leith resident is now joined by a new crew of fellow season ticket holders – two of his grandsons and two great-grandsons.
The Guardian, Tuesday 28 September 2010
Jackie Kemp meets the professor of brewing who is working with Benjamin Zephaniah to excite black students
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6MogWTJKKc – paste into google
Mail on Sunday magazine Hens adore mushroom risotto. They are also keen on asparagus stems and the tops of strawberries. They are more curious than the cat and make a…
The piece tells the moving story of how mother Pauline Mckenzie with the help of her lawyer Ken Lauder won the biggest-ever damages in a medical negligence case in Scotland…