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.”

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.

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”

• • The Guardian, Tuesday 3 May 2011
“One more pupil please!” reads the appeal sent out by Rebecca Ridgway, desperate to find a young family prepared to move to one of the emptiest places in Europe to stop the school roll falling below 20 at her children’s primary.

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.

Millions of pounds per year is to be spent on new long-term contracts for three Scottish public sector ‘tsars’ despite deep spending cuts and criticism over some of their work.

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.

Tuition fees: widening the gap between England and Scotland. From the Guardian Education Nov 15

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.

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.

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…

From the Education Guardian

Scottish universities are breaking new ground this summer – literally – as work begins on Heriot-Watt’s bespoke £35m campus in the Middle Eastern state of Dubai.