‘As an unusually sunny summer term winds to a close at Queen Victoria school in Stirlingshire, punctuated by band practice, sports days and preparation for a ceremony to be attended by Princess Anne, the only cloud on the horizon is the dangers facing troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For all 280 boarders at this secluded spot, set in 45 acres of greenery, are the children of men and women in the services, many serving overseas.
School’s out for summer – but there is a lot of angry rhetoric still rumbling around the corridors. Scotland’s largest teaching union has threatened to ballot for a strike if the Scottish Executive fails to accept its demand for maximum class sizes of 20 across the board. Its members say this will lead to better attainment, especially for disadvantaged children.
And yet the Scottish Executive argues that research into the educational benefits of small classes is inconclusive and that it may not be the best use of resources.
Do we need obedient children? No. What we need in the 21st century is creative, questioning, challenging children who can think for themselves. We no longer need to prepare them for a
life of kowtowing to the old bowler hat, the gaffer, the policeman, the dominie, the sergeant-major. That world is gone for ever. Belief in unquestioning obedience began to subside as the world assessed the aftermath of the Somme and the Holocaust, and it will never come back.
We need to produce young people who are immensely flexible, self-sufficient, full of cheek and confidence. We need to leave behind the put-down and the threat in the same way that we have put away the tawse and the cane. We need to learn to cope with to as well as fro, to listen as well as to teach, to cherish the bright spark and not to seek to put it out.
‘History is more or less bunk, said Henry Ford. And that view appears to be gaining ground.
Not in St Augustine’s high school in Edinburgh, where it is one of the most popular subjects, with 65% of pupils taking it to exam level. There, the subject is compulsory until the third year. “History should be part of everyone’s secondary education,” says Andy Gray, the headteacher. “We have a right and a duty to pass on our story.”
However, at least four secondary schools in Scotland have now dropped the subject altogether in favour of other social science subjects that they say pupils find more relevant, and in which they do better.
‘See that building over there?” My guide points down the road to a white monolith whose large windows dominate the surrounding landscape. “That’s the social work department. And, see, if you were a battered wife going in there to seek help, your man could stand here and see you going in and out and in every one o’ they rooms. You’d get the hiding of your life when you came out. It’s like a lot of things in Easterhouse, it’s not very well thought out.”
Residents of this sprawling Glasgow housing scheme, one of the most deprived in Europe, have their reasons for being sceptical of grand visions intended to improve their lives. But, in the case of a primary school reorganisation that is to shut 10 schools and four nurseries in the area, replacing them with three “campuses”, they are less sceptical than actively angry.
You don’t have to be an aunt Sally to see that this is exactly the kind of school the white paper in England is aimed at creating.” Gordon Smith, head of Jordanhill school in Glasgow’s West End, is describing why he has to be careful what he says just at the moment.
In his role as president of the Scottish Association of Headteachers, Smith describes why Scotland can’t have more schools like Jordanhill. While with his other hat on, he talks about how great it is. It is a difficult line to tread.
IN France, “give us our daily bread” is a saying that still stands and the trip to the boulanger for a mouth-melting fresh baguette is a cherished part of life. The French like their bread fresh, traditionally made and free of preservatives, which means it goes stale very quickly. In Italy or Greece, the stuff is dipped straight into olive oil and eaten with every meal. In Arab countries, it comes flat and chewy while in some parts of Germany it is black and made with rye.
In contrast, British bread is mostly awful. As a result of our weekly supermarket shopping habits, it comes in stay-fresh foil packets. Bizarrely, it rarely goes stale but it can become mouldy and still feel soft thanks of to the crumb-softening enzymes within the mix.
The class of eight-year-olds at Low Port school in Linlithgow are engrossed in the shapes on their interactive computer screen. They are touching frames to colour different fractions. This is a maths lesson, but it could be a game. The children at Low Port start using Smart Boards in primary one and continue throughout their time at the school. “The
internet is your oyster, explains Liz Greig, a teacher in primary 4. “I can go on to Google and get a map, say, and display it for the class. When we are reading, they can all follow the text on the screen. It’s much easier to keep them focused.”
The school spent several hundred pounds on these popular maths games last year and the pupil council is pushing for more. Where does the money come from? “We approach the trust fund,” explains the principal teacher, Anne Cook.
Ask pupils to propose changes to the design of their school and the response from some might be to ask for a quicker route to the exit. But in fact the kind of suggestions pupils come up with are often far more constructive – and unexpected. Synthetic grass, more pegs for coats and bags and even a soil-less garden are among ideas received by architects working with Scottish schoolchildren.
Pupils should be consulted over new school building design, claims the government. But a leading ecological architect warns that this risks being little more than a box-ticking exercise under the current system of public private partnership (PPP).
A DVD costing tens of thousands of pounds produced to support Scotland’s new music syllabus has been criticised as “disappointing”, “crazy” and “a missed opportunity” by some of Scotland’s leading music educators. A new music syllabus is being introduced next year which is aimed at making Scotland’s music education more diverse and creative. However, a GBP65,000 supporting DVD released last month has been criticised as failing to meet these goals, and sticking too firmly to the western classical tradition.
Poverty remains the biggest single factor in determining how Scotland’s primary schools are likely to perform in tests, a Herald study has shown. Writing ability is particularly closely related to social deprivation, with the wealthiest schools doing twice as well as the poorest.
The numbers give a “desperately disappointing” picture of the first cohort to complete their primary school education under a Labour government, according to education experts who say an intense, society-wide effort is needed to eradicate the social deprivation that makes school tests an unfair contest, which the poorest are bound to lose.
In schoolyards across Scotland, a battle is raging. On one side are councillors who say that spending the education budget sensibly means underused primaries have to close. On the other are banner-waving families – dubbed Kimbies (Keep It In My Backyard) – who say their local schools form the heart of their communities.
TEACHERS, musicians and academics have warned that new Higher music courses are being “dumbed down” and could leave gifted pupils illequipped for a future career.
The revised exam programme will be introduced from next year, and jazz artists Tommy Smith and Cathie Rae have joined a growing chorus of concern about standards.
For the thousand ormore nervous first years who recently moved into Legoland blocks on the treelined Heriot Watt University campus west of Edinburgh, it is a hopeful time. As with the half of all young Scots who now go on to higher education, they are setting out on what they expect will be the start of a bright future.
But a young man tending the bar at Geordie’s in the student union could tell a sorrier tale.
A row between education’s governing bodies in England and Scotland may mean Scottish pupils are losing out when competing for university places.
Experts believe English grade inflation is making comparisons between A levels and Scottish qualifications increasingly difficult, and the credit given to pupils who pass Advanced Highers in particular needs to be re-evaluated.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) has asked for a benchmarking exercise for the Advanced Higher, but the Department forEducation and Skills (DfES) and Scottish Executive education department (SEED) cannot agree on who should fund the process.
Oxford and Cambridge universities say they consider the Advanced Higher as a more testing qualification and will accept students with lower grades than in equivalent A-level subjects.
It is a further indication that the A-level, once regarded as Britain’s “gold standard” qualification, has been discredited.
A-level results released last week showed pass rates rising for the 23rd consecutive year to a new high of 96.2%. Almost 23% of candidates are now awarded an A grade. The Advanced Higher pass rate stands at 74.5%, an increase of just 1% since the exam’s introduction in 2000.
In grand houses, it was firmly below stairs and inhabited by servants. In more modest ones, it was often a sultry little room where the woman of the house was expected to spend up to 12 hours a day bent over a Belfast sink.
The once humble kitchen has long since outgrown its subordinate role. Today’s ideal homes are built around a hub of domestic industry, a functional space that combines the features of a well-equipped area for preparing food with a drawing/ dining room for entertaining and a family
room for chewing the fat and doing homework.
While modern architects can meet this demand relatively easily, it can be difficult for those adapting an older property. The boxy shape of a fitted kitchen looks ungainly when transplanted into a splendid high-ceilinged period room, more used to adornment with fine furniture and antique furniture is not usually suitable for a modern kitchen.
Heller was synonymous with Catch-22; the same might be said of Michael Cunningham and The Hours. After two well received but slow-selling novels, A Home at the End of the World and Flesh and Blood, published in 1990 and 1995, The Hours transported Cunningham into an elite league where critical and commercial success go hand in hand. The subsequent film, starring Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore and Nicole Kidman, with a hypnotic score by Philip Glass, served merely to confirm the arrival on the block of a new literary superstar. He won a Pulitzer and enough credit to pursue his own dream.
The result is Specimen Days, which borrows the title of Walt Whitman’s Civil War diaries.
Fist published in the Herald, 2005.
Gemma means everything to me. I love her to bits.
She knows if I’m feeling rough or a bit ill. And I know that even if I shout at her, she’ll still be there the next day. She gives me 100% love and I give her the same, ” says Eric.
To the homeless man, the six year-old mongrel at his heel is more than a pet. And while trooping about the town at her master’s side may be not bad as a dog’s life goes, he worried about the toll homelessness would take on her health.
The image of the biological clock calling time on a woman’s fertility has been used to stereotype the “Bridget Jones” generation of women who postpone settling down and having children . . . but now a world expert on male fertility claims it also ticks for men.