“What does it say to people about the importance of a school board, if you tell them ‘It doesn’t matter what you call it and you can set it up however you like?'” says Cathy McCulloch, chair of the school board at her son’s primary, St Mary’s in Leith, Edinburgh.

Her views are representative of many within the school boards community in Scotland, as the Executive consults on sweeping changes to the system for involving parents in education – which effectively mean the abolition of boards.

The new draft bill means schools will be able to decide for themselves how to set up their own body, how many people will be on it and what it will do and be called.

The draft legislation is too vague, according to McCulloch, who is also co-director of the children’s parliament.

They’re called by different names, some more acceptable than others. Child prodigies, gifted kids – in the USA they are simply nerds or geeks, and summer camps laid on for them are unashamedly known as “nerd camps”.

Whether you choose any of these terms or the more politically correct title of “able pupils”, things may be about to get better for children who have abilities beyond the normal range.

IT might have a Paisley postcode, but the island of Lismore, with its view of the west coast mountains of Morvern, is 150 miles from Glasgow. Home to just 160 people, it feels a world away from Scotland’s urban corridor; further still from Westminster. Policy wonks in the juice bars of Soho may be frothing about the coming general election, but from this distance their effervescence seems strangely flat. All the major parties are competing for the affections of a creature brought to life by today’s political myth-makers to encapsulate Britain in 2005. Where once they wooed Mondeo Man, now their quarry is Do-it-all Woman, who has a job, children and elderly relatives to care for. The election may not be the talk of Lismore’s one shop, but here, as everywhere else in Britain, there are many women – and men – whose lives are a patchwork of these different roles. So how does the prospect of a Labour third term affect them?

AS many as 10,000 trees would have to be cut down to make way for a golf resort on an estate, local campaigners claimed yesterday.

Felling has already started at the Archerfield estate in East Lothian, and the directors of the Duke of Hamilton’s holding company, Hamilton Kinneil, will today make a final decision on whether to sign over the lease of the woods for 99 years to Renaissance Golf Design, a USbacked firm, and Tom Doak, the course designer.

It may be freezing but “a simmering pot of volcanic ash” is hotting up and ready to explode across Britain. So said a spokesman for the protest group Fathers 4 Justice yesterday, angry about the government’s new child-access arrangements.
These men’s anger cannot be doubted. From scaling the walls of Buckingham Palace to bombarding the prime minister with powder, their protests have become increasingly fierce and desperate. Now the government in Westminster has offered some changes, which have been dismissed as mere tinkering by the group. In fact, that is all they are. The package amounts to little more than a restating of the existing position that the court must protect the rights of children. That is all very well, but it does nothing to address the men’s central complaint, which is that they say they are being systematically discriminated against.

Allison Pearson
Evening Standard, London, January 19

“[On Tuesday] the government announced plans to improve the way access to children after divorce is handled. Parents will be given more practical and emotional support. Community service orders and electronic tagging could be imposed on those who deny former partners contact with their kids.

“The plans, though well-meaning, sound both blundering and inadequate. How are kids going to feel towards their father if mum ends up wandering around like a convict with a shackled ankle? This is a fiendish area for legislation: how can you punish an uncooperative parent without hurting her child? … Every child deserves a childhood: it’s battling parents who need to grow up fast – not their innocent kids.”

BROADCASTER Sheena McDonald has revealed how the trauma of recovering from near-fatal brain injuries put pressure on her relationship with journalist partner Alan Little and drove her into a clinical depression. Ms McDonald, who was almost killed when hit by a police van driving on the wrong side of the road six years ago, told the conference in Edinburgh yesterday how her family and partner had also suffered.”Their trauma was psychological but it was perhaps even worse than mine because they were aware of everything that was happening. I don’t think they had any support at all apart from each other.”

Instead of getting Fran Healy of Travis to write a new anthem for Scotland, why not just stick with Why Does It Always Rain On Me? I kind of like the idea of the Tartan Army singing that before our ritual humiliation at football matches.

”Everybody’s saying everything’s all right, Still I can’t close my eyes I’m seeing a tunnel at the end of the lights,” might just about fit the bill, given our recent performances in the international arena. A majority of MSPs polled apparently want to commission a completely new anthem for Scotland – presumably from a Catalonian songwriter which will take five years to write and come in with 10 times the number of verses we expected.

In Agnes Owens’s hard, bright little black comedy set in Glasgow, Bad Attitudes, the anti-hero Mrs Webb enlivens her dull life by complaining to the council about her nuisance neighbours. ”Fancy him calling you a cow,” another character remarks to her. But, more concerned with regulating her neighbours’ bad behaviour than dealing with her own
problems, killjoy Mrs Webb seems emblematic of the new Scotland.