The quality of school building inspections across Scotland has been questioned, following the collapse of a wall at an Edinburgh primary last year. Professor John Cole - who headed up the investigation into the incident at Oxgangs Primary in Edinburgh - said some inspections by other councils had been “purely visual”. The concerns came to light as part of a wider inquiry into school building construction by the Scottish parliament’s education committee.

A mental health programme backed by children’s charity Barnardos is set to be rolled out across a local authority. The PATHS programme, running in Renfrewshire primaries since 2013, aims to make schools more nurturing, supportive and caring in a bid to protect children from serious mental health problems. A further 14 primaries will benefit from the programme as of August; it is intended to ultimately run in all Renfrewshire primaries.

Glasgow Museums has taken the rare decision to allow a valuable exhibit - a traditional gypsy caravan - to visit a school. Some 178 of Annette Street Primary’s 220 pupils are from a Romanian or Slovakian Roma background. Headteacher Shirley Taylor said it would “promote a sense of worth in the culture and traditions of our Roma families and give our children a sense of their place within history”.

This year’s Edinburgh International Book Festival children’s programme will feature Julia Donaldson, Anthony Horowitz, Cressida Cowell and Sir Chris Hoy. Janet Smyth, children and education programme director, said children’s books had “the power to develop empathy and tolerance”. The festival runs from 12-28 August (see edbookfest.co.uk).