More than £45 million will be provided to schools in the coming academic year to help close the poverty-related attainment gap, education secretary John Swinney (pictured) has announced. The money - which will go to the nine attainment challenge authorities and an additional 72 schools based in 12 authorities - marks the third year of the Scottish Attainment Challenge. The Greens said it was not enough to reverse “the decade of cuts to teachers, support staff and resources”.

Scottish pupils rank among the poorest in the UK when it comes to improvements in reading, new research shows. Pupils in both Northern Ireland and England improved more during the course of a year, as measured by a reading test, than youngsters in Scotland, who were on a par with pupils in Wales. The study was conducted by Keith Topping, professor of education at the University of Dundee, and analysed 10 per cent of UK pupils, with 117 Scottish schools involved.

Researchers want to hear about the CPD that UK teachers are receiving in school. The team have been asked by biomedical research charity the Wellcome Trust to analyse the nature of primary and secondary teacher CPD and how that compares with international best practice. The trust is looking at how it can support the scientists and mathematicians of the future. See bit.ly/CPDresearch

More than 200 schools have shut down in Scotland over the past decade, prompting the EIS teaching union to warn that communities must be properly consulted over closures. There are now 2,524 schools, compared with 2,730 10 years ago, according to figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats.