A Scottish council is to start the first phase of a wide-ranging overhaul of its schools which will include closures and mergers. Scottish Borders Council is carrying out the review against a background of “ongoing financial challenges”. However, it stressed that the move was not simply about making savings but also delivering benefits, including ensuring all children have access to a broad curriculum. On Tuesday the council’s executive committee gave its approval to get the process under way during this school year.
New online resources designed to improve primary teachers’ confidence delivering computer science have been launched by the Scottish government. The resources - called the Barefoot Computing Programme - focus on concepts such as algorithms, abstraction, programming and data structures and have been tailored to the Scottish curriculum. Key content has been translated into Gaelic. Education secretary John Swinney said of the scheme, supported by BT: “The launch of the Barefoot Computing Programme is a fantastic example of industry supporting education in Scotland.” For more details, visit the programme’s website.
Labour has renewed its call for a breakfast club in every school in Scotland. The party highlighted research showing that Scotland had the lowest percentage of schools with a breakfast club in the UK, with 72 per cent of schools hosting one. Labour education spokesman Iain Gray said that extending breakfast clubs to every school would mean a healthy start to the day for every school child. It would also help to cut the attainment gap and start a move towards flexible, wraparound childcare for working families, the party said.
Pupils at a primary school have taken to social media in a bid to find a Gaelic teacher. The vacancy at Rockfield Primary in Oban has been advertised several times over the past few months with no success, and now, in an effort to draw attention to the job, the children have created their own Gaelic YouTube video. Last week, TESS reported on the Western Isles’ e-Sgoil, a remote-learning school that has been created partly so that new technology can be used to address the shortage of Gaelic teachers.
@TESScotland
