At least one period of residence at an outdoor centre should be included if possible in every pupil’s school career, the SED recommend in a circular sent to education authorities this week.
The circular suggests that there should be three main types of outdoor centre for overlapping stages. Primary pupils will normally explore the local environment from the school itself, but may make use of day centres. If residence is required, it should be in a centre taking a group of 30 to 40 children from four or five nights at a time.
Outdoor centres for secondary pupils at the general stage should be planned to take from 60 to 80 for two to three weeks, giving time for the establishment of good personal relationships between staff and pupils.
* Clydebank Technical College, which only last year opened an extension doubling its size, faces a dramatic drop in students this coming session. Although spokesmen for Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, which sent more than 200 part-time students to the college last session, have implied that present apprentices will be able to finish their training, and there has even been a suggestion that more may be taken on, the collapse of one of the town’s biggest employers is bound to have its effect.
* Scotland’s first series of Open University summer schools started smoothly in Stirling last month. By tomorrow more than 800 students of varying maturity will have spent a week on the university campus, following an intensive academic course in the humanities and enjoying an introduction to the social side of student life which has sometimes proved almost as demanding.
* Mr Kenneth Allsop, rector of Edinburgh University, has appointed Ken Cargill, SRC president, to be his assessor on the court. Mr Cargill succeeds Mr George Foulkes, who resigns because of pressure of work.
TES SCOTLAND, AUGUST 6, 1971
