Western Isles to abolish corporal punishment
- The Western Isles decided last week to ban the belt in all primary schools from August, 1982. It is the first region to do so. Recently Lothian decided to reverse a recommendation to abolish corporal punishment and voted for further consultation after pressure by teachers. Tom Scott, education secretary of the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment, welcomed the Western Isles move as a “major step forward”. But he said it was belated, unique and restrictive.
English chair’s personal view backs speech test
- The chairman of a working party on Higher English believes reforms should include assessment of a folio of a pupil’s work and of a candidate’s ability with speech as well as in writing. Campbell Cassidy, principal teacher of English at St Michael’s Academy, Kilwinning, stresses these are his personal views. But his article in the magazine Teaching English is bound to influence opinion in the development of Higher English.
In search of acceptance for Scots dialect
- Is it right that pupils should be corrected and made to feel ashamed of forms of Scots speech which vary from the received speech of south-east England and BBC English - and may seem to the non-Scots speaker ungrammatical uses of the language? This was one of the questions discussed at a recent conference evaluating the Jordanhill Scottish Literature and Language Project, prepared by an in-service working party at Jordanhill College of Education and circulating to 220 secondary schools.
Craiglockhart boosted by GTC’s report
- Faced with the prospect of losing all but primary school diploma courses, Craiglockhart College of Education is using a glowing report from the visitation committee of the General Teaching Council as a reason for continuing with postgraduate courses after its proposed amalgamation with Notre Dame College in Glasgow. Other colleges such as Moray House, Aberdeen and Dundee have been criticised heavily by the visitation committee, but Craiglockhart’s work with postgraduate students - 45 in the present session - brings a range of tributes.
