Call to hold off on ballot resources
- Scottish independence campaigners have urged the Better Together campaign to suspend plans to send teacher resource packs into every school. Yes Scotland also plans to produce information packs for teachers, but said it would do so only after seeking advice from the Electoral Commission and Education Scotland. Edinburgh City Council has reminded teachers that they must “facilitate fair and balanced discussion”, but not express their own political views when discussing the referendum.
Thumbs down for ‘superschool’
- Teachers are overwhelmingly opposed to the proposed senior-phase “superschool” on the Crichton Campus in Dumfries, a survey by the local EIS branch has shown. Almost half the secondary teachers questioned said they would prefer to work outside Dumfries rather than in an S4-S6 or a 3-15 school. The option to retain the current four secondaries was favoured by 85 per cent of teachers.
Academy to open #163;200K kitchen
- Celebrity chef Albert Roux is helping Charleston Academy in Inverness to set up a #163;200,000 semi-industrial kitchen that will allow home economics students to learn catering skills. It will also involve the French and Gaelic language departments. The school hopes to have the Albert Roux Kitchen up and running by 2015 and to make it available to all secondaries in Inverness, as well as community groups.
New leader for merging colleges
- Martin McGuire, principal of Cumbernauld College, has been appointed principal of Motherwell and principal designate of the planned New College Lanarkshire. Cumbernauld and Motherwell colleges will merge later this year to create New College Lanarkshire. In recent months, Mr McGuire was seconded to the role of interim principal at Adam Smith College after the retirement of Craig Thomson and the suspension of Ian Harrington.
Little taste for independence
- Only one in five teenagers who will be eligible to vote in the 2014 independence referendum would currently vote “yes”, a study by the University of Edinburgh has shown. In the survey, which questioned more than 1,000 14- to 17-year-olds, 60 per cent said that they did not think Scotland should be an independent country. Two-thirds said they would like more information before making a decision.
