Originally launched in 2002, it has been amen-ded to keep it up to date, including references to curriculum, assessment and disability changes, and to remove some parts no longer thought relevant. The GTC Scot-land hopes to see a change in the common perception that the standard relates only to new teachers, emphasising it is a bench-mark for teachers through-out their career.

There has been a 13 per cent increase in the number of youngsters on child protection registers, which stood at 2,593 on March 31. But the number of registrations resulting from emotional abuse rose by 26 per cent and by 21 per cent for physical neglect; registrations due to sexual abuse were down by 11 per cent.

The Professional Association of Teachers, the anti-strike union, has appointed a new senior officer in Scotland. Maureen Laing, who is already on the PAT staff which she joined from Glenwood High in Glenrothes, takes over from Jim O’Neill who retires this week.

Another gender gap has emerged among Scottish pupils, this time in relation to those who have self-harmed. A Stirling University study of more than 2,000 pupils in Glasgow and Stirling, mostly aged 15 and 16, found that 20 per cent of girls had self-harmed compared with 7 per cent in the case of boys.

Presenting the results to experts at a suicide prevention conference in Glasgow this week, researcher Rory O’Connor said key factors among those who had self-harmed were drug use, bullying, physical abuse and sexual orientation. The victims were significantly more depressed, more anxious and impulsive and had lower self-esteem.

The latest HMIE publication in its Count Us In series, published this week, is a good practice guide on combating sectarianism. It high-lights and commends a string of initiatives such as the twin-ning of non-denom-inational and Catholic schools, a Peace and Justice week at Stewarton Acad-emy in East Ayrshire and the spread of shared campuses.

Financial jargon turns young people off, according to a survey carried out by Young Scot and sponsored by Lloyds TSB Scotland. Their report, Tell It Like It Is, has led the two organisations to produce a 10-point action plan to improve access to financial information. The study, involving around 2,800 people aged between 12 and 26, revealed that, while they are computer literate in using the internet, they prefer face-to-face contact at a bank.

South Lanarkshire College has been knocked off its pedestal as the top performing FE institution by Elmwood College in Fife which collected a full set of “very good” grades in all the seven cross-college areas inspected by HMIE (the Cambuslang-based college got six “very good” scores). Elmwood also got a mix of “very good” and “good” marks for its subject teaching.