Improvements will be made to Glow, the intranet for Scottish schools, following feedback from users. It will soon carry the first national education blog and wiki service in Scotland, allowing pupils to create web pages and write online diaries. These and other changes to Glow Mail, will appear between now and summer 2010. Learning and Teaching Scotland, which runs Glow, has also announced a two-year extension to its five-year deal with contractor RM, which was due to run out in September 2010. This will allow RM to make any further improvements identified.
Scotland’s seven independent girls’ schools have set up a network to share resources among their pupils. Craigholme and Fernhill in Glasgow, Mary Erskine, St Margaret’s and St George’s in Edinburgh, Kilgraston School in Perthshire and St Margaret’s in Aberdeen will share a year-long programme featuring competitions, events and visits across a range of disciplines, including horse-riding, music, debating international studies, tennis and swimming.
Margaret Doran, the former director of children and families for Glasgow City Council, received a combined package of pound;278,000 - a redundancy payment of pound;64,000, pound;29,000 in lieu of notice, and a lump sum of pound;185,000 from her pension fund - when she left her post this year. Teachers who were suffering budget cuts on a daily basis would be “outraged” by the settlement, said the EIS Glasgow association.
A memorandum of understanding has been signed to promote co-operation between Scottish and Indian universities. The bilateral agreement is the first signed by the Association of Indian Universities with any UK body. External Affairs Minister Michael Russell said India was Scotland’s “number one country of interest for educational collaboration”.
Visit the blog of his recent trip at www.mrussellindia.wordpress.com
Clackmannanshire Council’s educational psychology services have received an outstanding HMIE report. Good practice included: an emotional well- being event for older pupils preparing to leave school; curricular approaches to improving children’s “emotional competence”; and support for parents in building “secure emotional attachments” with their children. The services rated “very good” for 16 out of 19 quality indicators, and “excellent” or “good” for the others.
A Scottish Government trial project aims to improve health in schools. All schools in Clackmannanshire and Moray, as well as the Armadale Academy cluster in West Lothian and the Belmont Academy cluster in South Ayrshire, are taking part in the Health and Wellbeing in Schools initiative. The four areas will not all take exactly the same approach, but ideas which could be taken forward with the help of local NHS boards include drop-in centres for pupils, parenting programmes, home visits, and support for young carers.
A new deal will enable all students with additional support needs to “fully participate” in life at Edinburgh’s Telford College. Edinburgh City Council has committed some pound;100,000 as part of arrangements which involve three staff members employed to help the students.
Delivery of this week’s TESS to subscribers is expected to be delayed by Royal Mail industrial action.
