Aberdeenshire Council has announced the appointment of retired Angus Council director of education Jim Anderson as its interim director until a replacement is found for Bruce Robertson. Mr Robertson resigned from the post earlier this month following an independent inquiry into allegations of bullying. No action was taken against him.
Teachers at St Margaret’s School in Edinburgh, which closed last term because of falling pupil numbers, are to take court action over an unpaid salary rise. Staff at the private school did not receive a pay increase last year as management said it would be included this year.
New proposals have been drawn up to cut hundreds of homes from the catchment area of one of Scotland’s best-performing state schools. East Renfrewshire Council has agreed to consult on plans to deny families who live in neighbouring Glasgow automatic right of entry to St Ninian’s High in Giffnock. However, the families would be given priority if they seek entry through placing requests.
Leadership, strong early years provision and improvements in literacy and numeracy were just some of the “high-level strengths” in North Lanarkshire highlighted by HMIE in the latest validated self-evaluation inspection of a local education authority. One challenge, however, was the implementation of a “service reduction strategy” to take account of pending budget cuts.
Thousands of young people from jobless families could be destined to join their parents in the dole queue, the Prince’s Trust has warned. Seventy per cent had struggled to find a job and nearly one in five expected to end up on benefits because those around them had, according to a study involving more than 2,000 young people aged 16 to 24, carried out by the trust and Qa Research.
A Labour MSP has called for home-schooling rules to be examined after three children were killed in Edinburgh and their mother charged with their murder. Duncan McNeil has questioned whether the lives of the Riggi children could have been saved if they had been educated at school, not at home. He told a Sunday newspaper: “Any inquiry should try to determine whether the home-schooling of the Riggi children led to any delays in the authorities picking up on the danger they were in.” National home education organisation Schoolhouse condemned his comments, describing them as “insensitive, deplorable and tantamount to grave-robbing”.
Dumfries and Galloway Council has asked us to clarify the figures in our probationer survey last week, which should have indicated that it had 42 primary and 22 secondary probationers in 2009-10, of whom one received a permanent primary post and six a permanent secondary post.
