Will all the staff at Qualifications Scotland get to keep the same desks they had at SQA, or will they have to move to new desks for the sake of appearances?

BREAKING: national, externally-assessed examinations are much fairer than thousands of teachers all taking a punt. More as we get it.

That's just great. Unfortunately it is hopelessly impractical for a classroom teacher with 30 students who has to get them to understand algebra. Telling teachers they have to magically psychoanalyse bad behaviour away is like telling a drowning man to breathe water.

I have found myself talking to several people in the last few months about how Scottish Education is in the thrall of "progressive" ideas. This post explains what progressive means in this context.

Sigh

My not entirely accurate litmus test for the latest condition-you-can-be-diagnosed-with is this: are people using it like a star sign? If so, it's probably nonsense.

Andrew Old This is a very simple one professionally. No one with qualifications other than as a clinical psychologist, or a psychiatrist, should have any role in a school, advising teens about mental health issues.

TLDR; the wholesale adoption of "relationship-based" based approaches has coincided with a worsening of behaviour in Scottish schools, so our plan is to double down on relationship-based approaches. gov.scot/publications/n…

Wow

my new album is called Ephemera It's coming out on Friday 18th October via Numbers. It features Huerco S, James K, Koreless, Laila Sakini, Lia T, Birthmark, ELDON & Withdrawn You can listen to the first single "Heima with Huerco S. and James K" now :) nmb.rs/fergus-jones-p…

Swedish children to start school a year earlier in move away from play theguardian.com/world/2024/sep…

Ephemera inside

Important for people running school trips that allowing anyone to come, no matter their behaviour, is a hazard for everyone else. Sometimes, in order to be inclusive, there needs to be boundaries and limits to that inclusivity.

This is why Scottish education can’t have nice things: because even when a school like Berwickshire High bucks the downward trend, council education committees refuse to look closely at it and find out why. The reasons given are atrocious. scotsman.com/education/educ…

As a recently retired secondary depute head, I agree completely with Tom's analysis. We are tragically failing Scotland's most needy youngsters in the name of inclusion, so those away from chalkface can polish their halos.

Recent HMIE secondary inspection report - still clinging to the ludicrous notion that 12 year olds know what and how they ought to learn. “Young people report an improvement in leading their own learning – they are able to influence what and how they learn.”

We *know* how to close attainment gaps. This isn’t a mystery or a riddle. 1. Better behaviour in schools 2. Evidence informed teaching methods 3. Evidence informed teacher and leadership training These are the nettles yet to be grasped in Scotland, but instead we have ploughed

bbc.com/news/articles/… as in academia, there really ought to be a requirement for people to research the history of such ideas and their attempted implementation before going ahead with such experiments. Not to do so is unethical. Doing so would save kids from this nonsense.