Informed Scotland June 2016 – Excellence, equity… & the EU

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The Scottish Government’s new Delivery Plan for education was this month’s big item. It’s likely to remain the focus of attention for the schools sector for the foreseeable future, with proposals such as national standardised assessment and changes to local authority governance creating a stir. Unlike most documents of its type, there is very little in the way of ‘padding’ – it’s worth reading all 26 pages. However, we’ve provided our subscribers with edited extracts of the main items for ease of reference.

There are plenty of other reports to keep you occupied over the summer. Statistics include annual school and university leaver destinations, Modern Apprenticeships figures from SDS, and a new interactive data explorer from UCAS to analyse their new equality stats for individual universities.

Reports to highlight include IPPR Scotland’s Jobs and skills in Scotland, House of Commons Science & Technology Committee’s Digital skills crisis and City & Guilds Group’s Skills Confidence 2016.

It’s also been another busy month for teacher development and leadership including Scottish College for Educational Leadership’s new Training for Excellence for headteachers and Paul Hamlyn Foundation’s new Teacher Development Fund for the arts.

As it says in our blurb, Informed Scotland sets out to ‘provide intelligent summaries without political or sectoral bias’ – the June issue is no different. However, it’s hard to ignore the outcome of the EU Referendum when this month, as usual, there are numerous items involving various forms of collaboration with the EU and other EU nations. It is to be hoped that this kind of activity, and the synergistic impact and benefits it achieves, will continue whatever the future holds.

On a lighter note, a quick observation of the growing use of the word ‘literacy’. Apart from the obvious, other uses we’ve covered recently include financial, digital and emotional literacy. Add ‘ocean literacy’ to the list! To find out more, take a look at the EU funded Atlas project led by Heriot-Watt University Centre for Marine Biodiversity & Biotechnology.

Become an Informed Scotland subscriber so you can keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.