The fourth annual Informed Scotland Organisations & People Special has just been published to coincide with the start of the 2016–17 academic session. It provides a snapshot of an ever-changing landscape. Each year we add more items – this year there are links to over 280 organisations, up from 150 in the first edition in 2013. […]
by Kenneth Muir, Chief Executive, General Teaching Council for Scotland. Continuing our guest blog series featuring Informed Scotland subscribers writing on the theme Making connections across the learning & skills landscape. STV’s Scotland Tonight programme recently asked the question ‘What makes a good teacher?’ The programme reminded me of a visit I made a few years […]
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 […]
The best word to describe the latest issue of Informed Scotland is ‘intense’. Almost every page features an important or significant report or announcement. The increased intensity of focus on learning and skills last month was palpable, mainly – but not entirely – due to the new Scottish Government placing education at the heart of its […]
With political lockdown in place for the Scottish Parliament elections, April was the quietest month for a while. That said, there was no shortage of interesting developments. Reports worth highlighting include the UK Commission for Employment & Skills’ Working Futures on labour market projections; the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Big Ideas on the future of […]
The Scottish Parliament 2016 election will have taken place by the time we publish the April edition of Informed Scotland – too late to provide subscribers with our usual pre-election selection of relevant links. We’ve therefore published a very brief ‘Election Extra’. It contains links to some of the manifestos and resources focusing on or […]
by Fearghal Kelly, Development Officer, Scottish College for Educational Leadership. Continuing our guest blog series featuring Informed Scotland subscribers writing on the theme Making connections across the learning & skills landscape. What actually is teacher leadership and how do we develop it? That’s the question that the Scottish College for Educational Leadership (SCEL) asked me to […]
It was another particularly busy month with the rush to publish or make announcements before ‘purdah’ began ahead of the Scottish Parliament Elections. The main publication was the Commission on Widening Access final report, A Blueprint for Fairness. All 34 of its recommendations are included in an annex as a handy reference for our subscribers. Other […]
During any pre- ‘pre-election’ period there’s always a rush for those in power to make announcements before business goes into temporary stasis. With the Scottish Parliament Elections approaching in May, learning & skills activity has been ramping up for a while; there was no let-up in February. The Education (Scotland) Bill was passed, and the […]
Once again there was no festive respite… In fact the opposite was true, with education high on the political agenda it seems everyone in Scotland’s talking about learning and skills. It’s been a mammoth task to make sense of all the activity – Informed Scotland 37 is the biggest issue yet! A number of major reports […]