Are John Swinney’s education reforms really empowering?

One person’s “empowering schools” is another’s passing the buck. A one-size-fits-all approach may not be the answer, but does every school in Scotland really require its own bespoke curriculum, its own recruitment process, its own procurement policies?

Is it really the job of schools to pump out work-ready youngsters?

WERE you “work-ready” when you left school? Did you hit the ground running in your career of choice, or did it take you a while to find your niche, build up skills and confidence, and figure out what you really wanted to do? If you went on to college or university – the route chosen

The best way to tackle domestic abuse is to fight sexism – starting in schools

School discipline may have moved on from the dunce’s cap and the tawse, but that doesn’t mean punishments are always fair and never have an element of shaming. The arbitrary enforcement of rules is one of the hallmarks of coercive control.

Getting in a flap about primary school testing won’t help P1s

AS the latest intake of primary ones toddle along to their first day at school next week, the littlest ones dwarfed by their jazzy new rucsacks, they’ll have another weight on their shoulders too. The weight of expectations added by the Scottish Government’s dastardly plan to make them sit tests. Not for these five-year-olds a

Can schools be truly inclusive without sex education?

A working group on LGBT-inclusive education is a good start … but how much influence with the Catholic Church have?

Sometimes special school is the perfect place to nurture talent

While special schooling may have held back children with physical impairments in the 1970s, mainstream schooling may have the same effect today on those with conditions such as autism and ADHD.

Locking young people out of festivals won’t solve drug problems

There are calls for banning, regulating and supervising … but wouldn’t educating and informing be a smarter approach?

It’s not right to make children pray at school

“HANDS together, eyes closed,” came the instruction, and we obediently complied. It seemed no more or less arbitrary than many of the other edicts issued by primary school teachers to us, their pliable charges. We lined up together in twos holding hands, we recited our times tables, we put our chairs atop our desks at