Eligible families across Scotland are being encouraged to apply for the Best Start Grant School Age Payment before applications close on 28 February.
The one-off £250 payment can be used to buy anything from a warm coat to books and toys. Applications are open to families that have a child that was born between 1 March 2015 and 29 February 2016.
Parents who have deferred their child’s entry to school from August 2020 to August 2021, or those who are home schooling, may still be eligible for this payment and should still apply before the closing date.
The payment is part of the Best Start Grant, a package of three payments to support families who get tax credits or certain benefits – including Universal Credit, Income Support and Housing Benefit.
More information on the Social Security Scotland website
People with underlying health conditions and unpaid carers are beginning to receive coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccinations. Priority group 6 is one of the largest on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) list.
The first to be invited will be people who have conditions which are included on both the JCVI priority list and the flu vaccine list. Although there is some overlap, the two lists are not exactly the same. They will be invited at the same time as unpaid carers who receive carers’ benefits or who have been identified by GPs.
Carers who do not receive carers benefits, and who have not been identified by GPs, will be asked to come forward to register for their vaccine at a later date through an online portal or the national helpline. Work is also ongoing to identify people with underlying conditions who are not on the modified flu vaccine list, and they will be invited shortly.
Anyone aged 70 or over who has not yet been invited for their vaccine should visit nhsinform.scot for further advice, or call the national helpline on 0800 030 8013.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “As we move through the JCVI priority list, we will continue to maximise the number of vaccinations depending on available supply.
“Although a small number of people in group 6 will already have been invited in some parts of Scotland, we are now able to begin to roll out these invites more widely. Boards will begin to send the invites as their supply levels allow, and once they have completed a good proportion of 65-69-year-olds.
“This is one of the largest group of people on the priority list, so please be patient. It may take several weeks to get through the whole cohort. The age range of people in this cohort can be as young as 16 and their underlying condition may not be obvious to the outside world.
“I would stress that the offer at this time is based on a clinical judgment so we would strongly encourage people of all ages to take up this offer should it come.
“As a result of the high uptake in the last few weeks and a lower supply of vaccine than we had originally anticipated, we have had to adjust the number of appointments in the past week, and for the foreseeable future.
“We must also ensure we have enough vaccine for second doses when they are due as this provides longer lasting protection against the virus. All of this will mean that some of our vaccination centres may be less busy in the next couple of weeks.
“The vaccination programme is one of three key ways we are working to beat this virus, along with our expanded testing programme to identify cases and break chains of transmission and the important lockdown restrictions everyone in Scotland must follow.
“All these measures work to greatest effect when they work together.”
The charity is hosting its second virtual ‘Speak Out. Stay Safe’ assembly on Tuesday morning at 10am to help keep children safe and well during the pandemic
Parents and children are being encouraged to join the assembly that will be held on the NSPCC Facebook page
The first virtual assembly that aired online in June has had more than 100,000 views
Amid growing concerns about the impact of COVID19 on children’s safety and mental health and wellbeing the NSPCC is holding a second virtual ‘Speak Out. Stay Safe’ assembly on Facebook tomorrow (Tuesday February 23rd) at 10am.
The special broadcast suitable for children aged five and over aims to help them understand how to speak to a trusted adult if they feel anxious or worried, and it explains the support that Childline can offer.
It will also focus on some additional concerns that some children are experiencing due to the pandemic.
The assembly will see the return of guest hosts Ant & Dec and features an appearance from comedian David Walliams. The TV duo who have been long term supporters of the children’s charity hosted the first online assembly in June last year which received over 100,000 views on Facebook and YouTube.
A recording of Tuesday’s online assembly will also be available on the NSPCC’s website, Facebook and YouTube channel after the event for anyone who misses it.
One Facebook user who watched the first assembly said:” My boys loved it and following a family bereavement this gave them an opportunity to talk about their feelings. We took blank paper and marked it for every worry or fear we had and shared.”
With many vulnerable children still facing increased risks at home and with others struggling with their mental health due to the challenges posed by the pandemic, it’s vital that children know what to do and who to speak if something is worrying or upsetting them.
The coronavirus related worries the assembly will cover include, children not being able to see their family and friends, changes in daily routines, experiencing new feelings and spending more time online.
Guest hosts Ant & Dec said:
Ant: “After what has been an incredibly difficult start to the year for many young people, we feel privileged to once again be hosting the NSPCC’s virtual assembly for children and their families.
Dec: “We hope we can remind children that they don’t have to just carry their worries with them – they can always speak to someone they trust if they’re feeling sad, overwhelmed, or unsafe.”
Service Head of School Service, Janet Hinton said: “The lockdown has turned the lives of children upside down and many are struggling to cope with the challenges it has posed.
“Although our trained ‘Speak Out. Stay Safe’ staff can’t currently go into schools, it is essential that every child knows who they can turn to if they need help and support.
“After watching the assembly, parents and carers can continue this conversation with their children by visiting the NSPCC website where they can find additional activities.”
Prior to the pandemic, ‘Speak Out. Stay Safe’ had been delivered in 96% of primary schools across Scotland with trained NSPCC volunteers and staff delivering the assembly and workshop with the help of ‘Speak Out. Stay safe’ mascot, Buddy the speech bubble.
The importance of empowering children to understand that they have the right to speak out and stay safe has been highlighted in a recent court case which saw 63-year-old Sidney Sales from Luton jailed for three years after a girl spoke about the abuse she had suffered following seeing the NSPCC assembly at school.
Adults concerned about a child can contact the NSPCC helpline seven days a week on 0808 800 5000, or email help@nspcc.org.uk.
Police have arrested a man in connection with five instances of sexual offences committed in the west of Edinburgh.
The incidents happened between 31 December 2020 and 20 February 2021 in the Viewforth, Union Canal, and Craiglockhart areas of the city.
The most recent incident took place on Saturday (20 February 2021), when a 14-year-old girl was the victim of a sexual assault as she walked in a wooded area in Craiglockhart.
A 62-year-old man has now been arrested and charged in connection with five incidents and is due to appear before Edinburgh Sheriff Court today.
Detective Inspector Keith Fairbairn from Edinburgh’s Public Protection Unit said: “We continue to conduct enquiries in relation to these offences and anyone who may have witnessed a crime, or not reported an incident to officers already, should come forward so we can thoroughly investigate.”
Anyone wishing to report a crime should contact officers via 101, or in an emergency and when a crime is in progress, always call 999. Alternatively a report can be made anonymously to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
A scheme being introduced to make the journey to school safer may have the opposite effect, local residents fear.
The city council has pushed ahead with plans to close Wester Drylaw Avenue to through traffic and ‘Roads Closed’ signs were introduced at the weekend.
The placing of those signs has caused some confusion, however, and there are fears that the uncertainty may endanger Ferryhill schoolchildren when the school returns today. The situation has not been helped by the temporary signs being knocked over.
Inverleith Lib Dem Councillor Hal Osler said yesterday: “The confusing message on Wester Drylaw Avenue is exactly what locals were concerned about. The barrier has already been breached & cars are driving over the pavement. Instead of ensuring safe passage for vulnerable users, this is doing the opposite.
“I’ve Been up to Wester Drylaw Avenue to have a look at the “barriers” as it had been reported to me that met had already been “moved”. Whilst standing there two cars drove through one slightly over the pavement I was standing on.
“This is really poor and is exactly what we were all concerned about. I have reported this to officers as it’s supposed to be “monitored” and it deeply concerns me with pupils returning on Monday.
“If this continues please email me (Hal.osler@edinburgh.gov.uk) or the other ward councillors & we will pass all comments on to the Spaces for People team.”
Drylaw Telford Community Council is appealing to motorists to be extra vigilant in the area around the school.
The Spaces for People plan for Wester Drylaw Avenue was approved on 19 February. THe scheme was to be discussed at the community council’s regular meeting last month but the Zoom meeting had to be postponed.
The five best mobile apps to help parents with home schooling
With a stark rise in the amount of time kids are now spending at home with the national lockdown, many parents are feeling the strain of having to play teacher whilst balancing their work life.
To help parents swat up on subjects they might have forgotten from their school days, or give their children easy-to-access educational resources, online smartphone retailer, e2save, has curated the best educational apps you can start using in seconds.
BBC Bitesize(available for iOS, Android)
The popular GCSE BBC learning tool is packed full of resources across a large variety of core subjects within the school curriculum. With a variety of learning methods, such as flashcards and videos, there’s plenty to keep children engaged in their studies and the interface is easy to navigate on mobile or tablet.
By using this free app, you have all the exam specific learning material available at your fingertips, with exam level interactive quizzes to help parents keep their year 10 and 11 students on track whilst they’re unable to attend school.
Photomath(available for iOS, Android)
Maths is often the Achilles heel of students and adults alike, especially when it comes to getting your head around complex equations and theory. To aid any parent struggling to help their children with maths lessons or homework, the simple to use Photomath app is free and allows you to scan in live images of your maths problems using your phone camera to help solve them.
The app comes with a step-by-step tutorial of how to upload the images and then offers a number of logical solutions for the maths problem for you to work through. Whether it’s addition and subtraction, multiplication, fractions or even trigonometry, this app will help you find easy to understand solutions for maths at every level, and understand the theory behind it, with no internet access or data usage required.
Duolingo(available for iOS, Android)
Learning a new language is difficult enough, but without the help of teachers and official learning material, the process becomes much harder for parents to replicate at home. Duolingo is a free app that allows students access to bite sized lessons to practice speaking, reading and writing in more than 35 languages.
Duolingo is suitable for any ability, starting from as young as primary school age, right through to teaching adults for business and travel purposes. The app allows you to log and track your progress each session, making organising learning around other subjects effortless.
TED-ed(available for iOS, Android)
TED-ed has been developed to allow educators and teachers around the world to submit succinct, easy to follow lessons on virtually any subject at the touch of a button. All videos uploaded have been refined to make sure they are less than 10 minutes long and are combined with high quality, fun animations to ensure children are kept engaged throughout.
This app is available for free and parents can use it to replicate virtual lessons on subjects and specific topics. If your child is struggling with a particular problem in English for example, which you may not be equipped to solve, you can find the solution on TED-ed, providing a virtual teacher in the absence of the classroom environment.
Epic!(available for iOS, Android)
Epic! gives you access to a digital library of 40,000 high quality e-books and audiobooks, as well as learning videos and interactive quizzes suitable for children as young as nursery level, right through to start of secondary school.
The app is designed to be as easy to navigate as possible, allowing parents to set their children up with easy access to their favourite stories and new books to help them develop their reading and literacy skills. Epic! also hands out progress badges to keep children engaged and excited to read. The app is free for school teachers and librarians but will be free on a one-month trial for parents too, paying just £5.85 a month thereafter.
Karl Middleton, mobile expert at e2save, commented:“Schools being closed nationwide has resulted in many parents having to balance working from home with their children’s studies, which can be an incredibly stressful time.
“While parents may have studied many of the subjects their children do whilst they were at school, being suddenly relied on to help with maths, English literature or even modern languages can be a daunting prospect.
“However, these handy apps are readily available for anyone with access to a smartphone or tablet and will certainly be a real help to parents to organise and support their children’s studies, creating a virtual classroom at home in lockdown.”
All these apps are available to download on the latest smartphones. Find great SIM-free and contract deals right here at e2save.com.
A new report by leading face mask brand SmartCover reveals reusable face masks have soared in online popularity during the latest lockdown.
The analysis of online news and social media sentiment in the UK highlights that the public’s engagement with reusable face mask topics online has increased significantly in the last three months, compared to the previous period.
Reusable vs. disposable debate
While both reusable and disposable face mask-related topics are trending, the SmartCover analysis reveals that during the third government-imposed lockdown, the total number of reusable face mask mentions were almost double disposable mask related ones.
Sentiment analysis of online news and social media indicates a reluctant attitude towards disposable masks, with only 8% of total mentions positive, compared to 61% of positive sentiment mentions for reusable face masks.
Top hashtags and emojis reveal increased awareness on single-use
The social listening analysis reveals the top hashtags and emojis used in the UK in relation to reusable and disposable face masks. The “face with medical mask” emoji was the top result with 25% of mentions, while the “folded hands” emoji, another top result (5%), is an indicator that people are encouraging the use of reusable masks.
The “grinning squinting face” was the most used with disposable mask terms, with 40% of total mentions, equally popular as the “pleading face” emoji, which grew in popularity as people started encouraging each other to consider reusables.
The study highlights a general increase in the public’s consciousness about the downsides of single-use masks, with some of the most popular hashtags identified – #choosetoreuse, #ecofriendly, #washable or #reusebeatssingleuse touching on environmental concerns. Of the top ten most used emojis with disposable face mask terms, 90% were in a negative context.
Twitter leading platform for reusable face mask support
Engagement on reusable face mask terms increased over 2,000 times in the last three months, compared to the previous period. Twitter has been largely responsible for this increase, with 75% of mentions coming from the social media platform, followed by newspapers and online news, at 11% and 7%, respectively.
Matteo Grassi, CEO of Viceroy Group, parent company to SmartCover, said: “We’re seeing increased interest in reusable face masks, and it’s encouraging to see the UK public’s activism in this respect and their awareness on the environmental impact of single-use face masks.
“We hope more people consider the reusable alternative where possible, always making sure that safety certifications are being met.”
Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by Dr Helen Flaherty, Head of Health Promotion at Heart Research UK
Get moving
Over the past year, it is fair to say that plenty of us have become more sedentary due to the effects of COVID-19. All those extra hours spent watching Netflix, with reduced travel time to work, and no gyms or sports facilities available, has meant that we haven’t always been paying attention to our hearts.
Heart Research UK have some tips to break the cycle and get us moving anyway we can:
Tracking your step count
The majority of us nowadays have technology that calculates our step count, heart rate, sleep time, stress levels and more. Using your phone/watch to count your daily steps has been shown to increase how likely we are to meet daily physical activity guidelines, and lead to more successful weight-loss.
Most of us don’t realise how few steps we are taking per day, or the significant impact we can have on our step count with just a short walk. Setting yourself a daily step goal can be a great first step towards improving your heart health.
It is recommended to try aiming for 6000 steps per day to start with. You don’t need to achieve this all-in-one go, and it is possible to meet this goal through taking regular breaks and walking around your house.
Going to the supermarket tends to be one of the only times many of us leave the house nowadays. Have you considered taking a backpack and walking to the shop to do your shopping?
This will increase your step count and be a great way to fit in some physical activity which involves walking with additional weight.
If the supermarket is too far, why not drive part of the way there and walk the rest, or even park the furthest you can in the supermarket car park from the entrance. Every step counts!
Avoid the ‘All or Nothing Attitude’
Have you ever thought “I will do the washing today” and then time becomes a problem so you end up thinking “I will leave it all to tomorrow then”; This is an all or nothing attitude. Plenty of us have this approach to many things. A way to avoid this is to break jobs up into parts. You may not have had time to do all of the washing, but you could have done some of it.
This can also relate to exercise and being physically active. One of the biggest barriers against physical activity is time, in general we tend to think if we can’t do a whole 30 minutes or 1 hour straight of exercise then there’s no point doing it at all.
However, this isn’t true! The recommended amount of physical activity per week in the UK is 150 minutes. This can be made up however you like as long as your heart and breathing rate increase! It is suggested that we aim for 30 minutes 5 times per week, but that doesn’t mean you can’t break up that 30 minutes into 3 x 10 minutes or even 6 x 5 minutes.
The key is to aim for little and often rather than all or nothing.
For example, why not try doing some calf raises whilst brushing your teeth, or some mini lunges whilst waiting for the kettle to boil? Most of us spend a lot of time sitting, whether that be watching TV, playing video games or working from home.
Set yourself a number of times per day that you need to stand up out of your chair. Before you walk away from the chair you could do 10 sit-to-stand exercises in a row, essentially this would be like doing 10 squats every time before you get out of your chair if you did this 5 times a day you would have achieved 50 squats!
Controversial EU Vnuk motor insurance law may be removed from British law
government plans to bin the EU’s ‘Vnuk’ motor insurance law – which requires insurance even on private land for a wider range of ‘vehicles’, including ride-on lawnmowers and mobility scooters
move will ensure every British driver is spared an estimated £50 annual increase in insurance premiums
decision to scrap Vnuk from British law would reiterate benefits of leaving the EU, as we take back control of our own laws and regulations
British drivers will avoid an estimated £50 a year increase in motor insurance costs as the government confirms it plans to do away with the controversial EU ‘Vnuk’ law, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced today (21 February 2021).
The Vnuk law requires a wider range of vehicles than those such as cars and motorbikes to be insured, including ones previously not requiring insurance, such as golf buggies, mobility scooters and quad bikes.
The law also extends to vehicles on private land, meaning people with a ride-on lawnmower at home would require insurance where it would have previously not been needed.
Had the EU law been implemented in Great Britain, it would have meant the insurance industry would have been liable for almost £2 billion in extra overall costs. These costs would likely have been passed onto their customers – British road-users.
Now we have left the EU, the measures no longer need to be implemented, helping road-users across the country steer clear of increased premiums – a clear win for motorists in Britain.
Bypassing Vnuk will also protect the existence of the UK’s motorsports industry.
The EU rules would have meant any motorsports collision involving vehicles from go-karting to F1 would have been treated as regular road traffic incidents requiring insurance. This could have decimated the industry due to the additional insurance costs of roughly £458 million every single year.
Scrapping the rules will save the industry from potential collapse and secure hundreds of thousands of jobs in the sector in the process.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: “We have always disagreed with this over-the-top law that would only do one thing – hit the pockets of hard-working people up and down the country with an unnecessary hike in their car insurance. I am delighted to announce that we no longer need to implement it.
“Scrapping this rule would save the country billions of pounds and is part of a new and prosperous future for the UK outside the EU – a future in which we set our own rules and regulations.”
As well as the likely financial burden on British road-users, the Vnuk rules are considered unnecessary as there are already insurance packages available to Britons that cover certain risks on private land.
The UK officially left the EU on 31 January 2020, with the formal transition period coming to an end on 31 December 2020, after the ratification of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
It was wonderful to see the clean air movement come together for Clean Air Day 2020 at the postponed date of 8 October. For clean air has never been more important.
This report showcases what businesses, schools, community groups, charities, NHS organisations, universities and champions got up to on Clean Air Day 2020.
We want to thank everyone who took part in the day, from those who left the car at home to walk, scoot or cycle to school or work, to those who closed roads, from those who wrote to their MP, to those who planned or attended digital events, thank you for making Clean Air Day 2020 such a huge success.
A reminder Clean Air Day 2021 will be held on the 17 June.
We’ll be in touch later in the year on details of the campaign, if you have ideas or suggestions of activities you’d like to see as part of this year’s campaign, please do share them with us at cleanerair@globalactionplan.org.uk.
