Tag: education

No tomorrow for Tomorrow’s People

Employability organisation Tomorrow’s People – who’s slogan was Making Life Work – has gone into adminstration. Tomorrow’s People, a registered charity, had a base in North Edinburgh Arts and the company’s failure has resulted in the loss of two local jobs and an uncertain future for young people who were being supported into employment, training or further education. Continue reading No tomorrow for Tomorrow’s People

Two additional universities to offer Teacher Education courses

Queen Margaret University and Edinburgh Napier University will offer Initial Teacher Education courses for the first time next year, Deputy First Minister, John Swinney has announced. Supported by a £1.3 million investment from the Scottish Government, the courses will start in August 2019 and create hundreds more opportunities in the Edinburgh area for people to qualify as teachers. Continue reading Two additional universities to offer Teacher Education courses

Closing schools: putting families and staff first

Education Convener Councillor Ian Perry writes about how decisions are reached when closing schools:

Closing just one school for a day is not a decision anyone takes lightly so Tuesday night’s move to close all our schools was taken after much consideration.

Always at the forefront of all our planning is the health and safety of our pupils, staff and parents/carers. The advice we received from the Met Office, Police Scotland and the Scottish Government on Tuesday night was that travel into and within the amber weather warning areas was a risk for anyone making those journeys – that was a message we could not ignore.

With the red weather warning issued yesterday by the Met Office for Edinburgh and surrounding region we kept our schools, nurseries and early years centres closed today and they will remain closed tomorrow.

We recognise that parents and carers appreciate the earliest possible notice of any potential closure and of course we need to balance that with changing circumstances that might result in schools being able to open.

The unique aspect of the weather warnings this time has shown that initially the forecast for severe weather was amber and was escalated yesterday to red during what would have been a school day. We anticipate that the weather warnings will be updated over the coming days and hopefully will indicate more settled circumstances.

I expect that normal services will resume on Monday but should there be any need for further school closures these will be communicated direct to parents, via the Council website, social media channels and local radio stations.

And lastly can I thank all the Council staff, including our road services teams and health and sopcial care staff, and members of the public who have rallied round during this extreme weather situation to keep the city moving.

I would remind everyone to visit our website www.edinburgh.gov.uk/schoolclosures, listen to media broadcasts, especially local radio, visit the Traffic Scotland website, follow @edintravel and Police Scotland on Twitter to get the latest updates about the weather situation over the coming days.

 

Holyrood committee to explore impact of poverty on school attainment

What is the impact of experiencing poverty on the attainment of young people at school? This is one of the questions the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee will be exploring in a new inquiry. Continue reading Holyrood committee to explore impact of poverty on school attainment

First Minister: “Number one priority is to raise school attainment”


First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saw some of the innovative work being carried out to raise attainment in Scotland’s schools yesterday and reaffirmed her government’s commitment to reducing inequality . Continue reading First Minister: “Number one priority is to raise school attainment”