Road safety scheme set for three more schools
A trial car ban around some schools in Edinburgh is to be extended. Three new schools will take part in the scheme that prohibits traffic on surrounding roads at the start and end of the school day. Continue reading School streets car ban to be extended
Saturday 5 December 10am – 1pm
New facilities for Cramond Primary School
Designs have been revealed for the new accommodation being built by the City of Edinburgh Council to cater for increased free primary school meal provision. Continue reading New school buildings on the menu!
Schools violence prevention initiative ‘goes from strength to strength’
Justice Secretary Michael Matheson yesterday announced a further £450,000 of funding to provide extra training staff for the innovative Mentors in Violence Prevention (MVP) Scotland programme. Mr Matheson made the announcement during a visit to Tynecastle High School, where he met the programme’s American founder Jackson Katz (above) and some of the young people benefitting from the scheme. Continue reading More government funding to support MVP programme
A few minutes of physical activity aids health and boosts performance
The Education and Health Secretaries have written to all primary schools in Scotland to encourage them to implement daily physical exercise as part of the school routine, through the roll out of the Daily Mile or other initiatives. Continue reading Primary kids get set for Daily Mile
Council clamping down on school place cheats
Six families have lost their school places after being caught giving false statements to get their children into popular city primaries in a crackdown by the City of Edinburgh Council.
As a result of the investigations by the Council’s fraud team, the offer of places was withdrawn and several other families dropped their requests when they discovered they were being investigated.
In some cases, families were also found to be fraudulently claiming housing and council tax benefits and were then forced to repay the money. In one instance, where a tenant was discovered to be sub-letting their council house, they lost their tenancy.
Councillor Paul Godzik, Convener of Education, Children and Families, said: “We know this is an issue that concerns many parents and we take it very seriously.
“If we believe there is a possibility that fraud is being committed, we will investigate. If we discover this to be the case we will withdraw the school place.
“By working with the Council’s fraud team, we are able to access a greater range of information, including credit checks, and this has allowed us to identify instances of fraud. Anecdotally we believe there are a number of schools in the city where this is likely to be a greater issue than others and we investigate all potential cases. This year we plan to put these schools under greater scrutiny with spot checks at different stages of the process.”
When registering for a school place for the first time, parents need to provide a council tax demand notice and recent utility bill. If someone is moving house they need to provide proof of purchase and their tenancy agreement. If they are moving to a different Edinburgh address they will also need to provide proof of sale or termination of lease.
When pupils move from primary to secondary school they are allocated a place based on the current address information held by their school. Spot checks will be carried out to ensure this is accurate.
The Corporate Fraud Team can carry out credit checks, check council tax records and carry out unannounced home visits to establish whether or not someone is actually living at the address they claim to be at. If nobody is at home when they visit, they will speak to neighbours to try and find out if they know who was living in the house.
And the fraud team will continue their address checks during the school registration process which starts in November.
Anyone who believes a parent has given false information to register for a school place can contact the school placing team on 0131 469 3033 or email school.placements@edinburgh.
Six city schools kick off safer school streets pilot
Cramond Primary is among six city schools taking part in the School Streets initiative in Edinburgh, which aims to create safer travel to the city’s primary schools by banning cars from surrounding streets during certain times.
Colinton Primary School pupils celebrated the launch of the safety scheme this morning, when Super Cyclists and Wonder Walkers assembled at the front gates via newly car-free streets.
Traffic will now be prohibited on the roads surrounding the first phase of schools involved in the scheme at the beginning and end of the school day.
Aiming to create a safer, more pleasant environment the scheme promotes travel to school by walking and cycling, in turn reducing congestion and pollution in the area. The first couple of weeks will be education/raising awareness before enforcement starts.
City of Edinburgh Council Transport Convener, Councillor Lesley Hinds, said: “I am delighted to see School Streets in action and that so many pupils have taken this opportunity to walk, use scooters and ride their bikes safely into school.
“Promoting active and sustainable travel is one of our main priorities, and by creating a safe and relaxed atmosphere near our schools, we are encouraging this from a very early age.”
Final plans for the School Streets pilot, which is a commitment of theLocal Transport Strategy 2014-19, were approved by Transport and Environment Committee in August.
More than 30 schools across the city originally expressed an interest in participating in the pilot and eleven were eventually selected. All of the chosen locations had been experiencing road safety issues due to the number of drivers bringing cars too close to school gates.
Chris Thompson Schools and Projects Coordinator at Living Streets says: “It is vital that more children walk to school however traffic levels and safety are key concerns for parents. By closing the immediate streets outside school gates, the City of Edinburgh Council and participating schools are sending a resounding message that walking to school, even for the last few minutes, is good for health and the city’s environment. I expect other councils across the UK to follow this bold and imaginative approach to healthy school travel.”
Chief Inspector Stevie Dolan, from Police Scotland, said: “We are committed to working alongside our partners and the public to ensure the safety of all road users, including schoolchildren.
“Whenever a complaint is received in relation to motorists driving within the prohibited areas, without a valid reason for doing so, our officers will respond accordingly.”
Six primary schools are included in the first of two phases – Abbeyhill, Colinton, Cramond, Duddingston and St John’s RC with Sciennes starting in October.
The second phase of the pilot is due to begin in March and will be implemented at Towerbank, St Peter’s, Clermiston and Bonaly Primary Schools.
Residents in streets next to participating schools need a permit to drive in or out of the street while restrictions are in place, which can be applied for on the Council website.
Stronger focus on Maths in schools
Efforts to drive maths attainment in schools and refocus Scotland’s attitude to maths learning are to be stepped up in a new government-led programme.
Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning Angela Constance has announced greater support will be given to secondary-school level maths teachers through a new group established to prepare and share resources.
In addition, a group with responsibility for raising the profile of maths and numeracy as an essential skill for learning, life and work, will be set up.
The establishment of both groups marks the first steps of Making Maths Count, a Government-led programme with the aim of improving maths and numeracy attainment in primary and secondary school.
This work follows the Scottish Government launch of Read, Write, Count campaign last month, to encourage greater parental involvement in supporting early literacy and numeracy skills of P1-3 pupils, and the launch of the Scottish Government’s £100 million Attainment Challenge to support learning in disadvantaged communities.
Earlier this week, the First Minister announced the establishment of a National Improvement Framework, with national standardised assessments in literacy and numeracy for pupils in P1, 4, 7 and in the third year of secondary school.
Ms Constance said: “Maths has a vital place at the heart of our curriculum and maths and numeracy are one of the gateways to success in work, learning and life. As Education Secretary, I want to see attainment in both improve at all ages and stages.
“While we are already investing heavily and taking forward a range of actions to support primary and secondary-level learning, it is clear from our national attainment data that improving numeracy is an urgent area for action.
“That’s why I am launching Making Maths Count. The two groups I am announcing today will have important and distinct remits.
“We have already provided a package of resources to teachers to support delivery of maths teaching within Curriculum for Excellence. Today I am pleased to announce that a teacher-led group will take that work further. They will consult directly with the maths teaching workforce in secondary schools to assess what more can be done to ensure both teachers and pupils get the support they need. The group will be formed next month and will present an interim progress report to me by the end of the year.
“And while the world around us is continually evolving, the role of maths and numeracy in our labour market, our economy and our day-to-day lives will be here forever. It will only become more important as sectors such as digital technologies continue to grow.
“We need to promote greater enthusiasm for and confidence in maths and numeracy amongst young people and their parents and redress some of the cultural assumptions that are holding back our potential.
“I will be setting the new group the challenge of making maths matter more to Scotland. I want them to provide new ideas on promoting the benefits of maths and numeracy and how this can improve the quality of education and raise attainment. It will have a strong focus on understanding attitudes and promoting maths and numeracy and how we can address the myths and assumptions that surround maths and numeracy.
“It will be important that this new profile-raising group for Mathematics and Numeracy will involve partners and engage widely with young people, parents, business and academia as well as teachers.
“I will say more about further work to be taken forward through Making Maths Count in coming weeks, including at the Scottish Learning Festival, but our vision is clear. By building a strong base of robust and consistent evidence, we can take big strides towards improving Scotland’s relationship with maths, strengthening attainment performance in schools and supporting our future economy.”
Tasty treats were on the menu at the launch of this year’s popular Green Pencil Award writing competition yesterday, when Carrick Knowe Primary School pupils were joined by leading children’s author Vivian French for a food-themed story workshop.
This year’s Green Pencil theme is ‘Food for thought: Scotland’s food and drink’. Entrants can write a poem or story about a favourite meal, or a memorable Scottish picnic, a drink they love or hate, or perhaps even invent a new Scottish food!
Or they could think about the journey of a vegetable from being planted as a seed to ending up as part of a delicious, nutritious meal.
Budding writers can get inspiration by visiting local libraries, which have lots of ideas and books to help, and also by asking in schools, which have resources available to support this award.
All entries can be made by following this link and should be no longer than one side of A4 – entries longer than that cannot be considered.
The closing date is Friday 9 October, with an awards ceremony at the Central Library in late November.
Councillor Richard Lewis, Culture and Sport Convener, said: “The Council has been running this competition for eight years and it grows in popularity each time. We have so many budding writers with fabulous imaginations in our schools, and reading the entries is always a joy for our library staff.
“Reading skills are such vital aspects to learning, but also a really fun way of doing so. Thanks so much to Vivian for bringing it to life so vividly for these lucky pupils. Good luck to everyone who enters.”
Ms French said: “I love the Green Pencil Award, because it encourages children to look at the world around them, and to think about things they might otherwise take for granted.
“It inspires curiosity, consideration, and critical judgement … essential ingredients for everyone – especially writers!”
Edinburgh-based authors have dominated the shortlist for the 2016 Scottish Children’s Book Awards, with four out of the nine shortlisted authors hailing from the city.
Emily MacKenzie, Elizabeth Laird, Danny Weston and Joan Lingard are all up for the prestigious awards, which celebrate the most popular children’s and young adult books by Scottish authors or illustrators.
Run by Scottish Book Trust with support from Creative Scotland, they are Scotland’s largest book awards with a total prize fund of £12,000 – the nine shortlisted authors and illustrators receive £500 per book, and the three winning books receive £3,000 each.
Emily MacKenzie, who lives in the New Town and studied Graphic Design at Edinburgh College of Art, has been shortlisted in the Bookbug Readers (3-7 yrs) category for her debut picture book Wanted! Ralfy Rabbit Book Burglar, published by Bloomsbury.
She was recently shortlisted for The Independent Bookshop Week Children’s Picture Book Award and her second book, Stanley The Amazing Knitting Cat will be published by Bloomsbury in January 2016.
Commenting on her nomination, Emily said: “I was absolutely over the moon when I found out that Ralfy had been shortlisted for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards!
“The book has had such a warm response from teachers, librarians and the children I’ve read it to so far which has been really lovely, but the idea that a further 64,000 P1 children starting school in Scotland this year will receive a copy of it to enjoy and hopefully help them on to a path of loving reading and books as much as I do, blows my mind. It’s a dream come true and Ralfy and I want to say a big thank you to Scottish Book Trust for all their support!”
A free copy of Emily’s book will be gifted to every Primary 1 child during Book Week Scotland, in the Bookbug P1 Family Bag, along with copies of the two other shortlisted books in the Bookbug category.
This bag was produced by Scottish Book Trust in conjunction with Education Scotland and the Scottish Government as part of Read, Write, Count – a new literacy and numeracy campaign aimed at children in Primary 1 to 3.
Elizabeth Laird, based in the Old Town, has been shortlisted in the Younger Readers (8-11 yrs) category for her book The Fastest Boy in the World, published by Macmillan.
Elizabeth, who has previously appeared on the 2008 and 2010 Scottish Children’s Book Awards shortlists, is an award-winning author of children’s fiction and travel. She has written over 30 books for children and has been shortlisted five times for the CILIP Carnegie Medal, including for The Fastest Boy in the World this year. She has been nominated by UK IBBY for the international Hans Christian Anderson Award, and her new novel, Dindy and the Elephant, was published in June. Elizabeth now lives with her husband, splitting their time between London and Edinburgh.
Elizabeth said: “It’s a thrill and an honour to be shortlisted for the Scottish Children’s Book Award. ‘The Fastest Boy in the World’ is an Ethiopian lad called Solomon, who dreams of joining the ranks of the great African running champions. Now, thanks to this lovely award, he’ll be running all the way round Scotland. Go Solomon!”
Danny Weston, who lives in Tollcross, has been shortlisted in the Older Readers (12-16 yrs) category for his book The Piper, published by Andersen.
He has published three novels (under the name Philip Caveney) with Edinburgh-based publisher Fledgling Press. These are time travel adventures, all set in Edinburgh at different points in its history. The first book Crow Boy is set in Mary Kings Close, Seventeen Coffins is all about the tiny coffins found on Arthur’s Seat in 1836 and the most recent book,One For Sorrow, is all about Robert Louis Stevenson.
In the New Year, Fledgling will be bringing out The Calling – a novel featuring all the statues in Edinburgh. The Piper was also recently shortlisted for the North East Book Award.
Commenting on his nomination, Danny said: “I was surprised and delighted to hear that I had been shortlisted for this prestigious prize. At a time when the importance of literacy seems to be increasingly challenged, prizes like this mean more than ever to authors like me.”
Joan Lingard, who lives in Edinburgh’s New Town, has been shortlisted in the Older Readers (12-16 yrs) category for her novel Trouble on Cable Street, published by Catnip.
Joan has been a published writer for young people and adults for over 40 years and is best known for the Kevin and Sadie books, set in Northern Ireland at the time of the troubles there.
Her popular Elfie and Joe trilogy began when she discovered that her grandfather had run a pub in Stoke Newington in London and she started to research that area around the turn of the 19th Century when he and his wife lived there.
Following a conversation with a friend about the period between the first and second world wars, Joan began to research the impact of the Fascist movement in London in the 1930s, and the parallel conflict in Spain.
Joan said: “I’m delighted that Trouble on Cable Street has been shortlisted for the Scottish Children’s Book Awards. I have been writing for young people for over 40 years and I am always pleased to know that readers are enjoying my books.
“I enjoyed writing this book very much. It is set in a fascinating, unsettled time in Britain’s history – and European history – and the more I read about what happened in the 1930s the more I found parallels with some of the problems we’re facing today, eight decades later.
“In 1936 the communities of the East End of London rallied to stop a march by Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists. They clashed with the police in Cable Street and the march was eventually stopped, but many people were injured in the fighting.
“I always enjoy writing strong characters, and once I’d settled on Isabella and her two brothers their story fell into place against the backdrop of London in those difficult times.”
THE FULL SCOTTISH CHILDREN’S BOOK AWARDS 2016 SHORTLIST:
Bookbug Readers (3-7 years)
Younger Readers (8-11 years)
Older Readers (12-16 years)
Over the next five months, children the length and breadth of Scotland will be reading the three shortlisted books in their age category and voting for their favourite.
The voting deadline is 5 February 2016. The three winning books will be announced at a special award ceremony on 4 March 2016.
Jasmine Fassl, Head of Schools at Scottish Book Trust, said: “The Scottish Children’s Book Awards are a perfect way to celebrate Scotland’s talented authors and illustrators, while also helping participating children to develop an independent love of books and reading.
“Hundreds of schools and libraries from literally every corner of Scotland involve tens of thousands of children in reading and reviewing the shortlisted books every year, proof of both the eagerness of Scottish young people to make their voice heard and of the quality of the shortlisted books.”
Leonie Bell, Director of Creative Development at Creative Scotland, added: “The Scottish Children’s Book Awards is a hugely successfully programme that celebrates children’s and young adult literature while also encouraging reading in children across Scotland.
“The fact that the winners are selected exclusively by children makes this an extra special award to win. By taking an active role in choosing the vote they are taking steps in their journeys as independent readers.
“This is a fantastic shortlist and we encourage young people across Scotland to get involved. We look forward to finding out who they choose as this year’s winners.”
The Scottish Children’s Book Awards also encourage budding authors or journalists to put pen to paper: the popular Book Review Competition offers pupils the chance to win book tokens, sponsored by Waterstones, and an author visit for their school.
Aspiring film makers can enter the book trailer competition to showcase their digital talents and win book tokens for their school. Scottish Book Trust provides extensive learning resources for teachers on how to create book trailers.
CALL Scotland has again worked with Scottish Book Trust and the publishers to create accessible digital versions of the nine shortlisted books for children and young people with physical, visual and reading or dyslexic difficulties, who can’t read the paper books. The accessible digital versions of the shortlisted books are available free of charge from CALL Scotland.
You can request books by going to http://www.callscotland.org.uk/Home/.
Pictures: Rob McDougall
