You learn something new every day
I have been involved in three education stories in the past week and four if you include mopping up after the teachers’ pay dispute.
The latest is the secondary schools league table for Scotland in which West Dunbartonshire didn’t do very well at all, although 99th is better than last of the 397 schools that were checked out.
The ones who came at the top of the form were those schools in which the pupils had succeeded in gaining the greatest number of Highers in portfolios of five or more.
After they issued their results and set the winners off on a lap of honour, there were the usual apologies from the government that it wasn’t fair to be drawing up league tables.
The schools at the top think it’s great though while the ones at the bottom have put up their hands and asked the teacher to leave the room.
Or maybe just stand in the corner of the classroom with a puddle at their feet.
The Democrat’s message for the government is that if they don’t like league tables and consider them unfair then they should stop issuing them.
The second story involved sending pupils from a school in a deprived area off on a trip to New York and Washington at a cost of £2,000 per pupil.
A large number of parents protested and we haven’t yet heard from the gauleiters who run West Dunbartonshire Council whether they are going ahead with it or not.
For them speaking to The Democrat is verboten.
It is interesting though that the local school which came highest up the Highers league table was Our Lady and St Patrick’s in Bellsmyre.
And the schools which are said to have done best in the league were, according to the authorities, from the most affluent areas.
Makes you wonder if the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.
The third story was that West Dunbartonshire Council and MCR Pathways have joined forces to launch the Young Dunbartonshire Talent Programme.
We are told this school based mentoring and talent development programme will help disadvantaged young people, in or on the edges of the care system, fulfil their potential.
And that initially the MCR Pathways Programme will be delivered in Clydebank High School and Our Lady and St Patrick’s High School in Dumbarton.
At the core of MCR Pathways are 50-minute weekly mentoring sessions between a young person and their mentor, who listen and provide encouragement.
To me that sounds like teaching. Isn’t that what teachers do at the moment?
Is it not remarkable that Education Secretary John Sweeney had this money in his sporran all the time he was putting the poor mouth on it during the teachers’ dispute?
How much is being spent on the Pathways Programme and how many new teachers would that pay for?
Just asking.