Part 3 of Abi’s series on music education: ‘If the early years are the roots of the ‘musical learning tree’, then this next stage develops the all important stem, where unconscious and conscious intellectual learning begin to blend together’.
Scottish education
Teaching music to young children with body and soul: Part 2
We all have a voice, Abi Rooley Towle describes how children’s education can benefit by introducing song from the earliest years.
Radically rethinking music education for the 21st Century
Music education is in trouble in Scotland, music teacher Abi Rooley-Towle proposes radical rethinking to create a music curriculum fit for the 21st century
Let children play (and learn) with music
Making music should be a fundamental right of all children from an early age, introducing a series by our new guest contributor, holistic music teacher Abi Rooley-Towle
New conversation about Scottish HE
‘ Based on patterns of investment, Scotland is closer to the approach taken in Serbia than Sweden.’ ‘But free higher education has to be well-funded higher education for it to mean anything.’
Tale of Two Cities (and large town)
‘There is no halfway house when it comes to a child’s best interests. However, until automatic funding becomes a Scotland-wide reality, at least Falkirk … is lighting the way.’
The parochialism of the present
‘Revisiting our educational history might encourage us to question some of the prevailing orthodoxies of our time…Perhaps we should ask why there are no comparable radical voices in Scottish education today.’
P1 tests – first green shoots of recovery for Scottish education?
A Nordic-style kindergarten stage is the only way currently available of connecting all Scotland’s children with their evolutionary heritage. And, who knows, it might also help get Curriculum for Excellence back on track.
Happy New Year
At the still point of the turning year, Sceptical Scot paused to toast all of you – contributors and readers – the best possible New Year. And a hope that we may all work well together for shared understanding and common purpose in 2019.
Silence of the weans: why children need outdoor play
When was the last time you heard the shouts, squeals and laughter of young children as they ran, jumped, climbed, built dens, made mixtures and played ‘Let’s Pretend’ in their local neighbourhood? Sue Palmer of Upstart Scotland makes the case for outdoor play