Scottish Union for Education (SUE)

Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No151 Themes: the Curriculum for Excellence is harming children, and ending the ‘transgender’ empathy revolution bit.ly/sue151news

Pernicious puberty blocker trial: paediatric medical transition should be stopped, not researched Dr Jenny Cunningham bit.ly/sue151jc

Not to be overly patriotic, but especially when so many middle class professionals appear to have such a jaded view of our past it does feel like we need to have a proper discussion in society about things like freedom and democracy, and indeed, for example, the British parliamentary system of government that – despite its flaws – has been one of the most successful and influential across the world. @StuartWaiton bit.ly/sue151news

Most parents, if they were aware of what the SG has progressed in education, would be outraged #Stoptransingourkids @WingsScotland @TamaraSearsUK @CatrionaStewart @DalgetySusan @ScotUnionEd @msjlindsay

There are two ways of teaching and learning that have dominated schools, colleges and universities over the last 10–20 years which account for these failings in new graduates. One of these is the focus on teaching students to pass exams – otherwise known as ‘teaching to the test’. The other is the priority given to learning transferable skills at the cost of knowledge. Linda Murdoch bit.ly/sue150lm

Timekeeping, attendance, discipline and self-discipline – things that you need to complete a real degree and also things that you need to be a successful and productive worker – are rarely found in many universities now. And yet the terms authentic and employability are pulled out of a hat to justify dumping one of the few real pressure situations that students face when having to complete an actual exam. @StuartWaiton bit.ly/sue150news

While it is understandable that parents want their children to have good careers, it is precisely this fetishisation of transferable skills which is the reason young folk have become less intellectually capable at the same time as they have turned out to be less employable. Linda Murdoch bit.ly/sue150lm

It’s knowledge, stupid! Dr Linda Murdoch bit.ly/sue150lm

Part of the problem of obsessing over employability within educational institutions means that exams are turned into factory fodder exercises so that we start to simply ‘teach to the exam’ rather than encouraging students to think for themselves. @StuartWaiton bit.ly/sue150news

The role of religion in schools is open to debate, but let’s not hide behind this idea of children’s rights. The very idea of children having rights, in any meaningful sense, is a fiction, and reflects, in reality, the increasing role of professionals and the authorities over the rights of parents. bit.ly/sue150news

Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No150 Themes: The skills revolution, how education is opting out of exams, religion and knowledge bit.ly/sue150news

By me: In every aspect of our cultural life, the same nihilistic urge rules: anything that may produce a swell of pride for England or what the English have created must be exposed as outdated, irrelevant, and intolerant. It must be cheapened, defamed, and defiled until any remaining shred of pride is replaced by disgust. city-journal.org/article/britai…

The democratisation of cheating. What happens when everyone knows that everyone cheats? substack.nomoremarking.com/p/the-democrat…

Home education: Do we need a register? John Denning bit.ly/sue149jd @christianorguk

The Cass Review was heralded as a victory for common sense when it came out, and indeed it was useful because it questioned the evidence base used by gender identity services to justify medicalised treatment of children expressing distress about their ‘gender’. Although Cass supposedly refused to ‘take sides’, her report uses ideologically infused terms like ‘assigned at birth’ – a term used by trans activists to suggest that some babies can be born without a sex. bit.ly/sue149news

Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No149 Themes: puberty blockers and educational standards, the ‘experts’ vs the common sense of parents bit.ly/sue149news

In today’s ‘Scotsman’ and now on my blog my piece about whether we should ban mobile phones in schools and/or social media for under 16’s. This blog also contains a link to the latest podcast from Rod Grant and myself (a funny one): ahouseinjoppa.wordpress.com/2026/02/27/to-…

Free speech is in crisis in our universities. The examples listed here are the tip of an iceberg. We know this because of our (mostly confidential) case work that has been increasing despite the fact that parts of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act were commenced last August. @postgradafaf @StudentAFAF @SpeechUnion Useful reading for #BattleFest on Saturday in Manchester. afaf.org.uk/the-banned-lis…

Worth repeating: in an age of AI, all material used for academic assessments that involves take-home work or projects done unsupervised, are now worthless. Assessed homework in this category the same. There is no alternative to supervised, standardised, in-person, off-screen work. This is the innovation we need to embrace right now.

"The Gibb-Gove program was remarkable not because it was innovative (though it was certainly countercultural) but because it brought all these elements together in an unusually coherent and sustained fashion." bit.ly/4rpR2wt