Back to school: but are Scots classrooms up to the mark?

[Ali Admin]

As our children (there's that our children thing again) head back to school this week with the government's much vaunted Curriculum for Excellence yet to be implemented, Scotland on Sunday considers whether the Scottish education system is fit for purpose.

Back to school: but are Scots classrooms up to the mark?

This was supposed to be the year when Scotland's schools education entered a brave new era. A new "Curriculum for Excellence", coordinating all learning from the age of three to 18, was to have swung into action.

Education was to be focused on creating "confident individuals", "responsible citizens" and "effective contributors". A new "joined-up" system of learning was to begin.

But the programme has been delayed amid claims that, if it had gone ahead, teachers might have gone on strike. Staff warned they needed new books and more money to ensure its success. One education chief –a member of the team that created it – described some elements of the scheme as "complete nonsense".