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This paper considers the intersection of Spiritual Motherhood, early childhood education and child welfare in early twentieth-century Edinburgh. Its focus is St Saviour's Child Garden (SSCG), which opened in the Canongate, in November 1906, part of the Free Kindergarten movement that emerged in Europe and North America in the late nineteenth century. The paper focuses on the SSCG's founder Lileen Hardy, in order to trace the development of this new approach to child welfare and women's work in Britain. It discusses her training at the Sesame House for Home-Life Training in London, her move to Edinburgh, and the network of predominantly women reformers, whose interests ranged from urban reform to medical welfare, she found there. It shows how this network facilitated the founding of the SSCG and discusses the form it took and Hardy's implementation of a modified form of Froebelian praxis. In so doing its concern is to show how Free Kindergarten forms part of a wider history of social welfare and urban reform as well as to the history of early childhood education, and to move attention away from the men usually associated with innovations in Scottish social reform like Patrick Geddes, and onto a group of women who created a women and child-centred proto-Welfare State in pre-First World War Edinburgh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is always a challenge in social work education to set assessment tasks that will encourage learning. This paper, written collaboratively by a lecturer and team of students, describes one novel approach to assessment developed at the University of Edinburgh. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shares an author's observations on access, inclusion, and achievement, the major themes for the 15th Conference for the Commonwealth Education Ministers held in Edinburgh, England. Significance of the concerns of Ministers and their advisors, conference delegates, and youth representatives for the "International Journal of Inclusive Education"; Regard for the 'closing gap' as a multidimensional reference to the gaps between and within the Commonwealth countries; Need for an assessment of the differential impacts of schooling upon students.

e-Learning has been frequently heralded as a transforming influence on global education and corporate training. Despite such rhetoric, the adoption, diffusion and exploitation of e-Learning by educational institutions and organizations have been slower than anticipated. In this paper we attempt to examine the future of e-learning by adopting a scenario planning approach, which formed the basis of a recent major international conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland in February 2004. We set out the background of the study, the methodology used to investigate the future(s) of e-learning and reflect on the process and outcomes of the exercise to provide some assistance for practitioners in the field. Our general conclusions are that the scenarios have been a valuable starting point to engage in a more informed discussion of how e-learning may transform education and training markets and the ways in which people learn over the next decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entire College, notably officers and staff, responded with resilience and versatility to COVID-19. We strove to remain at the forefront of medical education during rapid change in both medical care and the scientific evidence that supports it. Every department has had to adapt, indeed evolve, to tackle the pandemic, which affected all aspects of College work, notably education, training, examinations, heritage, policy and public affairs. Several of the resulting changes will provide a strong foundation for the future development of the College. These innovations, especially in the nature and delivery of education, will both extend the reach of the College in years to come, and enhance its relevance. Effective though electronic communication has proved over the last 15 months, however, it cannot replace the social coherence and innate teamwork of a Royal College. So we look forward to re-engaging colleagues in the revitalised College. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Reverend Robert William Fraser (1810-1876), a Presbyterian minister in Edinburgh, published on religious, historical and scientific (physical science, natural history) themes. His natural history titles Ebb and flow (1860), Seaside divinity (1861) and The seaside naturalist (1868) were aimed at the popular market. Appearing in the years immediately after Darwin's On the origin of species (1859), the tone of Fraser's books sheds light on the response of a popular, science-inclined clergyman in Scotland's Enlightenment capital to the idea of evolution. His avoidance of the issue of evolution by natural selection is evident but was not shared by all contemporary clerics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is growing support for education that is cross-curricular, locally-relevant and involves a high degree of student responsibility. This investigation examines the perspectives of students who have participated in an outdoor learning programme that is theoretically underpinned by the above themes. Outdoor Journeys involves learning about the socio-cultural and geo-physical story of students' local landscape. The programme is hallmarked by students planning and undertaking journeys in their neighbourboods. Students generate questions, do research in order to find answers, and then share their findings with their classmates. A case study employing focus group interviews was used to explore the views of 33 participants between the ages of 8-11 years, who came from three schools in the Edinburgh area. Findings indicate that Outdoor Journeys offered a means of learning across the curriculum in a manner that was inter-disciplinary, involved a high degree of student initiative, and was heavily rooted in local history and ecology. However, issues were raised that require further attention. There appeared to be insufficient emphasis on students sharing their findings with their classmates. There are also uncertainties about how the 'place consciousness' of the pedagogy relates to the dominant epistemology of the official curriculum areas that were explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores aspects of teacher education and outdoor education and their relationship with sustainability education (SE) in Scotland. It considers recent national and international developments in the field and in particular the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) initiative to ‘re-orient teacher education towards sustainable futures’. The implications of such initiatives in schools and teacher education institutes are discussed in the context of formal provision (e.g. geography) and informal opportunities (e.g. citizenship education, outdoor education). The emphasis is on the Scottish experience with the policy and practice of the School of Education of the University of Edinburgh being discussed as an example in relation to this national and international framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is more than 40 years since Commonwealth education ministers began the series of triennial meetings that has evolved into the Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM). Launched in a period of international optimism, the ministers who gathered in Oxford in 1959 considered the prospects for the sharing of knowledge and experience across the emerging Commonwealth in a collegiate and non-contentious manner. In contrast the 15th CCEM, held in Edinburgh in late October 2003, was less consensual, more abrasive and factional, reflecting the international divisions between developed and developing world after the collapse of the international trade talks in Cancun. The impatience of member states from the developing countries with the lack of commitment to speedy solutions to their concerns from developed countries was obvious. Issues such as the systematic poaching of teachers—often trained with aid money—by developed nations and the Commonwealth’s status on the inclusion of education within the World Trade Organization General Agreement on Trade in Services highlighted the differences. In the end there was consensus of sorts, but built around compromise rather than harmony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an abstract of the research paper 'Teaching Dermatology to Medical Students,' by D.B. McKenna and J.A.A. Hunter presented during the annual meeting of the British Association of Dermatologists in Edinburgh, Scotland.