This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.

Today is an important day for the education team at The Herald.

My colleague Garrett Stell and I, supported by Gregor Kyle and Deborah Anderson from the editorial team, and backed by editor Catherine Salmond, have been at this for about 18 months now, and I think in that time we’ve done a lot of good work.

I was pretty open when I started this job that the goal was to make things better. For years I had complained about the quantity and quality of coverage of Scottish education in the mainstream press, and now we were being given the chance to change the equation.

Sometimes, that has meant pursuing an education news story with the sort of tenacity you might more typically see for political scoops: the Glasgow teacher cuts is one example, while the (still going, and increasingly ridiculous) investigation into Higher History marking is the latest.

We’ve run specials on both the college and university sectors (in both cases we opened up new data to provide a fresh insight into the reality of funding levels), reported on from more of the country than was previously the case, worked to make official education stats more manageable and engaging for our readers, and tried to feature just a little bit of the huge amount of terrific work going on in nurseries, schools, colleges and universities (and wrestling gyms) across the country.

Read more:

Lessons to Learn | Higher History exam marking fiasco is worse than it appears

But there’s always another door to push at, and today we’ve done something that I’m really excited about – we’ve launched a new supplement called Education HQ.

Over twelve pages, we’ve brought together reporting, feature writing and commentary to offer a range of different angles on various aspects of the Scottish education system.

The front page story comes from Caroline Wilson, who is reporting on concerns about a 60 percent drop off in uptake of Gaelic Medium Education between primary and secondary school levels. In it, one expert raises a number of issues, including the prospect of Gaelic becoming a “language of education rather than a language for speaking”.

Inside, Craig Williams has written about the High School of Glasgow achieving Gold in the Scottish Book Trust’s nationwide Reading Schools scheme, and Josh Pizzuto-Pomaco is looking at growing mental health and wellbeing concerns in higher education.

Read more:

Lessons to Learn | Education money going abroad? Well, Jenny Gilruth has more sitting in a drawer

We’ve also got a contribution from Professor Louise Hayward, who led a major review into qualifications and assessment, a piece on AI in education, information about careers support, and an insight into a new type of course available for secondary school pupils.

You can also read some typically excellent work from Garrett Stell: there’s an article on the fascinating partnership between a primary school and a college to build and operate air filters, another about a new ‘ethical literacy’ concept centred around recognising the reliability and trustworthiness of online material, and a comment piece that draws on his experience of the Community College system in the USA to ask questions about the approach here in Scotland.


For my part, I was lucky enough to get to visit a Glasgow primary school to see their ‘edible playground’, as well as a vet school where I learned a great deal about the issues facing the profession and the challenges involved in getting a male horse onto an operating table. I also talked to an academic about his team’s research into paratexts in ancient religious literature, and have contributed a comment piece about the state of Scotland’s education reform process.

It’s all still a little bit experimental, and was pulled together fairly quickly, but I’m very proud of what we’ve managed to produce – and if you missed it, don’t worry, because all the content will be available online in the coming days.

Sign up for a weekly expert insight into Scottish education straight to your inbox.


The reaction so far has been incredibly encouraging, and reaffirms the belief that brought me to The Herald in the first place: that there is a considerable audience for education journalism centred on depth, insight, commitment and compassion.

It might seem strange in a largely digital age (and maybe it is) but there’s something about putting together a distinct publication that will, I think, open up even more space for the type of journalism that has drawn people to us over the past year or so.

So thank you to everyone who has picked up a copy of Education HQ, and please do let us know what you think.

Hopefully, this is just the start.