***Beecraigs camping weekend, 20/22 May 2011 – places still available***
Thursday, 7th April 2011 | Events & Activities | Home Ed in the News | SchoolhouseSchoolhouse is organising another camping trip this year and we have decided to return to Beecraigs Country Park. Beecraigs is located 3.2km. (2 miles) south of historic Linlithgow town, midway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, in the scenic Bathgate Hills. It has a dedicated camping area that we have booked the sole use of for Friday 20th May from 2pm to Sunday 22nd May at 11am. The cost for the weekend will be £30 per family and should be paid at time of booking. There will be a discount of £7 for any families who are…
Wateraid at New Lanark by Ciaran Sneddon
Saturday, 29th January 2011 | Events & Activities | Home Ed in the News | SchoolhouseThis year’s Schoolhouse New Lanark get-together really put the “fun” into fundraising, as over £40 was raised for WaterAid by a couple of dedicated Bakers. The opening of the stall, run by two Fife Home-ed youngsters, on Saturday afternoon nearly caused a stampede as hungry swimmers made a bee-line straight from the pool towards the stall. Home-made gingerbread, fairy cakes and cookies tickled the fancy of the children, whilst the adults preferred the more sophisticated truffles and cupcakes. Home-made Christmas cookies were also donated by Ann Aitkenhead. People kept coming back to the …
New Lanark Weekend 2011 by Caitlin Sneddon
Saturday, 29th January 2011 | Events & Activities | Home Ed in the News | SchoolhouseIt was 4 weeks since Christmas, when everyone was feeling pretty run down. But they had one thing to look forwards to – New Lanark Schoolhouse Weekend 2011. By 7pm on Friday night all 15 families had gathered in the YHA Hostel in New Lanark. The aromas of a whole variety of meals were swirling around the dining room, as I sat and ate a bag of chips, kindly collected by the DGs on their way to the hostel. While some of the adults got to know each other, and others caught up with friends…
Schoolhouse New Lanark Weekend, 14-16 January 2011
Saturday, 23rd October 2010 | Events & Activities | Home Ed in the News | SchoolhouseNow that the weather is turning dreich it is time to think again of what is fast becoming a regular fixture in the Schoolhouse calendar – the New Year visit to New Lanark Youth Hostel. Read about last year’s visit here. This year’s residential weekend will take place from Friday 14th January to Sunday 16th January 2011 inclusive. The weekend is a self catering weekend and is primarily to offer members the opportunity to meet other home educating families in an informal and beautiful setting. The hostel is situated in the 200 year old Conservation Village of New Lanark and is surrounded…
Stigmatising minorities: just part of the job description
Saturday, 23rd October 2010 | Home Ed in the News | Law & Policy | Media | SchoolhouseThe words ”Wisdom, Justice, Compassion, Integrity” are woven into thistles at the head of the Scottish mace to represent the aspirations of the Scottish people for the Members of their Parliament. The head of the mace is surrounded by the words “There shall be a Scottish Parliament – Scotland Act 1998″. It was with these values in mind that Schoolhouse sent a complaint to the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament following the deeply offensive comments made by Duncan McNeil MSP in the wake of the Riggi tragedy in August 2010. Not only did the Labour MSP infer that the children’s home educated…
Unreasonable Learners conference, 4 October 2010
Thursday, 7th October 2010 | Events & Activities | Home Ed in the News | Schoolhouse“Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men.” (Edwin Louis Cole) Schoolhouse was pleased to accept an invitation to participate in the Unreasonable Learners conference in Glasgow on 4 October which was attended by delegates from the private, public and third sectors and a number of academics. It was an interesting and challenging day which explored ideas and possibilities for change in Scottish society. One of the speakers, Dr Tony Miller of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, has kindly given Schoolhouse permission to post the slides from his presentation which we believe…
Scottish Government upholds freedom of choice in education
Monday, 6th September 2010 | Home Ed in the News | Law & Policy | Media | SchoolhouseScotland’s national home education organisation Schoolhouse has welcomed the Scottish Government’s stated commitment to upholding freedom of choice in education in an unequivocal response to a series of parliamentary questions tabled by Lothians Green MSP Robin Harper. [1] Commenting on written answers from the Scottish education secretary Michael Russell MSP, a Schoolhouse spokesperson said: “Schoolhouse is grateful to Robin Harper for once again raising awareness of some of the issues faced by parents in Scotland who are, or may be contemplating, elective home education for their children. Despite definitive statutory guidance having been in place for well over two years, too many…
Schoolhouse AGM 2010
Tuesday, 31st August 2010 | Events & Activities | Home Ed in the News | SchoolhouseThe Schoolhouse AGM was held on 21 August 2010 at the Deer Centre in Fife, where we were delighted to welcome members from as far away as the Borders and Tobermory as well as more local folk. Families had an opportunity to enjoy the facilities on offer at the centre before the meeting at which the Schoolhouse annual report and accounts were presented and two new members of the committee duly elected. After the formal business was concluded, there was a question and answer session about the latest activities undertaken by Schoolhouse and various developments since the end of the reported year,…
Duncan McNeil MSP continues to distress and disgrace
Sunday, 15th August 2010 | Home Ed in the News | Media | SchoolhouseIt has been brought to the attention of Schoolhouse that Inverclyde MSP Duncan McNeil MSP is continuing to cause offence to the home educating community in Scotland by reiterating, in the Greenock Telegraph last Wednesday 11 August, insensitive and insulting comments for which he has already been severely criticised. By steadfastly refusing to apologise for his inappropriate, insensitive and politically motivated attack on a minority group in the wake of the Riggi family tragedy, and now seemingly redoubling his efforts to hog headlines over the issue, he is clearly intent on squeezing every last drop of political capital out of a…
Schoolhouse slams “grave robber” MSP over Riggi remarks
Sunday, 8th August 2010 | Home Ed in the News | Media | SchoolhouseScotland’s national home education organisation Schoolhouse has strongly condemned Labour MSP Duncan McNeil’s attack on home education in the wake of the tragic Riggi case, describing his comments in today’s Sunday Post as “insensitive, deplorable and tantamount to grave robbing.” The charity will now consider making a formal complaint about his conduct via the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. A Schoolhouse spokesperson said: “We find it deeply disturbing that Duncan McNeil has seen fit to use the deaths of three innocent children in Edinburgh last week to peddle vile personal prejudice and score cheap political points at the expense of a minority community of…