5 h. ago Fewer children than ever learning the recorder at school as instrument’s popularity wanes

Children are opting for different instruments in schools as a wider range are on offer

Culture

5 h. ago Only one in six children learning recorder after drop in popularity over decade

However, a report by the ABRSM, the exam board of the Royal Schools of Music, suggests the range of instruments now being taught is ‘widening’.

Politics

17 h. ago Dykehead Primary in Shotts receives positive inspection report

Inspectors praised the school’s calm and purposeful learning environment and recognised improvements in children’s attainment in mathematics.

Politics

38 h. ago Inside North Korea's brutal schools where children face daily beatings and are forced to learn about Kim Jong Un's life and sing propaganda songs

Bella Seo - who fled the dystopian country when she was a teenager - said students' most important subject was their leader Kim Jong Un , which they had to study three times a day.

Culture

41 h. ago Numbers of children learning to swim in part of Wales are starting to become worrying

The new figures on membership to a leisure company's swimming lessons come one year after a study showed that only 16% of children in Cardiff could swim

Politics

5 d. ago Debunking the socialisation myth: how online schools can help children form friendships as they learn

From school trips and meet-ups to summer camps and exchanges, discover how online schooling can help your child form lasting friendships

Politics

9 d. ago A horse therapy program in Namibia brings joy to children with learning disabilities

A woman in the southern African country of Namibia runs a program that harnesses the power but also the gentleness of horses to help children with learning disabilities and conditions like attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism

Politics

9 d. ago The shocking amount of sugar packed into a Cadbury Creme egg REVEALED

Chocolatey treats are permitted today but parents watching children scoff a Cadbury Creme Egg might be surprised to learn just how much sugar the seasonal candy packs in.

Events

2 w. ago Music can lift mood, foster community and even rewire brains – but does it need to have a purpose?

The therapeutic role music can play is the focus of a string of new books and even an entire BBC radio station. But why can’t we just listen to music for music’s sake?Growing up, I never questioned the intrinsic value of classical music. My father practising classical and jazz guitar was the aural wallpaper to my childhood, and at my rural state school I took lessons on the recorder, the violin, the cello, the trombone, the piano. The after-school clubs on offer included, somewhat implausibly, an ocarina ensemble. Music was art, and wasn’t art the point of it all, when you got right down to it? The reason to live, after we cater for all our basic needs? It was certainly what led me to become first a classical musician, and then a music historian.But when my dad died unexpectedly in 2019, it threw my relationship with music into sharp relief. All of a sudden, I couldn’t bear listening to it. It was too painful, or it grated on my nerves and made me angry. I started to question how an...

Politics

2 w. ago One to One: John and Yoko review – Kevin Macdonald’s immersive collage is a pop culture fever dream

A collection of staggering TV clips and amazing audio of Lennon and Ono’s life in 1970s NYC, this film is a mosaic of countercultural momentsFilm-maker Kevin Macdonald has created a fever dream of pop culture: a TV-clip collage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s time in New York in the early 70s, as they led the countercultural protest. It’s a film that mixes small screen zeitgeist fragments and madeleine moments, a memory quilt of a certain time and place, juxtaposing Jerry Rubin and Allen Ginsberg with Richard Nixon and George Wallace, John and Yoko in concert with ads for Tupperware – all inspired by the fact that John and Yoko did an awful lot of TV watching in their small New York apartment of that time, with John in particular thrilled by the American novelty of 24/7 television.It was also on TV that John and Yoko saw a documentary about the scandalous abuse of learning-disabled children at the infamous Willowbrook State School in New York and they organised the One to One concert ...

Politics

4 w. ago New head to lead top Scotland's only independent only boys' school

An experienced educator with a track record of whole-school transformation has been appointed as the next Headmaster of one of Edinburgh’s most prestigious independent schools.

Politics