It was a normal Friday night in the Red Lion pub in Whitehall, where journalists gather to gossip about the week. Charlie Whelan, former chancellor Gordon Brown’s personal spin doctor, was holding court as usual, white wine spritzer in hand.

The Meadowbank Stadium was one of the shabbier landmarks in east Edinburgh until it was knocked down last year. A new one is rising from the ashes, looking like one of those massive cruise liners that appear in the Forth.

Writers have been ransacking the Brainy Quotes website looking for inspiration for their coronavirus think pieces. But there is really only one that matters: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”. Franklin D Roosevelt’s epigram is appropriate because it is as disingenuous as it is paradoxical.

Next week, Nicola Sturgeon is promising to outline her proposals for lifting the lockdown. Good luck with that. She is unlikely to open the schools because she can't rely on parents to send their children.

Nicola Sturgeon won plaudits from some unlikely quarters this week for her “grown-up conversation” on lifting the lockdown.

FACE it – we are going nowhere. Even if we had a particular place to venture the regulations would not permit. For the foreseeable we shall have to contract out our travelling to others. On the upside, no airport hassle. On the downside, no giant Toblerone.

Co-hosts Keith Lemon and Anna Richardson talk to Gemma Dunn about their new show, The Fantastical Factory Of Curious Craft.

THE market for TV historians is crowded and fiercely competitive. Drop your guard for a second and Dan Snow or Bettany Hughes will be in the door and taking your gig faster than you can don a pair of those special white gloves all in the trade must have. Lucy Worsley made her name by combining immense knowledge – she is the chief curator at Historic Royal Palaces – with a steadfast dedication to raiding the dressing up box.

One of the biggest pieces of unfinished business for education groups when it comes to federal help with the coronavirus is connectivity and online learning. But what's the state of play?

E-learning may help some schools keep instruction flowing but major gaps in access and resources mean not all schools are ready to offer virtual classes, and not all students are equipped to learn online.

Educators are struggling to learn how to use new tech tools—devices, apps, software, and online textbooks—in greater volume than ever before.

Before the massive rush to remote learning, most teachers used digital resources as supplements rather than primary materials, a RAND study shows.

Schools need help from the federal government to prepare millions of U.S. students for remote learning this fall and beyond.

The director of teaching and learning for a Minnesota district talks about putting e-learning days into action under difficult circumstances.

The top technology official for Virginia's Fairfax County schools resigned after the district struggled to handle some major technical glitches in its e-learning platforms.

Northshore School District teachers, parents, and students practiced remote learning in advance of the district's closure for two weeks.

Schools and tech companies in the U.S. and abroad have experience deploying virtual learning should a coronavirus emergency arise.

Many parents are having to take on a variety of new roles, from playing IT help desk to becoming makeshift teaching assistants to supervising recess.

Schools and tech companies in the U.S. and abroad have experience deploying virtual learning should a coronavirus emergency arise.

States are adjusting the policies and strategies designed for short- term remote instruction—like snow day plans—to support students for the rest of the school year.

SCOTTISH Government ministers have appealed to Westminster for financial support to be handed over to universities during the Covid-19 pandemic amid a pledge that Holyrood is “ready to stand by” institutions.

EDUCATION Secretary John Swinney does not expect schools to reopen overnight as he stressed they would only do so when it was safe for public health.

HELP is on hand for parents hoping to inspire their children at home during the coronavirus lockdown – and it’s all free.

SCOTLAND’S universities must play their part in adapting to the “new normal” amid warnings that institutions could be forced to merge in return for government support.

Schools in Wales could be allowed to reopen their doors next month in a phased approach, the first minister has said.

THE SCOTTISH Government “does not consider it likely” that schools will fully re-open “in the foreseeable future” - while working from home is “likely to persist as part of the new normal”.

FIVE new nursery extensions being built at schools across Edinburgh have been thrown into doubt after the company building the facilities entered administration.

The slur isn't appropriate for school personnel or students of any race to ever use, writes Tyrone C. Howard.

The Long Beach, Calif., school district is deploying a multifaceted strategy to put more students of color in high-level math courses and help them succeed.

An internationally known gifted-education center is scouting—and helping to develop—gifted students in after-school programs and pullout classes in one of Maryland’s most challenged school districts.

One particularly tense staff meeting helped educator Robert Parker rethink how his school celebrated Black History Month.

By automatically enrolling all students in high-level courses, schools in Washington state are working to erase a long entrenched form of inequity.

Fed up with their district’s unmet pledges to stop steering African American students into low-level classes, parents take action.

With more than 40 million unique visitors a year, GreatSchools.org is a wildly popular source of information on K-12 schools. Though the site has added more factors and nuance to how it rates schools, researchers argue that it’s exacerbating already existing patterns of segregation.

And four strategies for fixing the underlying problems most often laid bare, from Great Schools Partnership’s Craig Kesselheim.

School dress codes are clashing with students, parents, and researchers who see the rules and their enforcement as rife with racism and sexism. Some school leaders say the codes are important for safety and teaching kids to comply.

The evidence that culturally responsive teaching can fix the nation's schools for children of color is promising, but woefully incomplete, writes Heather C. Hill.

Blaming teachers unions for all the ills afflicting public schools does not stand up to scrutiny.

In the face of well-funded opposition to organized labor, teachers will not be silenced, writes NEA President Lily Eskelsen García.

As teacher take the lead in protests over pay, unions face an uncertain future, writes Berkeley sociologist Bruce Fuller.

In the aftermath of this spring's teacher protests, more educators are running for state office—and the National Education Association is seizing on the political moment.

"This lawsuit will enable teachers like me to recover the agency fees that we were wrongly forced to pay against our will," said one of the plaintiffs.

Whether Janus will be a death blow or a turning point for unions depends on what they do now, writes Paul Reville.

A national union for principals is campaigning to increase its membership, drafting in part off the momentum created by the surge in educator activism over the past two years.

The recent Chicago Teachers Union strike drew attention from Democratic presidential candidates in Illinois, a state won by Democrats in the last White House contest. For 2020, it's possible we could see a twist on that story: big-city teacher strikes in states with less predictable outcomes.

Both the AFT and the NEA vowed to engage their members more deeply this year in deciding who to back for the White House. How well have they done?

The UK looks likely to operate under slightly different lockdown rules next week after announcements by the leaders of the Welsh and Scottish Governments suggested deviation between nations.

The Government has defended missing its key 100,000 target for coronavirus tests for the sixth day in a row, highlighting “daily fluctuations” in availability.