HOLIDAYS may be temporarily on hold, but planning magical trips is still possible. Spontaneity shapes thrilling travel escapades, but there's also a case for careful, methodical planning. Often, the preparation – deciding on a route, reading up about a destination – can be just as enjoyable as the trip itself.

Clachan Bridge

WHETHER through shrewd planning, good fortune or a bit of both, Edinburgh managed to complete the bulk of their business for next season before rugby came grinding to a halt. When precisely play resumes is, of course, unknown and out of their control, but they are at least confident that they will be in good shape to hit the ground running.

It is a tiny spit of land that lies in the Firth of Clyde two miles off the coast of Troon where colonies of seabirds have made their homes for centuries.

IT is one of he most important seabird observatories in the world, but its very future was called into question when fire ravaged through it and left it no more than a pile of rubble.

IT is less than two months since Shelley Kerr and her backroom staff, along with the domestic players in Scotland’s squad, flew back from Alicante to Glasgow. On the very same day – March 11 – the World Health Organisation accorded Covid-19 pandemic status.

Temaki

Today in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister will explain her decision to authorise airstrikes against Syria alongside France and the United States.

MILLIONS of face masks to protect Scottish health and care workers against coronavirus could be stuck in limbo at Prestwick airport for a week, it has emerged.

The Scottish political world is holding its breath this weekend.

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?

Chief technology officers are facing an unprecedented test of digital preparedness due to the coronavirus pandemic, struggling with shortfalls of available learning devices and huge Wi-Fi access challenges.

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.

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

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.

Just before Christmas, federal lawmakers sent President Donald Trump the Foundations for Evidenced-Based Policymaking Act of 2017, which aims to improve how federal data is used, shared, and protected.

During this hard and scary time, when our students need their teachers the most, suddenly they can’t be there in person. Here are some ways teacher Justin Minkel has found to keep that connection virtually.

Over two years, 27 communities have split from their home districts, and the new districts are mostly wealthier, whiter, and more property-rich than the ones left behind.

The school funding group EdBuild finds neighborhood attempts to secede popping up in more school districts, with racial and economic isolation increasing in their wake.

Three Ga. high school seniors have been charged with aggravated sexual battery and consumption of alcohol by a minor stemming from an alleged sexual assault during a post-prom party.

The annual issue, now in its eighth year, highlights the work of district leaders who are deploying new ideas to make a difference for their staff and students.

Crave pragmatic, honest, clear-eyed conversation about the realities of ed tech? Here's a reading list from Education Week, as presented at ISTE 2019.

Fewer than one-third of America's teachers say ed-tech innovations have changed their beliefs about what school should look like, according to a new Education Week survey.

IT’S all too easy to lose track of many of the quirky, moving, interesting films that have been shot in Scotland over the years. Some of the sparkling gems on these pages attracted decent reviews upon release before fading from view; others slipped under most people’s radar. The 10 films here are funny, or dark, or insightful. All have something to say; all are worth tracking down, and watching, whether it’s for the first time, or the first time since they were released.

Continuing increases in K-12 enrollment, a downturn in higher education enrollment, and a rise in cyberbullying are among the trends illustrated in two new statistical publications from the U.S. Department of Education.

An armoured car guarded the Grand Place in Brussels city centre yesterday as a group of women sat drinking coffee at an outdoor table. A reporter asked one of them what she would do if terrorists started shooting? She said: "Smile. Sit. Drink coffee. Enjoy – even if it is the last."

Homeschooling isn't a decision to be taken on lightly, but COVID-19 just changed the calculus, writes Michael Q. McShane.

How can parents make sure their kids are still learning, carve out time for their own work, discover their inner teacher, and stay sane? Ed Week turned to the foremost experts for their pro tips: Home schooling parents.

School board members in Tucson, Ariz., acted after learning that a controversial economics textbook that hadn't been properly vetted.

Stand-up Romesh Ranganathan is back with a second series of topical comedy show The Ranganation. He talks to Sherna Noah about filming the show in lockdown, the place of comedy in a crisis, and spending so much time with his family.

It's resulted in a creepy Orwellian environment where Google, Facebook, Amazon, and others have replaced Big Brother.

Education needs to stop going around in circles, writes Stanford’s Thomas S. Dee.

Watch students in 8th grade teacher Susie Morehead's class deepen their understanding of math principles by working through problems with their peers.

William Leou, a 6th grade science teacher at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies, uses an organizational worksheet to help students draw arguments from evidence.

Chris Knutson, an 8th grade history teacher at Horning Middle School in Waukesha, Wis., shares how he incorporates learning conferences into his lessons.

Teachers unleash a flood of creative responses to one of the Most Persistent Teaching Questions of All Time: How do you get ever-chatty middle schoolers to quiet down and pay attention?

The policy implications of the ESEA, and its most recent reauthorization, the No Child Left Behind Act, have been at the heart of an enduring public debate.

As teacher strikes sweep the nation, Marc Tucker compares the trajectory of teaching to that of the nursing profession, one of high standards of entry and rigorous preparation.

UEFA is to introduce minimum medical requirements at UEFA competition matches from the start of next season, with guidelines drawn up by the UEFA Medical Committee.

A woman whose home was damaged by the tsunami accepts Christ after witnessing the lives and attitudes of the volunteers working in her house.

A pastor and OM couple start a new church in Tonami, Japan, a rural town of 50,000.

A Japanese girl once weighed down by the guilt of sin accepts Jesus’ complete forgiveness and is baptised. She now exudes “radiant joy”.

There have been no previous large studies of congenital heart disease in very low birth weight infants.

This study characterized the frequency, mortality rate, and lesion distribution of serious congenital heart disease in very low birth weight infants by using a large international multicenter database. (Read the full article)

Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP) has been the initial respiratory support for many preterm infants with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Nasal intermittent positive-pressure ventilation (NIPPV) seems to increase the beneficial effects of NCPAP by combining it with ventilatory inflations.

This study suggests that NIPPV, as an intial respiratory support for preterm infants with RDS, is feasible and safe and may have beneficial effects, when compared with NCPAP. (Read the full article)

Media reports suggest that adolescents are being charged with sex crimes and even placed on sex offender registries because of participating in the "sexting" of sexual images, but the nature and outcomes of such incidents have not been described empirically.

This is the first study to examine types of sexting cases handled by police. It informs clinicians by identifying characteristics of "aggravated" versus milder incidents and finding that most youth were not arrested. Sex offender registration was rare. (Read the full article)

Available clinical prediction rules to identify children with cerebrospinal fluid pleocytosis at low risk for Lyme meningitis include headache duration, cranial nerve palsy, and percent cerebrospinal fluid mononuclear cells. These rules require independent validation.

These clinical prediction rules accurately identify patients at low risk for Lyme meningitis in our large multicenter cohort. Children at low risk may be considered for outpatient management while awaiting Lyme serology. (Read the full article)

Although there is some older literature examining how arrest prevalence accumulates through adolescence and adulthood, there is no contemporary research examining the arrest histories of a representative sample of American youth.

Using a contemporary US sample of adolescents and young adults, we estimated the cumulative arrest prevalence through age 23. The results suggest a substantial increase in the cumulative prevalence of arrest since the 1960s. (Read the full article)

Studies on vaccine safety are crucial to the ongoing success of our national immunization program. ITP has a known association with MMR in young children, occurring in 1 in 40 000 doses. The risk after other childhood vaccines is unknown.

This study found no increased risk of ITP after vaccines other than MMR in young children, confirmed an association of ITP with MMR, and also found that ITP may occur after certain other vaccines in older children. (Read the full article)

Newborn screening (NBS) programs may store bloodspot samples and use them for secondary purposes, such as research. Recent public controversies and lawsuits over storage and secondary uses underscore the need to engage the public on these issues.

This public engagement study identifies values underlying citizens’ acceptance of and discomfort with research from NBS samples. Well-designed methods of public education and civic discourse on the risks and benefits of storage and secondary uses of NBS samples are required. (Read the full article)

Pertussis is a poorly controlled vaccine-preventable disease. Verifying outbreaks is challenging owing to nonspecific clinical presentations and imperfect diagnostic tests. Exclusive reliance on highly sensitive polymerase chain reaction has been associated with pseudo-outbreaks.

Contamination of specimens with vaccine derived Bordetella pertussis DNA from pediatric clinic surfaces likely resulted in misdiagnoses. Standard practices, liquid transport medium, and lack of polymerase chain reaction cutoffs for discerning weakly positive (contaminant) DNA are contributory, but modifiable factors. (Read the full article)