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IN assist of Stan Grodynski (Letters, June 3), once I was in my sixth yr at college, I sat three CSYS maths papers and was entered for the English A-level as effectively. (This was regarded by the top of division as a “enjoyable factor” to do.) I distinctly bear in mind trying on the first web page of the primary Scottish examination – in Summary Algebra and Quantity Techniques – and pondering for the primary time in my life in a maths examination: “Overlook about getting any of those questions out – I can not even see the apparent place to start out.”
Having been advised within the media all through my childhood that A-levels had been the gold normal in schooling, inside seconds my subsequent thought was “what the hell is the A-level going to be like?”.
I used to be actually shocked when, a month later, I opened the primary web page of the A-level and noticed that each single query within the paper was fully trivial compared to the Scottish maths exams. A lot for the “gold normal” I had been brainwashed into believing existed.
This was confirmed only a few years in the past once I spoke to an admissions tutor at Cambridge College a couple of very proficient maths scholar and was advised: “Oh sure, everyone knows that the Scottish mathematicians are a lot better – they all the time have been.” The kicker to the story? The tutor I spoke to was himself English.
I do know that there are lots of critics of the state of Scottish schooling simply now however, as somebody on the within with nearly 30 years of expertise, I can affirm that, in maths at the least, requirements are holding up effectively.
David Patrick, Edinburgh.
MINISTERS SHOULD SEEK THE REALITY
I NOTE your report on Labour MSP Monica Lennon accusing Girls’s Well being Minister Maree Todd of turning NHS employees into “bouncers” (“‘Bouncers’ fury over abortion protests”, The Herald, June 3). With Glasgow hospitals and clinics being closely focused by anti-abortion protesters, ladies accessing these services are nervous, however what precisely does Ms Todd count on hospital employees to do?
The police had been just lately referred to as to Sandyford clinic however no motion was taken. Are the clinics anticipated to take nurses off shift to behave as escorts? Are docs supposed to face outdoors with their very own indicators and megaphones? Ought to sonographers make use of Extinction Revolt methods and glue themselves to the highway to forestall protesters from harassing their sufferers? The reply is to not put much more strain on already-stretched hospitals. The reply is easy: protest-free buffer zones round abortion care services. As quickly as attainable.
As a instructor, I’ve grow to be accustomed to laughable Authorities “options” to highschool Covid an infection charges resembling sawing the underside off doorways, anticipating younger kids to have the ability to socially distance or the ridiculous occasion line that colleges had been magical zones the place Covid couldn’t unfold. Clearly it’s not simply schooling employees who should endure these uninformed solutions. Authorities ministers would do effectively to speak to public sector employees and discover out what is definitely occurring out right here in the actual world.
Gemma Clark, Howwood.
DEVOLVE DRUG LAWS TO SCOTLAND
I AGREE with Douglas McBean, (Letters, June 2) that the Scottish Conservatives’ proposal for a “proper to get better” for addicts is neither radical nor sensible. All of the events are agreed that the excessive medicine deaths fee in Scotland is unacceptable, and that new approaches to restoration are wanted.
We’ve got had 50 years of the UK Authorities following the lead of the People in draconian medicine legal guidelines and approaches to restoration. All these have failed as a result of they see illicit drug use and habit as a prison justice subject. They’ve spent billions on policing and dumping addicts in jail with lots of of others caught of their addictions, leaving these prisoners with no hope of any significant remedy. The strategy to medicine schooling has been that illicit medicine kill, when the general public know solely too effectively that this isn’t true, in order that they ignore a lot of the well being recommendation supplied by our governments. For a lot of many years there have been much more deaths from the 2 legalised medicine tobacco and alcohol than illicit medicine. The failed UK medicine legal guidelines stop our devolved parliament from experimenting with extra holistic and confirmed approaches to restoration from all addictions, as has been taking place in Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands and plenty of different international locations during the last decade or extra.
Douglas Ross is especially eager to offer immediate entry to residential rehabilitation which prices £3-4k every week when he is aware of that there are solely 418 beds in Scotland and greater than 12,000 with addictions competing for them. The personal sector which primarily present these rehab clinics complains that there are only a few accessing these beds with NHS funding. That doesn’t shock me as a result of the proof that such an strategy works is difficult to seek out; so far as I can confirm, their success fee is round 5-10%. So we might be spending scarce NHS funding of £38,000 to £48,000 for 12 weeks of remedy that hardly works. How can the Scottish Conservatives justify that loopy and failed strategy to restoration?
If the Scottish Conservatives do need to show that they actually do care about drug deaths, I counsel, but once more, that they need to use their energies and affect to steer their political masters in Westminster that devolving drug legal guidelines to Scotland can be a very cost-effective, humanitarian and radical factor to do. If we got that energy and had been profitable then the entire of the UK would profit.
Max Cruickshank, Glasgow.
DESPERATELY SEEKING JARVIS
THELMA Edwards’ letter (June 4)had me trying to find any participant referred to as Jarvis who may need featured in a 1950 Radio Instances article in regards to the FA Cup.
There was a Harry Jarvis who performed for Notts County within the Fifties, however not within the 4th spherical cup tie during which Burnley gained 4-1 at Notts County (whose crew included Tommy Lawton) in January 1950 earlier than a crowd of over 43,000, which could have merited a radio broadcast.
There was a Bart Purvis who performed for Notts County that season as a full again, however his few appearances had been unlikely to incorporate an FA Cup tie.
And it may’t have been Jarvis Kenrick, who scored the primary ever objective within the FA Cup …. in 1871.
However thanks for sending me down multiple rabbit gap.
To be continued?
George Kirrin, Beckenham.
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