Look at that cheap, exploitative image from the Herald. Surely, there was one with tears too!
The equation of ‘additional support needs’ with ‘vulnerable’ is both inaccurate and an attempt to manipulate emotions.
The Herald tells us that the number of ‘specialist teachers’ has fallen by 10% in the last 8 years. In a long piece based almost entirely and uncritically on the views of the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition, you have to read all the way to the bottom to see this from the Scottish Government:
‘All teachers provide support to pupils with additional support needs, not just ‘support for learning’ teachers.’
The Guardian, last year, told us that funding for such pupils had fallen by as much as 22% in 5 years, since 2015:
No sign of such contextual information in the Herald.
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
Unrelated: I’ve worked out how to depersonalise the new look!
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Depersonalise? Goodness, what ARE you doing to yourself John?!
Unrelated: Richard has posted a good snippet of video, from Sky news of all places, on how data is shown re coronavirus – and he shows how useful logarithmic scales are! Told you to look at log scales (used for exponential growth data). Interestingly even though South Korea data is shown, he never mentions it – a stark difference in results, but there is no effort to ask what they are doing differently – extensive contact tracing! Why are western countries NOT introducing this known public health technique? Why?
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/04/01/understanding-coronavirus-data/
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Oooh, you could’t let me have a moment of glory! Just one. That’s all I ask. Going on about that Richard guy all the time:
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Oh, I thought you’d be academically interested, rather than just looking for …
GLORY!!
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A passing thought: pupils were much better served when specialist support teachers were available. Asking “all teachers” to provide “additional support” certainly reduced the bill, but damaged the service given to pupils needing additional support, especially in large comprehensive classes. This put a huge burden on class teachers, gave less teacher time to individual pupils and often made numbers unmanageable. I comment as a senior high school teacher of 50 years’ experience.
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