So we begin this abbreviated version of the sportsmax zone with football from the Jamaican top flight It was Monday night joy for Harbourview who secured their first victory of the Reign Nevew Jamaica Premier League season and it was emphatic as they spanked newly promoted Limehall Academy 3-0 at the National Stadium Eastfield a brace from former Glen Muir High standout David Reed and a well-taken goal by Shaquille Bradford in the first half were enough to move Harbourview to 11th on seven points two points Ahead of Limehall who are 13th with four. Let's first hear from Limehall's head coach Vanny Clark Who ruled his teams slow start to the contest? We got out of the blocks really really slow We didn't get going at all in that first half and it didn't help that you can't see that after two minutes And then you know quickly thereafter you're down too nearly you're always going to be behind the eight ball And so thought that we didn't handle ourselves well in the first half second half was about Limiting the damage and I'm you know trying to get some positives from it other than the second half the intensity was a lot better substitutions really helped and You know we really managed that period a lot better than we did, but of course, you know You're already down 3-0. Sorry. It's it doesn't help. It doesn't do much But you know we'll take the positives. Yeah, Vanny Clark here and here is Harbourview's national award-winning coach Ludlow Bernard The game was gonna be characterized by the The weather elements the breeze probably played a factor But the longer the game went Then you could say we took a photo. I forgot a bit complacent, you know And I'm probably ruin the fact that you would have allowed Limehall One and two looking and the fact that on the other end of the pitch Weren't clinical enough and good with our decision making Well the night continued to be unkind to the Premier League newcomers as Waterhouse FC smashed 10 man Treasure Beach by four goals to one and Ending a four-game winless run as Treasure Beach remained 12th on just four points a brace for matter the match Andre Fletcher along with goals from Javane Bryan and Lorenzo Lewin spearheaded Waterhouse's victory Assistant coach of Treasure Beach Fitzroy Ambrusley shared his thoughts on the defeat We wanted a win. We were fighting to get back in the last minute and then we came out in the second half continuing the same Pattern but to be We lost out in the last couple minutes, which is a red card and in afterwards now we Still fight, but it wasn't there for us Yeah, Nikoi Christian who bagged two assists on the night was loaded for his attacking prowess by the Waterhouse assistant coach Damien Gordon I think in training I've been working on that free kick. I guess one day we will see it Overall, I like the leadership quality from him and also in terms of the overall performance I'm also impressed with Damien Bins as well and that goal from Elvis that didn't came my word It would have been a world of course definitely, but I mean in in truth We are growing, you know, we have some obstacles and we also have some some setbacks some challenges But we have to continue to work on it So what a house are now sitting fourth with 15 points and joining us in studio to discuss action from match week 10 is our sportsmax Analyst Chris Taylor Chris we will in a moment talk about what happened on Sunday But let's deal with the Monday night matches first Waterhouse and Harbourview haven't been having particularly strong starts to the season But with the good wins last night. Yeah, excellent win Let's I mean with Harbourview an excellent first half as well I thought Lyme Hall who have been well organized throughout the season a lot of the matches We have seen just weren't that yesterday last night. I think they struggled I don't think there was enough communication in the back line and the structure was Was something that that that Harbourview really tore apart and Harbourview took the first half away from them good goals. Yeah, great to see David Reed Has been coming off the bench a lot gotta start on this occasion and and made the most of it With two goals one off the head and then went one with his well-known left foot But yeah, Lyme Hall You heard Vanny you heard it You heard Vanny Clark saying that he thought they came into the half the second half patterns one I think Harbourview took their foot off the accelerator actually and tried to just control the tempo of the game Didn't push as much for the fourth goal Which was a bit of a surprise to me considering that they have been struggling for goals Generally Harbourview and as you said, this is just their first win of the season But Shaquille Bradford continues to be so potent up front as you said six goals In in as many matches and you know, he's really going from strengths to strengths I think you know just a partner for him is probably what's needed for Harbourview to really do damage Waterhouse on the other hand had gone almost 370 minutes without a goal and then scored in the last minute against Portmore in that In that one-all tie and then came into their own very well in this match I really I mean for a lot of the game. It was closer than the scoreline seems I think Treasure Beach battled well for the first 60 to 70 minutes It was 2-1 then the red card came and then Waterhouse Clinical finishes Andre Fletcher and company and just took it away from them But I'm a spirited performance by Treasure Beach And so I I look at the Treasure Beach team and I think that they could survive in this league based on their Their mindset their resilience and their fight, but yeah waterhouse back to goalscoring ways Yeah, um, what's Harbourview's problem though astonishing that a good team like Harbourview has Waited so long for the first win over the season and every time I see Ludlow Bernard in a post-match interview. He looks miserable And let me tell you he was leading 2-0 and I think he realized at that point that look This is an opportunity for us to take the game totally away from Lyme Hall And he was off his bench very animated quarreling with his players and he was leading 2-0 because I think he realized That what has been happening for Harbourview this season is that they have had some real defensive Errors and it's so surprising because as you said this team has been together for some time, especially the back line three season defenders you're talking about Hardin Talbot and Brackenridge, so they have been around for some time But yet the the cohesiveness not there as we are used to and it has cost them But at 2-0 he was up off his bench got the third and then he relaxed Yeah utilizing youngsters Chris is nothing new for teams like Harbourview And Cavalier who we've seen win the Premier League with very young units But are we seeing more than ever before players between the age of let's say 17 and 22 doing well in the Jamaica Premier League? Getting opportunities I Doing well is relative not looking totally out of place. I'll agree with you with that I think more opportunities, especially the fact that now with so much television involved We have a lot of our players Getting exposure outside of Jamaica so going away not necessarily to the English Premier League or Serie A Even though we've now finally had a player there, but to some of the lesser leagues as well Professional opportunity so with that it brings gaps I think in a team structure and has allowed for a lot of these players to get opportunities Also bearing bearing in fact that a lot of these coaches also coach at the high school level so they know these players very well So are you suggesting that you're not completely impressed with what you are seeing from the youngsters despite the push To have more and more of them play in the JPL? I am impressed with the fact that they are getting there and not looking out of place So they are managing the level as to whether they are setting the place or like no I don't think it's got to that. So it's a totally different level. Obviously, you're not playing against the adult male I think the expectations sometimes maybe a little bit too high But a lot of them have come in and done admirably David Reed has taken a while to find his foot in now finally gets two goals He played for what the Chapelton maroons last season So some of these players and when you look at even some of the young players who have come straight out of school They think of you know doing atkinson who was at who is that Cavalier and was away on loan and Trayvon Reed for example, you think what these players are so young they've come straight out of high school No, they have been playing for two or three seasons before they've really started putting together a number So it does take a while But so Adrian Reed who is still in school. I saw good and get an opportunity as well for Cavalier Alex if you're good. Yeah, and yeah Adrian Reed has been playing for a couple seasons up to last year. Adrian Reed was still playing in the Colts under 16 league in Jamaica So and as I said doesn't look out of place But by no means you would say they are in the top 10 of Premier League players But I think that will take a while. It's good to see them getting an introduction and I think in terms of You know enhancing their pro career that will help Let's go back to one Sunday's matches now because Mount Pleasant for only the second time in their history They had back-to-back losses mid-season last season. I think too. Well, waterhouse was one of the teams that beat them I think maligns, but since they started playing 2019 They haven't had back-to-back losses apart from that one I just mentioned and this one here having said that they're still leading any words for Mount Pleasant and their coach Temple with more well in talking to Theodore He doesn't seem overly concerned if you think two seasons ago, I know Mount Pleasant did fall shot on the Wally Downs There was a they had gone eight or nine matches I think it was without defeat and then all of a sudden they went through a bad road and In any league across the world you have situations like that You look at even Manchester City in the English Premier League. They're going through a bad route So I'm not surprised that Mount Pleasant will have a bad segment. Yes, if you want to see but it's just a stutter I think so. I think they're both but I think the quality of their team and the depth of their squad They will they will eventually get it right, but kudos to Lin Faldix and and very united. Yeah That was an upset big big upset result Wasn't just before we go though a quick comment on on Tivoli and and Justin Dunn and his goal scoring form I think he's at a goal per match at the moment, which is Remarkable no, we're in world football players score better than a goal per match Well, Harry Kane has 14 matches so far. Well, that's not the norm Bappé and all of the leading scorers Holland is not at a goal per match and done has a goal per match at the moment Particularly he didn't score Sunday though. No, but he's doing very well at nine goals so far The leading goalscorer in the league and to think that he's just 20 years of age just in done He another one of the youngsters another Didn't actually play at the high school level because COVID interfered was a way for a while It was on the books at Kingston College, but then COVID came and disrupted his his progress there But last season only scored two goals. Yes, and to think that of how well he's doing now I mean, it's remarkably his progress, but Tivoli Well, basically the same squad they had last year So Jerome wait obviously getting in the minds of these players and doing what he does Well, he knows how to win titles and he has them believing and so far Tivoli scoring a lot of goals and and getting the wins Yeah, as usual the rare nephew Jamaica Premier League exciting and it's on sports max every weekend and on a Monday night as well And they are from time to time midweek matches as well Chris, thanks for stopping by to talk to us about there's a pleasure ran nephew Jamaica Premier League We have more to come on the sportsmax zone after the break


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Rational design of multi-targeted drug combinations is a promising strategy to tackle the drug resistance problem for many complex disorders. A drug combination is usually classified as either synergistic or antagonistic, depending on whether the observed combination response deviates from the expected effect calculated based on a reference model of non-interaction. Existing reference models were developed for low throughput drug combination experiments, making them incompatible with the complex drug interactions observed in large-scale dose-response matrix experiments. To address this limitation, we proposed a new reference model called zero interaction potency, ZIP. This model captures the drug interaction relationships by comparing the change in potency of the dose-response curve between individual drugs and their combinations. We used a delta score to measure the deviation from the expectation of no interaction and proved that a delta score of zero indicates both probabilistic independence and dose additivity. We then applied this model to a large-scale anti-cancer drug combination experiment, demonstrating its ability to capture the experimentally confirmed drug synergy while maintaining a low-false positive rate. Additionally, we proposed using an interaction landscape over the entire dose-response matrix to identify and quantify synurg. This article was authored by Bugvon Yadav, Krista Wennerberg, Taro Adokaleo, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Let's just try this. All right, welcome everybody. So we are on the final leg of our nine-chapter journey here. So this is the first chapter of the final section and Jeff's gonna lead us through the synopsis of this one. This one is actually pretty exciting for me. There's some stuff I'm really looking forward to chat about with people because not 100% sure I'm convinced by it but it definitely got me thinking, it went, huh, maybe I should do that. So Jeff, why don't you start us off with a quick summary here and then we'll jump into the meat of the discussion. Sure, so I've tried to distill down the underlying ideas and so in the chapter, they identify this overall concept of agency as central and that students are gonna tend to learn more if they feel ownership of their own learning and are given the opportunity to pursue their own interests which just makes sense, right? People will pay more attention to things that interest them and so if you can harness that by allowing them to do so. And this is sort of my own connection that I make here but if you're giving them additionally choices about what to do, what to read, what to think about, what to discuss, then you're actually giving them judgment level tasks on Bloom's taxonomy. And so here's another strategy for just pushing students up high on Bloom's taxonomy which is often a good goal in terms of challenging them intellectually. Now, the flip side is that too much agency would be throwing them straight into the deep end of the pool. They still need support and so now there is careful thought needed about how much autonomy they're ready for and that's going to differ from course to course and group of students to group of students. So I think that's where the real difficulty comes in here. So quickly some recommendations in the chapter is in discussions, give multiple topics and let them choose what they're going to talk about. That does mean there's a little more work front loaded in terms of coming up with those topics. Although I'll skip to the end and say if you're co-designing your syllabus maybe you can farm some of that work out to the students and they're going to benefit from it. I love things that allow us to be lazy and simultaneously teach better. That's like the ideal, right? And so sort of connected with that is this idea of self enrollment groups. That's another, if you're getting them to discuss in groups, let them self enroll in them to make their choices and LMSs can often support that or do this at the level of some sort of a course project that's collaborative, which is like the hardest thing you can design for a course in my opinion. And then there's this really interesting discussion of specifications grading and Jason I don't know whether that's the part you are maybe dubious about. And I'll say, I look at it and I say, oh boy, does that ever feel like it could go off the rails? But, you know, it- Or go really right. Yeah, I, looking forward to chatting with you. It looks fascinating. Why don't you take us quickly through what does that mean? What is specifications grading? What is it getting? So the idea is set your, set what the specifications are for what they're submitting and they either get a hundred percent for meeting all the specifications or zero for naught. And the analogy she draws is in the software industry if the client gives you a set of requirements for a piece of software and you code up the software and give it to them. And they say, oh, well that, that meets three quarters of the requirement. Well, that means they reject it, right? That it doesn't meet their needs. And so part of the idea here is to get students used to the idea that, yeah, there are things you have to get done. And if you don't get them done, then that's not a success. And so it can get them to invest more effort once they see that they actually, that they can't half-ass their way through things. And simultaneously it can speed up the marking because you can just very quickly look and say, well, did it meet all the specifications or not instead of having to hem and hove or whether this is a C or a B? Fair enough. The, yeah, I think that's a good summary. I think maybe the only thing I'd add is just, just, and this wasn't necessarily even something she made super explicit, but it was kind of a theme that went through is looking at autonomy for sort of two different aspects of something that's been a theme in this book in general. As one is the practical aspect of how do you make them learn the material, whatever. But then the other is that broader kind of coaching things of going beyond communicating technical information and instead crafting citizens helping them learn. So it seemed to be, the goals seem to be a mixture and these are not mutually exclusive, obviously, of getting them to be engaged with the material and therefore do the material, but also teaching them life lessons about responsibility. And those are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but also depending on the design of the application, right? Could potentially undermine each other, I think. The hard lesson might actually undermine your ultimate goal of getting them to deal with the materials. That's a little bit of color commentary. So to me, that's sort of at the heart of agency, right? Students are going to take, or if you're giving students ownership of their learning, they have to take it, right? And if they don't actually step up and take ownership, then they're not gonna do well at all. And so, yeah, there is a responsibility piece here. Now, I'll say, I in general, a big believer overall in what often gets called student-centered learning, but the basic idea being that students are responsible for doing their own learning. And so, you're holding them responsible for going out and doing these things to do the learning and to demonstrate to you that they've done it. Now, that's different from autonomy over what they're learning, right? And a lot of this chapter is more about giving autonomy over what they are learning, presumably within a framework where you're setting some set of parameters. Yeah, fair enough. Jeff, would you mind stopping sharing your screen? Oh, sure. I think that'll just big a fire heads then, because I think teams defaults to the screen. Maybe I'm wrong. I always get started on something before I move on to maybe the more controversial stuff. The second bullet point you had in the list there on the second page of, it was something along, oh my gosh, what was it? What was the second? Self-enrollment groups? Yeah, the self-enrollment.  University teaching program this summer. There was one of the sessions where we had to read a series of papers on inclusivity and then we got to self-enroll into groups after the fact. And I actually found that, I really enjoyed the conversation. We also used speaking circles within there, which I thought were gonna crash and burn, but actually worked really well in our group. I found that really interesting, but one of the things I think that to make that work, that an adaptation you'd have to make is a philosophical one of what the goal, the ultimate outcome of the course is going to be. And Deanne and I made this as a, way of staying afloat this semester, or last semester, we went, look, the reality is we're gonna be making so much content, we can't kill ourselves. The students are so stressed, they're gonna be underperforming relative to normal years. So let's just, instead of making sure that all students learn everything or as much as possible, let's just go with the goal of inspiring some interest in the discipline and ensuring that every student learns something and allow the students essentially to decide what they wanna learn, right? So the end goal, instead of that, they have 80% mastery of the whole thing, try to ensure that they know something about something at the end of the course. Cause realistically, they're gonna forget 90% of it anyways, and the stuff that they actually are interested in, they're more likely to take with them for the rest of their life. So let's just work at cultivating interest and mastery of some particular subsection of the course. And if that's your philosophy, this works great, right? But even if you do the kind of things you were suggesting where you're going to have them, you're gonna have them co-teach their peers on something after the fact, the reality is they're not learning that material. They're gonna learn the group that they were in and they're gonna have, you know, really superficial understanding of this stuff and they're gonna forget it. I think that's my take from you. I think you're absolutely right that when you have students prepare something to present to the other students, and you know, we often sell that as you're going to teach this part. Well, it's the student who got that assigned to them to teach who actually learns it. The rest probably don't unless you're also getting them to do something else with that material, right? And so as long as you're conscious of that and as long as that's okay, then great. Yeah, I mean, now, and I said in my little quick presentation, right, that she talks about collaborative projects. And I think that is the hardest thing that can possibly be done in a course. And I've done some courses where I had collaborative projects. And I mean, we all know what the immediate problem is with collaborative projects, right? What's the big problem? This is one area where I think actually, and she wasn't super explicit about this, but when we were talking about these, you know, learning contracts and even the specs grading there as well, especially if you go back to one of the previous chapters where the idea that the students create some of their own contractual points, I think that that might actually work. And maybe you're already doing this, might work really well in group projects. If you actually have the students create a really clear set of responsibilities that each single student is gonna do X, Y, and Z and hand that into you. And then at the end, they can go through the checklist. I think that would really help them stay on task potentially, right? Just clearly delineate responsibilities down to a picky level, you know? Rather than just, you're responsible for this corner of the project, you know? But specifically I will do X, Y, and Z. And that's a promise not just to you, but more importantly to your fellow group members, I think. But I think the challenge there is coming up with a project where, yeah, they can divide up the responsibility like that. Part of the point here is so that it's clear if one of them hasn't done their parts, it's clear which one it was, right? And hopefully it doesn't so much effect the ability of the other students to do their part of the project, right? But that's really difficult because in a real, that then doesn't look so collaborative, right? If what they're doing is so independent of each other, where's the collaboration, right? And so striking that balance where there are well delineated responsibilities and yet they can all complete everything even if one of them perhaps shirks their responsibility, you know, that would be the ideal. But that's, I find it hard to even imagine what such a project could look like. Yeah, I suppose there's a difference between, say, a collaboration and a division of labor, you know, an assembly line where everyone has it. Which I guess is how we often do group projects, right? It's a full division and then the pieces come back together and often ill fit, rather than working together. But Patrick, we're speaking too much. I'm giving you the floor to throw whatever you want to do. You take the lead on the next part of the discussion. No, no, this is great. It touches on, you know, some of the bigger issues around approaches, you know, and their great ideas. They would come up really well in a kind of a pass-fail model. Like you said, the idea that this either meets the criteria or it doesn't. But when you hit up against, you know, I have to come up with a grade at the end of this and I've got 12 weeks to do this stuff, that shifts things, right? So the ideas can work. But generally speaking, yeah, like we just finished talking about the group work, to make it really effective, it takes a lot of upfront thought as to how do I lay out for this group, specific tasks, who's gonna do what, who's gonna, and then they can choose that, you know, idea of autonomy. Well, I'm gonna take this role in the group and I'm gonna do this. Yeah, how do you make that work? What kind of a project? It can be done. But once again, you know, sometimes group work is a great way to say, okay, choose your topic, three weeks from now, this group is gonna present and we'll all sit and listen and I'm done here, you know? So it can be either zero instructor effort or it can take a lot of upfront thought and to do it well, I think is really important. On the idea of responsibility, it's a student responsibility, I could ties in and she didn't make it real explicit but it ties into, you know, the feedback, the formative assessment, giving students clear directions on how to improve sharing the rubrics and the criteria with them and then have them go away and say, well, you know, what can you do to improve? And that way they're taking responsibility for their learning, rather than just a bunch of red marks on a paper, they look at the grade and they say, okay, whatever and move on, right? So they are responsible to be able to incorporate the feedback and then come around again for another try. But like you said, it takes a kind of a different approach and a shifting and sometimes our structures kind of bump up against that, right? And it's not an easy fit. But the ideas have legs and I think students really appreciate. Matter of fact, some students have never had this kind of an approach and just, you know, some thrive and say, this is awesome and other people are like, no, you just give me the grade, tell me what I need to study, I'll regurgitate it, we're all happy, right? Some students really chafe against that. So there's a little bit of work to be done just to flesh out the approach that we're going for. But I like your point and to finish with this, Jason around, what is our end goal? If it is to have students become interested in the field, I touched Shakespeare and romantic poetry to every grade 11 kid that walks through my door. And that was my, for most of them, if I can not make them hate Shakespeare by the time they leave, I've been successful. So lots of choice, lots of fun, lots of opportunities to play with the stories. And that was my goal. So yeah, I just finished with that. So let's shift down to specs grading because I think that's certainly I had some interesting thoughts on that. One of those things where you read about it and it gets you excited because you're like, like the syllabus thing, by the way, the annotated syllabus thing, I love that idea. I do a similar thing I've done where I do workshops where they'll workshop the grading scheme for the class or even the content for the class. I did that one with a course that I just had full agency to do whatever I wanted with. The engineering department just said, I just teach whatever you want. And I was like, what do you mean? It was just like, the car is called selected topics and they're like, just whatever you want, right? And I was like, I really need some direction here guys, right? So I just came up with a list. But they were trying to give you a tour of me. Well, I was, and the chair is just like that, the chair of the department was just like, oh yeah, it looks good. And I'm like, yeah, but give me feedback. I just made this up. So then I went to the students and we kind of went through a thing, right? And I've done anonymous surveys, but I really liked the idea of actually having them interact with the document, which is suggested there and actually annotate it. So they're making comments, they're giving little asides, all that. I love that. I think that's probably uncontroversial, but it was, I'm gonna steal that and use that for sure. The specs grading though is probably a bit more controversial. So why don't you start us off and some thoughts on this, Jeff? What do you think? What did you take away? In some sense, some of the things I'm doing. So I mean, for example, in my first year course, I would never do it. Because I think it would be cruel and unusual punishment in that first year course. Although there's a sense in which my mastery tasks are kind of specs-based grading, right? Because they do the tasks successfully or they don't. The difference is that it's a constant rinse and repeat until they do it successfully, that is part of the expectation. But in my other course that I'm running this semester, and this is the first time it's ever run, and it's a very project-based course. And so I wanted a lot of check-ins all along the way to keep them on track with their projects. And some of that is just I have a bi-weekly, we're working with, we've got a wikiversity set of pages going and they're every two weeks supposed to just submit something on wikiversity. Make a page with basically something they've come across in their reading for their project that they wanna share with everyone. And it has this super simple rubric that is almost specs-grading because it is literally say something that is sort of a presentation of a useful scientific or engineering-related fact to do with energy. And site two sources. There, that's it. That's the, and so the rubric is a two-by-two grid, right? Say something useful, yes, no. Site two sources, yes, no. Bang, that's it, right? Now, in practice though, a lot of the students are not meeting that. And I'm not just marking them as zero, I'm giving them feedback and saying resubmit, right? But, you know, this is a tiny class and I'm trying to use this to push them towards better writing by the time they get to submitting their final projects. And so I don't think it makes sense to just give them the zero and send them out the door, right? Yeah, I think maybe one of the, and I don't think Derby said this, but she talked about the OOPS token, you know? So he just don't do it. And that obviously is required. But another way you could do it is you could do it as a multiple submission kind of draft process where you fire in your draft and if your first draft passes muster, even though if you could make it better, good enough. I actually saw someone on Twitter put this up the other day where they were like, I think my students are all gonna hate me, but I realized I don't have time. So I just sent out an email and said that if you're happy with what you've done on the draft stage, you can just stop right there. And everyone in the comment thread was like, no, your students are gonna love you, right? Your evaluations are gonna be great because I know you're doing this out of time-wise for yourself, but they have the same time crunch, right? And they're gonna be great. They're gonna be happy if they can walk away, but they also have the option of continuing if they wanted to try another go. So if you did it kind of like that where you said, here's a series of criteria and I think importantly, the criteria have to be reasonably vague. If they're overly specific, you're gonna get these monstrosities, right? Where like Darby gave the example, if you say something arbitrary on like 250 words, they're just gonna start putting rain and words in there. But you can imagine a similar thing where you said like, instead of saying you need to demonstrate mastery of the vocab for the chapter, if you said instead like, you must use three of the following words, you're just gonna get people making these horrible sentences, right? Whereas it's like that game where you have to try to figure out a way of dropping something in conversation and you make nonsense sentences, right? So I think you'd have to be pretty vague. Otherwise they're simply gonna write the assignment to your very specified things. And that might work for computer code, right? But it's not gonna work for an assignment if you want something which is actually good. But if you said, essentially what it is, is just an incredibly rigorous rubric, right? Where instead of giving people the option of going through and being like, you kind of meant that and therefore I'm gonna give you 50%. You're like, nope, give it back to me or until you actually meet that criteria. But that doesn't mean you can't surpass the criteria.  But you just have a minimum threshold. I came up with the computer engineering analogy.  Some of the code is gonna come back incredibly elegant, right? Really simple solution. And others might be clunky, but they both meet the specification that do what they're supposed to do. But depending on the skill of the programmer, and that's the same thing for all of your students.  And other ones that are gonna be, I mean, they're exceptional. The kind of thing where you go, huh, that's better than I could have done. You know, you get assignments every once in a while. Yeah, yeah. I don't know, I thought this is, I think maybe combined with a resubmission kind of draft thing, this might actually be a useful thing to adopt. But I do worry about, so I just had a student, for example, yesterday I was marking a series of virtual field trip reports and it stopped literally mid-sentence. And I assumed that the student just cut and pasted it wrong in there. And so I wrote her and said, was this supposed to stop mid-sentence? And the student said, yeah, yeah, I just ran at a time. And that's what I, like literally, she just like had to submit at 12 o'clock or whatever, right? And I said, just have an extra day, obviously complete it. But there is a situation where that student might have sat down and gone, I can't get this done at mastery level, therefore I will do nothing. And it's obviously beneficial that that student went to the process of half completing the assignment because they got something out of it. And that's one thing I worry about is whether students are just gonna look at it and go, it's impossible for me to meet this in a timely manner, therefore I will do nothing rather than get some benefit, right? Thoughts? Yeah, no, I was gonna say the software, we often they're preparing them for the real world. And if you put your product on the table, the client doesn't like it. Well, that doesn't really fit. We hear that all the time. But most often you can say, okay, we'll go back and tweak it and we'll come back again. And people say, yeah, sure, okay. Or I just need another week and I can get this to you. Yes, so that doesn't fly that we're preparing you for the whole cold, hard reality of the real world. Because the real world doesn't work like that either most times. So yeah, and it is and good rubrics are, to use your word, Jason, elegant. They can have those performance indicators that give students a real clear indication of where they are, but they also define the criteria and they can tease out the difference between the levels of performance. Really tough to do well. But when students, you share that upfront with students and they know the criteria, they can work towards that. So yeah, it can be done. It can be done well. But like you said, oftentimes it bumps up against our structures, which, you know, time is one and all those other things. But yeah, it can work, but it has to be given a lot of thought. I started thinking as well about the possibility of doing the kind of combining with that contract kind of base thing. And having the students come up potentially with their own, that's okay, with their own set of criteria. So like you give it vague, then they say, this is the model that I'm gonna deliver. I'm gonna deliver X, Y, and Z. So they come up with their own specs and then you can mark them on whether or not they actually delivered the product. It's like, if you're bringing a contractor in and they come through and they say I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z, this is how I'm gonna do it. And then you walk through and did you in fact do it or not, you know? So I mean, this is a form of contract grading, right? And the person we want in the meeting to talk about that is Kate Krug, because she does, I think, quite sophisticated, interesting contract grading in her courses and has a lot to say about it. I have been wanting to do contract grading for years, but I don't think it works in my first year courses and my upper year courses, I think I wanna iterate them another once or twice before I try and introduce the contract grading. All right, well, maybe we'll cut her off on that note since Pat, we lost Patrick to the telephone, which that was the, that's his way of sneaking away. There's no one on the other line. That's right, that's right, that's right. He called himself. He sent the alarm for exactly to run away. But that's a good idea to follow up. Maybe we can get a seminar going on contract grading or something. I'd love to explore this idea a little bit more. I'm pretty fascinated by it. I can see serious pitfalls, but also kind of got me excited of how it, if it could work, how it could work and what it could do in terms of transforming the experience. All right, well, thank you once again for coming and any comments you've got, please throw them down in the thing. Otherwise, I will see you on Friday. Bye-bye.


Okay. Oh, time starts already. Okay. So no more jokes about Zoomer sessions. I'll give you 30 more seconds. Thank you. So, okay, I'm talking about is about DNA genealogy. And for those of you that have no freaking clue what I'm talking about, there is a short intro on that part as well. Life day more at the end. And everything has been built with Meteo. I see already at least one person with a Meteo t-shirt. Really cool. As promised, I'm not sure what you know about DNA and all that. There's three different types of DNA that we have with the YDNA, which is something that builds people like me, right? Opposite from those 50% of the population that doesn't have a Y, right? So only us male have the YDNA, the empty DNA is the mitochondrial. Everybody has it, right? That one has been used basically to follow your female line, so your mums, mums, mums, mums, mums, right? Until we end up with Eve. The YDNA actually brings us to Adam. So this is about currently there. They're still not sure how far we go back with that one, but it's about 330,000 years, plus, minus. So pretty far back. And then we have the autosomal DNA or ATDNA, which is basically all your ancestors, almost all your ancestors. There's a reason because it's all randomized. You will lose some of the information, which for example, if some of you are interested in a test and look at your ancestral composition, which by the way, there is no pure race. For those that don't understand that, we are all mixed, right? You will find that out. There is no single person I think in the world that is really, really pure, unless you're living in a cave for the last 10,000, 20,000 years, right? And you'll always marry your sister. So, yeah. It happens, it happens. So there's two graphs. If you're interested in, everybody knows that we actually started... Sorry, this is Adam. We started right here, which is another thing that some of those races don't understand. We were all black once, right? We just changed our color in a slightly brighter sense over the years. And then we just populated over there obviously all those Asians in the room. You guys were pretty good. We marched here, took a shortcut, right? Well, guys like me, actually, we went up north. And if there is somebody here from the US and South America, you really went a long way, right? You went all along Bering Street, then you waited for the Ice Age to stop, and then you went all the way down to South America. Crazy dudes. Same for the Australians in here. You also went very, very far. Okay, so, TLDR is about the next generation of DNA tools. The next generation means there is already some other tools existing, but I think something like that is actually missing. So, how does it work? And you will find this on the website as well. I did actually build it myself, run an illustration on 1990 Zines. And this is the winner that I came up with. It's very, very simple.  Then you send it in. Later, they're going to give you some results back. So, there is a couple of companies there that you can do. There is three main ones in the world, all in the US, Family Tree, DNA, Ancestry, and 23andMe, which you might have heard about. Then this tool is actually updating you automatically on the so-called matches. Matches you don't necessarily mean that you're being closely related, blood related. It can be a wrong match as well. Those of you that know Confusion Matrix, they know there is wrong positives and wrong negatives. So that is wrong. There's a thing called tri-relation. We will show that later what it means, but basically only those that are being tri-related are your blood relatives within the last, let's say, 200, 300, 400 years. Then there is some... Somebody said actually one of the better users said this is a Facebook for family. So there is a closed user group where you discuss certain topics with your family because a lot of adopters and offerings are very, very interested in that stuff. And that is obviously a very, very sensitive area because not everybody wants to find out if he has any children or not. Or the children actually find him later on. Versus the interest, obviously, of that person to find out who are the real biological father or real biological parents in the sense of offerings. Then it locates all of this on a map with the timescale, and that makes it easier when we just say, more or less the time period and we're moving pretty close. So maybe that's actually how we're related to each other. And the main purpose is to solve the puzzle pieces together. It is a puzzle, it's a very, very complicated puzzle, I can tell you.  If you remember the orphans, they start basically with a blank page. They don't even have any cousins. No aunts, no aunties that you can call or whatever. And then the whole thing is about solving and optimizing it so that you have more time to communicate with them. So when I evaluated this idea on SurveyMonkey last August, I came up with 237 people that filled out the questionnaire and amazingly, 74% said, yes, I would be willing for that. When I was being completely blown away, I thought, if at all, I'm pretty lucky if it's the hour we're on, 26%. So 74% is like, wow, oops, we missed our supreme leader. I asked them, at the end, it was six questions only. I didn't really explain. You know much more about the solution than them. And at the end, I asked them, are you willing to give me your email address and I'll keep you updated? 138 people gave me their email address. And that again is a wow, right? In my opinion. So there's a lot of talk about MVP or not MVP. I read a good quote which basically says an MVP, if it's not finished within one month, it's not an MVP. So this is now, we're back in June. I started in August, so it's pretty sure it's not an MVP, right? But I knew relatively well what I wanted to do. From the potential, there is more than three. This is actually an outdated number. I think now 3.2 to 3.4 million DNA tests out there. Not people that may test. That is a bit less. But the potential has been pretty big. So finally stopping all that and coming to what is our common interest. So from the architecture, it has been built for the big screen. You will see why that is. Also because actually most of the end users are elderly people, even older than me. So that means big fonts, black and white, for example. It works on mobile tablet, but it doesn't work. It's not specifically been looked at. So one of the principles of Meteor is that it all takes care of the responsive part. Also it comes with MongoDB. As a database on the end, I know it's not ideal. I know there are better, no SQL solutions out there, which I used in the past, but there are some things that are going on right now with GraphQL and so on to solve that problem as well. Then I did something which maybe, now many people have done, I split the front end and the back end. There's two separate apps. Pure front end app and there's a pure back end app. The main reasons are the three S that I showed up here is security, the scaling, and actually the size. The size meaning in how much data actually your users have to download on the front end. Because 80% of the customers are in the US and I can guarantee you our internet is 10 times more supreme than over there. Donald Trump won't change that. The scaling is interesting because the back end is actually a job worker. It submits job. Actually right now there should be some job still working because I just started and it does that all the time. Until there's no job and then it waits. So it's very easy to scale that up if there is ever going to be too slow. But I don't have to do that. On the front end if there's a lot of users then obviously sometimes you have to upgrade a bit earlier and scale it up. Database is separate as well. All of that is hosted because honestly I'm not an assist admin and I don't want to deal with all this stuff. Communication is via DDP which is something that Meteor actually invented. Principles behind is publication subscription. So on your client you're publicizing a certain amount of data that you want to show down to fields and down to other filtering criteria. And on the front end you are subscribing to that. As soon as there is an update automatically your data has been showing on the front end on any connected devices. It's always up to date. It works just. I mean if you haven't tried Meteor just give it a try. They have some examples there. It takes about 20 minutes to get it up into the cloud deploy it including user accounts and everything. If you're following it. So learning I can show you some screens. If you're interested later on just approach me. Compose IO is where I run my database. These guys are really, really good. I was first on Modulo's change to Galaxy which is actually owned by Meteor Development Group. I'm not too happy about their support. Left some comments in the forum there. As a paying customer I think I'm allowed to say what is shitty.  But at least it runs. Modulo's changed their scripts and the problem is that the data couldn't upload anymore. My script wasn't uploading not running. And I'm not going and updating any kind of scripts or whatever kind of stuff. That's not mine if I run it. So we did a lot of, I did a lot of testing here. I used MailChimp and I, for example, I tested. This is on testing different subjects lines. So it just gave 76.5% versus 60%. Just by changing the subject line. Response on it. I tested different timings and this goes from 47% to 64%. Again, just by sending the same email fully identical at a different kind of time. Just play around. We'll find out where your people have been interested in. This is a small scale with 140 people that I mentioned earlier on, the beta testers. I asked them about features because I want to implement something and build something actually that these people are going to use, not that what necessarily I think has been the same. So there was a different view from my perspective but this is what in the future people will be paying for. So obviously I built what they want, not what I want. And I said before, I did an illustration on 1990 Zines. Completely different. This is actually the winner. This is the one that I like more. Again, I asked all my beta testers, 80% voted here, 20% there. So as good as this guy was, it's a complete comic. I did it for the first time. Pretty amazing. So this is, by the way, is $599. The US dollar gets you that. Pretty amazing stuff what you can find over here. And I test also A and B messages. Again, big differences here. Conversion rate, 33% improvement. I mean, just like the main message is testing, testing, testing as you develop. You know what I took by now. Okay. So while we now, I have about 80 testers out of these 140 people. The beta launch on 1st of June. And by the way, I hired or I'm in the process. I mean, I offered already to the full stack developer. So if you buy chance because I know that nobody looks up, beta has actually discussed forums and I posted the jobs there. None of you looked it up because you don't know. But if you do, it's too late already. Okay. So that's the main message. Sorry for that. And yeah. What else do we have? Probably best if we just finally go into the app. Okay. This is how it looks. The address, by the way, is dna genealogy.tools. I know you guys understand why it's .tools. My beta users are a bit older. Like I said, I have still some problems why there is no .com. .cools.com and so on. So if you're interested to follow it up, right, and you click on this, then you've got a message to leave your details there. You will get updates from it. Normal feature. Everything that has been built, standard package, is actually this user account. It comes with Meteor. You don't have to do anything. This is how it looks. Sorry. I'm not updating this. So what I'm using is a principle of cards. This is a toaster message that comes in because one of those unique problems is that I have two different applications. So how do they talk to each other? via DDP. Yes, but how do they talk to the front end, to the user? Because the backend is a job worker. He does a job and what does he do then? He can tell the front end, update the screen, display new cards and all this kind of stuff like it's doing right now.  He clicks and clicks and clicks and thinks the application has crashed or whatever, but he hasn't, right? He doesn't understand the principle that whatever he does is being pushed there and if there's many users, it gets executed but it might take some longer time. Okay, so, that's me by the way. Can you stop the recording please? Sorry, forgot to mention. The reason is because this is some live data. So we have actually


The Quran says the first verse that comes forward and says tell them inform them about the story of the sons of Adam Which is truthful. It's not a myth. It's not fabricated. It is absolute fact If Qalrabaa Qorbana They offered a sacrifice now this sacrifice is what? Hadeem according to the narrations offered a sheep the best sheep that he can have he was a shepherd So he offered the best sheep Kabil was a farmer he offered what this is is of corn which were dry Which were old which were quite useless So he presented them and he placed them on top of the mountain and so did Kabil the sheep was placed there According to the rewired that the ears of corn were destroyed by Allah Where as the sheep was kept Without any harm and this was the indication that Allah the barak wa ta'ala has Accepted the offering of Hadeem peace be upon him Fattu qubbila min ahadee ima Allah accept it from one of them whilst he did not from the other The moment this happened Abil's heart is filled with what? Anemotivity and hate Qalala aqtul annaq He says to his brother Abil are going to kill you see sometimes when things don't go our way the only way we can think of is violence That is the only solution we have in our minds and Verbal abuse for example when things don't go our way. This is the method of shaytan Abil was overpowered by shaytan Yes, and he said to his brother Abil the only way that I feel better is if I kill him What did have your reply?  I do not kill you and just because you have the intention to kill me I will not preempt this by killing you So you say he had the intention of harming me therefore I should harm him before your arms meet Quran he says no and tell that is why the battle feels in the battle of surfin and the battle of karbala Ya Allah they would say we would not be the first to commence the battle Let them shoot first, let them commence first yes Habib says I am afraid of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala there is too much to lose But unfortunately what happened was that shaytan spoke to Habib and said to him if you don't kill him His sons and his offsprings will overpower yours because Allah has chosen him He has become what the successor of your father Adam Therefore the only way to eliminate him and his progeny is by finishing him off is by killing him Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that his nafs became so overpowering to the extent that he set his brother How did he do it? His brother was asleep according to the iterations He came and threw a rock on top of his brother Habib and killed him He woke up or he therefore became of those who were the losers But he was in a dilemma because he had no idea how to dispose of the body Never seen anyone being killed this is according to iterations the first record of a killing This earth has ever seen of a slaughter of homicide of any human being This earth has witnessed therefore he began to carry the body whether he went and he placed it on the ground But there were animals there were wild birds who would come on the body And he was unaware of how to proceed until Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala according to the next bird Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala sent a crow that showed him by burying another bird How to bury? So that he showed him how to bury the body of his brother He began to feel remorseful not for the killing not for the slaughtering of his brother But because he was not aware how to bury the body of his brother Allah is very specific according to most of the mufessireen Qabeel did not ask forgiveness and toba He did not somehow feel remorseful Qabeel felt a sense of what? He felt a sense of disappointment to himself And he's not able to somehow figure out what to do with the body He had to learn from a bird And the bird showed him From war he saw a ta'ahi fa'as ba'haliman nadineen He consequently became of the remorseful ones Regretful ones Question, regretful of a death? Many of them say we don't know But it's likely that he was not regretful of killing his brother Because the Quran would have said that he asked for repentance That he asked for toba whereas he did not He became nadineen, regretful because of the fact that He somehow felt short in his understanding That he was not able to dispose of the body in the most appropriate way


Ysgrîr Ysgawdd y Bunach eich ffhrwnt wedi'i cwestiynau ei wneud o q prideid o dbenfaedd ganabytwys. Mae Cynp pores unigau ar y newid i bryd fel yw'r real evenuoeddodau i'ch ddigadol ar cyceliad faliad a'i ystifell yn hynny. Haidd voluntarily o dda iを ddim bydd ymhydrigau a boid wrth cofabellol wrth colliwr. Ysgrîr Ysgawd, dderbyneddo, mynd y troedd lu ddoddiach vibrations mewn ei forgotw bank wisdom щu которую ergylt ar hyn cyflidau unigfaith. universities of any delays in marking assessments? Although immigration arrangements are fully reserved, it is vital that Scotland attracts and retains talented people to study and work here without undue barriers, as well as the Scottish Government welcomed the launch of the graduate visa. We continue to engage with the UK Government in ways to improve the system so that it reflects our specific economic, demographic and social needs. On industrial action, I am, of course, concerned about any adverse impact on students, but I know that our universities are putting in place appropriate mitigations to minimise disruption to studies. I would expect this to include mitigations for international students. Those are being worked up currently. While matters concerning pay and working conditions are for universities to determine on a UK-wide basis, I would encourage Scottish university employers and trade unions to engage in constructive and meaningful dialogue in pursuit of a resolution. I thank the minister for that response. He will be aware that the current marking assessment boycott is part of over four years of industrial action, including strikes by UCU members, because their pay and conditions continue to degrade. They know that their actions will affect students, but staff employment conditions are students' learning conditions, and the deterioration of one is bad for the other. Ensuring that quality and timely administration of degrees, including for international students, is the responsibility of university management. Can the minister outline what further engagement is planned, to ensure that management responds to staff concerns about making their lives livable, whether he considers intimidation with financial penalties appropriate, and what further, what more the Scottish Government can do to ensure that international students on visas are not adversely affected? You will allow me a moment to answer that in some detail. Universities are autonomous institutions and, as such, matters concerning pay and working conditions are for them to determine in consultation with trade unions. However, I have met university leaders and will be meeting UCU in coming weeks, and I am encouraging all concern to get back around the table, because industrial action benefits no one, least of all the students. Regarding the possibility of institutions imposing financial penalties on those staff involved in the marking boycott, I would expect fair work principles to be applied, and I was pleased to see Queen Margaret University step back from their initial stance in this regard. In response to concerns over the impact on international students, the Scottish Funding Council and Quality Students Agency have indicated that there is scope for the marking boycott to affect aspects of international students' studies. I understand that there are circumstances in which students can apply to extend their student visa, but there is a cost associated with that. Universities are, I know, taking steps to mitigate the impact of a boycott, particularly in four-year students, but clearly all of that will be best avoided. Again, I encourage both sides to resume discussions. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to help educate children and young people about any dangers of online pornography. Through the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence secondary school pupils learn about the damaging and exploitative aspects of pornography and how it can negatively affect mental health and healthier relationships. People learn about this topic as part of their learning in relationships, sexual health and parenthood education. Pauli McNeill. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. She might be aware that early this month, the Children's Commissioner for England published a second report on the impact of pornography in children. The report focuses on the harms that children face from accessing violent pornography and how that might influence their own harmful sexual behaviour, which is why regulation online is so critical to protect children and young people. I agree with the Children's Commissioner for England that no child should be able to access or watch pornography, but the report found that one victim said that their abuser made references to things that he had seen on porn. Two young girls said that they felt that they had been treated like porn stars by their abuser. I previously mentioned this in the chamber about the lack of data that there is in Scotland. As the cabinet secretary, does she think that it is really important to collect this type of data and that the new Children's Commissioner for Scotland should consider the collection of this data a priority? I thank the member for her question. I think that she raises a really important matter. I am not cited on this specific report that she has mentioned in relation to the Children's Commissioner for England. I will certainly be appraised of that following portfolio questions because I think that it is hugely important. We do have a granular understanding of the challenge in Scotland. Of course, in relation to the point that she makes around regulation, the regulation of the internet is a reserved matter and falls to the UK Government. Of course, we have been engaging with the UK Government on the online safety bill, which looks at bringing in additional measures to protect vulnerable children online. More broadly, I think that the member makes that a very valid point. I look forward, of course, to working with the new Children's Commissioner who will take up posts later this year. Question 3, Stuart McMillan. Thank you, Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to better support teachers and educators who work with learners with ADHD. Presiding Officer, we want all children and young people, including those who have ADHD, to get the support needed to reach their full potential. We work closely with partners, including Education Scotland, to ensure that teaching staff have access to a range of free professional learning and developmental resources. That includes free learning modules for practitioners available via the open university on inclusive practice. On 30 November last year, we published our updated additional support for learning action plan, which outlines further work that we will take in this area to ensure that teaching staff continue to receive training to support all children with additional support needs, including those with ADHD. Stuart McMillan. I thank the cabinet secretary for that reply, and I must recognise that Scotland's teaching staff are committed to providing all children and young people in their care with the support they need to succeed. It hasn't brought to my attention on too many occasions where, for a variety of reasons, that has not been to the parent's satisfaction. Can the cabinet secretary therefore indicate whether the Scottish Government will consider publishing updated guidance for teachers and educators for how best to support children and young people with ADHD, including those without a diagnosis but presenting with ADHD symptoms? As Stuart McMillan has outlined, in our model of additional support for learning, support in school does not require a formal diagnosis of a particular condition, but I recognise that a diagnosis can help families and also our young people to understand better how they can deal with and respond to additional support needs. More broadly, there are other professionals who work in our education sector who are not teachers who can help to provide specialism in that regard, too. We have committed through our additional support for learning action plan to build on and develop a suite of resources that are already available to meet the needs of children and young people. As part of that work, the project board subgroup on training and resources will consider how to improve the support for neurodiverse learners, including those with ADHD. A number of supplementaries. I want to get them all in. They will need to be reasonably brief, as will the responses. First, Daniel Johnson. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I remind the chamber that I am the vice chair of the ADHD Foundation, and I have an ADHD diagnosis myself. However, there are many as one in five children in the classroom having a neurodevelopmental disorder. I think that it is not, shouldn't be an optional, that teachers must all have training in how to teach children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Can the cabinet secretary confirm to me what conversations she has had with the General Teaching Council of Scotland to incorporate that in the initial teacher education? I thank the member for his question. More broadly, the issue was raised over the weekend with me directly by a number of teaching unions. I recognise some of the challenges in our classrooms at the current time. I think that it is worth putting on record the increase that we have seen in Scotland schools in relation to the number of pupils with additional support needs. I think that since 2010, we have had an increase of over 30 per cent, which is quite substantive. In the last year alone, we have had an increase of over 8,000 pupils recorded as having an additional support need. It is crucial that our teaching staff have that professional support that the member spoke to. Of course, the GTCS has a crucial role to play in that regard. The GTCS has a requirement of 35 hours for teachers to complete professional development within the year. It is at the teachers discretion where that focus is on, but I very much take the member's point in relation to working with the GTCS on that issue, particularly noting the increase that we have seen nationally in recent years in relation to the number of additional support needs in our schools. In February, members of the Education, Children and Young People's Committee MSPs were told that the provision for young disabled people when they were moved on to from school is a national disgrace. They were also told that for young people transitioning out of school, it is a messy and terrifying place out there at the moment, particularly given the lack of co-ordinated plans. So can I ask the minister, with our college and university sectors strapped for cash, what action is the SNP Government taking to support the individuals with ASN attending university and colleges? I thank the member for her question. I am not going to answer on the specifics of university and colleges, because the question today was very much focused on school education, although I will be happy to write to the member in relation to that transition period. I recognise that being a challenge potentially with some young people. What I would say in relation to school education is that we have co-ordinated support plan CSPs that follow or should follow a young person, for example, as a transition from primary to secondary. It is really imperative that we, in government, work with our partners in the university sector and also in colleges to ensure that that co-ordinated support plan is followed through, and I would be more than happy to write to the member with some additional information in relation to higher education on that specific point. I am very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. The questions today have ranged from ADHD to ASN, but to go back to the original question about ADHD, which is a disability, article 23 of the UNCRC on which evidence is being taken today gives a right to special care and education for children with a disability. Can the Scottish Government explain how they are meeting that requirement for special care and education with the support that are being given to ADHD sufferers? I thank the member for his question. Of course, we have the highest record of support staff in our schools at the current time, which gives a response to the member's question directly in 2022. For example, we have 307 additional pupil support assistants that were recruited. That builds on the increase of over 1,000 from the previous year, bringing the total number of pupil support staff in Scotland to 16,606. Of course, that is a direct result of continued investment from this Government, but I recognise the member's point more broadly. We will need to go further. We will need to ensure that the increase in additional support needs in our schools is adequately supported in our classrooms. I committed over the weekend to working with the teaching unions on this very issue and, of course, to the member's colleagues on working directly with the GTS for Scotland on the professional requirements for teachers as they undergo teacher training. Deputy Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government where we will provide an update on its plans to work at universal free school meals. We remain committed to the expansion of free school meals in primary and special schools, as described in our programme for government. All primary schools in primary schools pupils, in primary schools 1 to 5, children in funded early learning and child care and eligible pupils in primary 6 through to S6, can benefit from free school meals in Scotland, the most generous provision of anywhere in the UK, and saving parents around £400 per eligible child per year. Our additional investment announced in December 2022 will continue to fund the expansion of free school meals for all in primary 6 and 7 in receipt of the Scottish child payment. That will be the next step in fulfilling our commitment to universal provision in primary schools. Can I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer? Three weeks ago, the minister said that SNP was committed to plot pilot free school meals for secondary schools. However, First Minister and Deputy First Minister have suggested that it should be a targeted approach would be better. Can the cabinet secretary clear up the confusion and confirm whether the SNP Government is committed to pilot universal free school meals for secondary schools and if so, when will it start? I thank the member for his question. As he alluded to, I think only three weeks ago this was raised in the chamber. We are very much still committed to that secondary school pilot. It is important that we roll out that pilot to learn from how it might operate in the future. We are very much also, as I intimated in my initial response to the member, committed to universal provision in primary school. Yes, that is being phased out in a process that looks at in primary 6 and 7, adhering to looking at the Scottish child payment as a requirement. However, we remain committed to universal roll-out in primary and to the secondary pilot that the member mentions. Thank you. At the Food for Thought parliamentary reception last week, the young people made really clear that hunger does not end at the primary school gate, so this pilot scheme for secondary is very important. Can I ask the cabinet secretary what is this Government will take to ensure that young people are involved in co-designing the pilot scheme and the on-going roll-out of universal free school meals? I thank the member for her question. I was not in Parliament last Thursday. However, I saw from social media that it was well attended and I very much look forward to working with the member on this issue. We have discussed it at the previous portfolio questions to her specific point on co-design. I think that she makes a very valid contribution. I will be more than happy to meet the member on this. I have not yet met officials to talk to some of the proposals in relation to the secondary school pilot and how that might be administered in the future, but I will be more than happy to engage with the member on this really important issue for our young people and, of course, with our young people directly on the roll-out itself. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to promote modern apprenticeships to the institutions in Motherwall and Wishaw. Skills Development Scotland provides an all-age career service in every local authority, highlighting the options available to people across Scotland, including modern apprenticeships. It undertakes further activity, together with employers, to highlight the importance of modern apprenticeships, particularly through Scottish apprenticeship week. Developing the young workforce also facilitates engagement between employers and schools to highlight vocational pathways and support young people to transition into work. I met young people on work experience, our recent DYW Lanarkshire visit to innovate homes in Wishaw, in the member's constituency, to observe this first hand. I was very impressed by what I found. Thank you very much. Today I was delighted to attend the skills demonstration outside Hosebys Scottish traditional building forum. I tried my hand at some slate cutting, I do not think it is a say that in my future, but seeing the young people engaging in those endeavours was very exciting. I understand that the initiative is not yet rolled out across the country. Does the minister agree that supporting those heritage skills workshops through local schools is vital to promoting rewarding careers and delivering on the objectives of developing the young workforce? I also tried the slate cutting and I have to admit that the results are sitting in my office, not in public view. The Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee is right to highlight the importance of ensuring that we have the right traditional skills available to sustain our historic environment and progress our journey to net zero. Historic Environment Scotland continues to champion traditional skills and our working with stakeholders to address traditional skill gaps to help ensure Scotland's historic buildings can thrive as part of the country's sustainable future. The role of colleges in all of this will be essential, as will be the partnership working that I indicated. Modern apprenticeships are essential to training and upskilling our workforce. Many constituents across my region will be very concerned about the sector's future and viability. Last week, the Scottish Training Federation said that Scottish Government delays in setting its skills and employability budgets this year is having a devastating impact on training providers. Many staff have been made redundant and several are on the brink of closure. If that comes to pass, that will have a devastating impact on my region, including that of Motherwell and Wishaw. Minister, that is a matter of urgency. When will this Government get its act together and support this industry? When will those budgets be confirmed? A typically positive contribution from the Conservatives. We have been focused on delivering more than 25,000 apprenticeships around that. Skills Development Scotland has, as part of that process, as some have not been taken up, been redistributing within that, as we speak. In terms of the budget, that is a matter that has been worked on just now, and we will provide further detail in due course. Outside parliamentary, there is a construction and traditional skills demonstration, where young people from the industry are delivering mini-master classes to school pupils. I spoke with students who emphasised the importance of industry-based courses at colleges and universities across Scotland. They highlighted how important skill-based labour courses are to our heritage sector and how positively they can contribute to industry recruitment overall. Can the minister advise how the withdrawal in funding to university and colleges is expected to impact those essential industry-based courses? That betrays the lack of understanding of what the £46 million was for. It was for transition funding. The teaching grant remained at the same level as last year. I recognise that we still present challenges for some of our colleges and universities, but I know that they are committed to preserving some of those skills in partnership with the heritage agencies. To ask the Scottish Government what impact the withdrawal of £46 million of funding for colleges and universities has on their ability to deliver courses. The removal of the £46 million does not impact the core teaching fund allocated to colleges and universities for academic year 23-24, which has been maintained at the same level as academic year 22-23, despite the very challenging financial environment. I hear Mr Kerr chonddering from my sedentary position, but, as he heard at the education committee yesterday, it was for transition purposes, some of which I identified at the committee. Despite the minister's answer, principal and CEO of City of College Glasgow, Paul Little, has said that the loss of the £26 million from the college sector's budget has further compounded significant financial pressures and forced them to compulsory redundancies. Having visited the college, I have been impressed with them, but I am deeply troubled that budget cuts are leading to over 100 staff losing their jobs, and I have been flooded with letters with one constituent saying, I urge you to intervene on this matter and to investigate your funding, has not been made available to avoid this redundancy situation by colleagues who deserve better treatment than this. Will the minister offer some support and tell us what support the Government will provide to colleges being forced to consider redundancies? You really do marvel at the brass neck editories and all of this. Never mind imposing a damage in Brexit on the UK, which was particularly harmed by the university sector, or the impact of the less-for-asked and quasi-quartent trash in the UK. Minister, could I ask you to resume your seat? We have got through portfolio questions so far, with the questions being asked and the questions being responded to without the heckling. If we could resist from the heckling, we will get through all of the supplementary questions as well. Minister, resume. I was going to make the point that just this lunch time, my friend Liz Smith, was taking those very benches calling on this Government to take a lower tax approach, which would have meant money being reduced, the money that was available for our public services. You cannot have it both ways, but this is a serious matter. In relation to the colleges, we are actively engaged with them, working on flexibilities and other measures that would help to alleviate the challenges that they face and improve the situation for them. I have a number of supplementaries. I do not suspect that I will get through all of them, but I am going to try and do my best. Firstly, Willie Rennie, briefly. The minister knows that there is incredulity and frustration in both the college and university sector, that the first step that the minister took was to cut £46 million from their funding. That will not help them to transition to the new future that the minister wants to see. If new funds become available, can he confirm that this will be his first and top priority for investment? Minister, as I said at the committee yesterday from my perspective, and we have already indicated that we would look to address that going forward, if an improvement in the funding situation became available, then working with colleges and universities, of course that would be a priority for the education portfolio. The minister confirmed this week that the funding had been reallocated to account for the pay deal that reached with school teachers. Does the minister accept that the reversal of promised funding combined with more than 10 years of real-terms cuts to the sector is limiting their ability to offer a fair pay deal to staff, and does he accept that teaching staff in all phases of education should be properly remunerated for their work? I do believe that education staff would be properly remunerated for their work, but here we go again. I said this about the Conservatives. Even more so the Labour party cannot spend the same money twice. If you want to spend it on one thing, if you want to spend it on something else, then fine, you need to tell us where it came from. Sorry, the Labour benches need to tell us where it's come from, but I do want to correct one small point, Presiding Officer, a point of fact. Since 2012-13, college resource budgets have increased by £168 million in cash terms. Very grateful, Presiding Officer. In its latest account, the principle of North East Scotland College warned, if the college is required to reduce costs further, student experiences and outcomes will suffer significantly. Did the minister consider the impact on Nescol of withdrawing the £46 million, and what does he predict the impact will be on their ability to deliver? Of course, we were aware that there would be an adverse impact over the withdrawal of those funding because of the transition measures that they were going to fund, but that was not a decision taken lightly. In many ways, there was no decision. The money had to be found. I find that regrettable and disappointed that we had to do it, but if Mr Kerr was aware of the conversations that started to happen with all colleges, that would include North East College, we are looking actively at what we can do going forward to give them the sustainable future that they require. To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting local authorities to ensure that school children from disadvantaged communities have access to after-school clubs and other activities outside the school term. Since 2021, we have invested £25 million in summer holiday programmes that provided activities, food and childcare. Our priority now is to take the next steps in building a system of school-age childcare, providing year-round childcare support for families on low incomes to support sustainable employment. To do that, we are targeting our £15 million investment this year towards community-based projects that will deliver year-round childcare and activities. We are rightly focusing on delivering lasting change for those families and communities who need support the most. I thank the minister for that answer. In my Stirling constituency, there are currently gaps in after-school club provision. Can the minister advise how support from the Scottish Government could assist local authorities in identifying those gaps and how it would go about applying for that support? The Children's Scotland Act 1995 requires local authorities to consult with parents about their out-of-school care and school-age childcare needs every two years and to plan and publish whether and how they will provide that appropriate childcare taking account of those responses. Local authorities should therefore have access to appropriate information relevant to their local communities. The approach that we are taking, however, building a system of school-age childcare is person-centred and place-based, including engaging local communities to support the design and delivery of services initially through our early adopter areas. We will share those findings as well as identifying new early adopter areas this year. That concludes portfolio questions. I will pause to allow front bench to change before we move on to the next item of business.