Education HQ columnist Peter McMahon examines Nicola Sturgeon's claims in Frankly on her record in education including the poverty-related attainment gap.

A former First Minister has written a book. You hadn't noticed? Yes, Nicola Sturgeon. Remember her? It’s her autobiography, her story, called ‘Frankly’. OK, it’s highly unlikely that anyone in Scotland hasn’t noticed the woman who ran Scotland for the best part of a decade and was at the heart of the Scottish government for most of the SNP’s time in power has authored a “deeply personal memoir”, as the book’s sleeve has it.

A lot of attention has focused on the ex-FM’s sexuality, gender reform, the collapse of her relationship with her mentor, Alex Salmond, COVID, and the police investigation into her party’s finances. All are significant parts of what is by any measure the extraordinary story of the shy working class girl from Ayrshire who rose to occupy Bute House.

However, this newspaper and others have, rightly, not left it at that, looking at other aspects of Sturgeon’s time in power, when she exerted an iron grip on the machinery of government, and her ministers policies, including in the crucial area of education.

This edition of Education HQ is focusing on early years provision, including analysis of whether that important policy has succeeded, so this column will look elsewhere - to the poverty-related attainment gap, including both trying directly to close the gap and reduce poverty.

Recently in The Herald James McEnaney took a sceptical view of the plans the then First Minister had to reform education, influenced by the London Challenge, brought in by Labour under Tony Blair and which studies now show........

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