Teaching prize is music to Kirsten's ears

A YOUNG teacher has been given a prestigious award for the best undergraduate thesis in teacher education in Scotland.

Kirsten Braden, 21, received the George D Gray CBE MA award after being named winner at a meeting of the General Teaching Council for Scotland in Edinburgh.

Miss Braden graduated with a BEd (Hons) First Class from the University of Strathclyde last year. Her thesis, entitled Background Music in the Classroom, was an investigation into whether or not background music was beneficial to children as they learned.

The study found that the impact of background music was different in certain areas of the curriculum and that the advantages were greater in some areas than in others.