Why do People dislike the Scottish Education system?

[Grace040712]

I've seen a lot of posts on here slating the Scottish Education System but never in any detail, so I thought I'd ask why do people dislike it so much?

My kids attend a Scottish school and I have to say there are loads of things I love about the Curriculum Design such as the focus on wider achievement, the focus on thinking and metacognitive skills, the way they learn to read and write in my area is very interesting as well! And I love that they are taught to collaborate with others.

What are people's thoughts?

Mine have enjoyed primary school but it is very clear they are well behind my nieces in England. The expectations appear a lot lower and certainly during the second COVID lockdown, we were sent a few links whereas my nieces did a full structured day with their teacher (they were at home but she was in the classroom with key worker kids).

I was quite shocked how early they can drop subjects like science in secondary school. I think the key subjects should be compulsory to the end unless there is an additional educational need.

University being four years does give a broader first year which can provide additional opportunities to explore subjects.

@TheNightingalesStarling I do wonder about this too.

It is very clear in P7 how much they change and when the kids who have gone into S1 come back for events they have always grown an incredible amount.

I don't feel the school estate is designed for children of this size. The small toilets, low stalls, height of chairs and desks etc. Before we even mention managing behaviour etc. At least in secondary the more challenging kids move from teacher to teacher and the class composition changes.

I always thought P7s have outgrown primary.

@Canyousewcushions I think Scotland looked at neighbouring Scandinavia and tried to replicate their education systems and success. What they didn’t realise though is that Scandinavian dc who want to read, do. Parents don’t hold them back by just playing because it does not teach reading or writing. A hybrid system is best and of course bright dc want to crack on and can concentrate. There’s value in play based learning but it’s not good enough for many. With vat on private schools, it must be tough in Scotland.

One of my DC will be 12 in P7. Due to a September birthday and being deferred.

He is going into P5 next week and already tall for his age. I suppose making sure he was ready for P1 was more a concern at the time and I have no regrets about deferring him as he needed extra support back then.

He probably will be too big for the toilets soon though in his primary school 🤣

My DD1 will be 13 in September coming and starts S1 this month. She was deferred before the law changed.

I think Scotland has the right idea on Primary school starting age... just not right now at the top end.

But he will be 18 when leaving S6 - if he'd started a year earlier he could be at uni aged 17. 17 is too young for uni (been there myself)

The support for SEN in Scotland is non statutory I believe (no EHCPs) despite high levels of SEND and there is essentially no exclusion.

Combine that with a play/discovery based curriculum and extremely limited private alternatives and you can see there will be some problems.

From friends/family experience of SEN provision in England, it seems it is much better in Scotland - but that might be down to individual schools.

Those in England may well talk about their fight to get EHCPs or their fight to have it implemented. You won’t hear people talking about fighting for EHCPs in Scotland because they don’t exist. There is very little you can do to force support from school and nothing like the same provision of specialist places as there is in England. Indeed, most of the independent specialist schools in Scotland don’t even give out offer letters anymore, so you can’t make a placing request for them and there is no way to go to tribunal to get a place if the council say no, which they nearly always do.

Don’t confuse lack of ability to fight for support with support being in place.

This is very true. I'm my experience there's a reluctance to support diagnosis and referral even when issues are pretty clear. To be fair, the school does try to support based on the needs of pupils regardless of diagnosis, which on paper sounds lovely, but without formalised structures there isn't a point at which they will formally say "this child needs 2 hours a day with a 1-2-1 to help them progress".

It means there's no way to properly ensure that individual children get what they need, and you end up in a horrible kind of "in between" of "I know you're 10 and you can barely write, we think you probably have dyslexia, it's not that you're stupid, but school won't even consider supporting a diagnosis for another year so we'll just have to work imon the assumption that that's likely to be issue but we dont really know".

To be fair I think this partly a LA policy as I know of colleagues who have had kids in different LAs diagnosed earlier, but it seems so horrible to leave kids and families in limbo when a diagnosis could really help to explain to a child why they find things so much harder than everyone else- and could also lead to more support and targeted intervention.

I have a strong suspicion that they probably have a policy of not talking about dyslexia until its far too late to get out of having to actually provide proper targeted support rather than just "general child struggling with literacy" support.

This thread is making me want to move down south- I pay thousands more in tax for the privilege of living here and watching the system failing my kids on lots of different levels 😪

Yes to this, my best friend at Strathclyde Uni wasn't 18 until the February of our 1st year, she left after her highers and didn't stay for 6th year studies.

Not sure if you can do that still, this was nearly 40 years ago

You can go to uni as young as16- if you're an autumn birthday so young in the year and dont't want to stay for 6th year. Highers (5th year) can give you enough qualifications to go to uni without staying on into the final year of school.

I know quite a few students who went to university at 17 over the last few years. I think there were five in my DC S5 year who did so.

I have a lot of work colleagues in a large Scottish city and none of them are particularly happy with the Scottish system. Some are paying for tuition in primary as they feel the system isn’t academic enough, and worse than when they were at school.

Couldn't believe you can drop major subjects eg a named science or maths at secondary. It seemed very focused on getting better grades in less subjects to keep the schools score up, rather than a rounded education for a child.

With an academic neurodiverse child, I would move to Scotland for education at all!

Definitely the secondaries are concerned with keeping their standing in the league tables, they'd rather encourage kids to drop a subject than to try and fail.

I don't get the logic behind the move to Nat4/5 away from the Standard Grades, the S Grades gave all kids something to aim for. Whither they sat Foundation/ General or if they were doing General / Credit.

Nat5 seems to be equivalent of Credit level and Nat 4 a 'completed the course' lower than a pass even at Foundation.

😊

NI still has selective grammar schools.

That's a very capitalist construct. Surely if you are a country that respects the UNCRC then this cannot be allowed to happen? Education is the right of the child and therefore all education should be equitable no matter where you live.

I'm unsure about this as my child is on a Scottish equivalent of an EHCP. I'm wondering whether it's council based, like staffing appears to be! And if this is the case then I cannot understand why this is appropriate or acceptable.

Calling it a capitalist construct doesn't alter the facts. Education systems perform better if schools are able to compete for pupils. See, for example, that well known capitalist country, China. When it comes to education, I don't personally care whether an idea is labelled capitalist, communist or whatever. What matters is what works.

The evidence is that allowing schools to compete for pupils forces up standards for all schools. It doesn't mean that some pupils get a poor education. That is more likely to happen where schools do not compete for pupils, so underperforming schools can coast, safe in the knowledge that they will continue to get enough pupils and funding to carry on.

Lack of support staff in primary compared to England.
Children starting later but then P1 seemed to jump ahead when not much learning seemed to go on in Nursery
Targeted support for those struggling in primary seemed limited

Highers are 1 year and that means you barely get any teaching before you have prelims, exams and exam leave. A-levels are a better structure as there’s more learning time.

I was going to say this- NI has one of the most competitive school environments. Not only is there the 11+, which almost every child sits, but schools are still segregated by religion. I couldn’t attend my closest primary because I wasn’t Catholic.