Need to chat about Scottish education stuff

[BoffinMum]

I have just realised how little I know about the Scottish education system and I am supposed to be writing something about it for work. There don't seem to be as many reports and article published about it as the English system, which makes it harder to know what people actually in schools are really thinking and what the mood music is. AuldAlliance reckoned I ought to post something on here and see what the Scottish Mumsnet massive had to say about things, which seems a quite brilliant idea. So anyone around to help answer a few questions?

1. Again, because ds has been pretty much self-starting and self-sufficient, I don't really know the answer as I get snapped at every time I try to help he just gets on with it

Ds does seem to know his way around the SQA website and to find other resources - whether that's down to his teachers' guidance or his own resourcefulness, I don't know.

1. While I'm sure there are many unhappy Scottish pupils (even more so at the moment with the exams starting next week), I don't get the impression that the pupils are anywhere near as unhappy or stressed as English pupils.

But again, my experience is just limited to one secondary school, albeit a relatively large (by Scottish standards) one with c1200 pupils.

His old primary was also exceptional (HMI report Very Good/Exceptional with a particular emphasis on its nurturing caring environment), so had "happy" pupils.

Cityslick, no, I am not a journalist. I am a university lecturer,

I am interested in Glow's apparent demise and the difficulties of doing the online tests. Do Scottish schools have fewer computers than English schools in general then?

I would guess that DD1 has about 2-3 hours home work a week, that will include time spent on projects such as art, shows etc. It's given on a Monday for completion on Friday. She is at am hmie rated very good primary. Her pals at private school to get a lot more as well as more formal exams.

There is less emphasis on spelling and very little on formal grammar. She does get weekly spelling lists for homework and tested weekly. I would quite like to have a bit more emphasis on spelling tbh as hers is dreadful!

Online learning for Scottish Schools
scholar.hw.ac.uk/

1. Much less emphasis on SPaG than is apparent from looking at MN UK experience. Also although phonics is the primary approach to teaching reading it is used more as a one of a number of tools rather than an end in itself. (Teaching DC to decipher made up words is an alien concept to me)

1. A few years back there was a head mistress suicide following an adverse inspection and the subsequent investigation criticised the overly accusatory nature of the process. I think the inspection process has been more low key and geared towards seeking improvement rather than fault finding since then.

1. Standards are not falling imo. There is a lot of discussion about raising attainment at the bottom while not impacting the top.

1. I have 2 teenagers. HW has never been more than 15 minutes a night and is very much about fostering parent involvement rather than learning at home.

5 GLOW is on the way out because it is being overtaken by the reality of a much more open IT environment. I think IT provision varies a lot from school to school. SQA resources and things like BBC bitesize etc are used a lot, but online HW submission etc is less prevalent because of the emphasis on inclusion for less IT literate families.

6 I think Scottish pupils are under a lot less pressure than in England and are probably happier. Most go to the local school so the competition for the "right" school isn't there and also the lack of SATs and grammars helps. Scotsnet has an exam thread running at the moment which probably gives an insight into the stress levels. Our primary school has awards as a pilot PATHs school which is all about emotional robustness. The positive impact on the pupils is noticeable.

For points 2 and 3 you can go on parentzone Scotland to see school inspection reports and performance data at school and national level.

My experience of CfE as a parent is very positive, especially at primary school level. I am not sure if this is national but when my DD3 starts school she will have 2 foreign languages and specialist IT teaching embedded in the curriculum. This is new.

I don't really understand why they changed from Standard exams to Nationals, and what the normal exam pattern is for pupils.

Totally agree about the losing of computer rooms and libraries to be made into classrooms to meet rising school rolls That happened at ds' primary school.

It's just been rebuilt (they transfer into it this week ) and now has both a library and computer room again - but for how long?

For the last c.8 years the "library" has been in boxes spread around all the classrooms and the "computers" on trolleys to be rolled from classroom to classroom as required.

Unless things have changed since ds was there (4 years ago), the down and upload speeds at primary schools are laughable. The teachers who looked after the school website often did so from home as it was too difficult to maintain at school. I don't think the contract that Glasgow City Council had with the service provider was very good.

As far as i understand the driver for change with the exams was that they were perceived to be too easy. Pupils were wasting S2 coasting and then struggling with the jump from standards to highers. I have no experience of that though as i did o grades way back in the 80's and mine are doing Nat 5s.

I think the theory behind it is fine. In practice though it has been implemented differently across different councils and schools meaning that for some, the broad general education isn't very broad. Thats also impacted by the size of some of the schools and the fact they need to work with the teachers they have. There is difficulty in recruitement in some subjects for example there is a national shortage of Home Ec teachers. IT teaching provision can be poor as the people who are best at IT can earn a lot more elsewhere and obviouly its a subject where there is constant updating for teachers to keep up with.

It's very confusing for parents. In my time (long) we have had O grades, then Standard Grades, then foundation and something else( not A,B,C marks etc) and now we have Nat 5s which Ds will be sitting and I have no idea what they correlate to - and neither do many employers! I'm just hoping he gets to Highers which are familiar territory. Ds gets very little homework compared to what I read on MN in English schools and when he does get it, it seems dumbed down and not particularly challenging. He's a bright kid, I would say university material, but he doesn't seem to be challenged and even slapdash written work is accepted which I wouldn't accept from an employee.
He is at what is considered to be a good state school!

Homework in S1-3 was negligable. It ramped up a lot in S4.

If you want to get an idea of what CofE was meant to be you coukd watch this

The idea is really really sound, as with many things getting it to work is a bit more problematic

As a PP said, in Scotland most folk go to their catchment school, where they are guaranteed a place. This takes an awful lot of the angst out of the whole process I think, and makes pupils and parents more relaxed about the whole thing.

I think part of the issue with reading about this online is that CFE is very flexible so there isn't really a normal exam pattern as such. In most schools pupils will sit N5 exams in S4 - they can do a mix of N4 (internally assessed) and N5 or just N4 / just N5 depending on their level. Then in S5 more capable pupils will do 5 Highers generally but there could be a mix of N5 / Higher if less capable/ starting new subjects. I know of schools that do not present for N5 so the first exams pupils do is in S5. Some of these schools present for 6 Highers then because they have taught to them for 2 years instead of 1. Some schools allow 8 N5s in S4 (my school is like this but we are dropping to 7 next session) some only do 6. Each authority can choose how many so it's very difficult for pupils moving between schools.

"I don't really understand why they changed from Standard exams to Nationals, and what the normal exam pattern is for pupils."

One reason was that standard grades didn't really prepare them for highers adequately, too big a jump in content and completely different formats, another is that because it was a 2 year course it meant children were having to drop subjects at the end of S2, nationals are only a 1 year course so they're not having to pick exam subjects until the end of S3.

As for patterns...for able children, they'd be sitting Nat 5 at the end of S4, varying amounts depending on school and LA at the moment, then highers in S5 and either some crash highers in S6 or advanced highers in a couple of the subjects they did at higher.

Less able pupils will do nat 4 in S4 which isn't externally assessed, then either do nat 5 in S5 and highers in S6 or leave.

They can do a mix of that though, so in S4 they could be doing exams at nat 5 for some subjects and the assessments for nat 4 in others.

"we have had O grades, then Standard Grades, then foundation and something else( not A,B,C marks etc) and now we have Nat 5s"

Foundation was a level in standard grade, not something seperate.

In fairness it's also not that frequent a change, standard grades were around for twenty years...

Primary teacher.

No SATS here but our school currently does PIPS for P1 and this year has done INCAS for all pupils in P3-6.

Curriculum for excellence is shite imo. Too much focus on group work and active maths. It's ok being happy and confident but I worry when kids are at the end of P6 and really poor at formal maths.

As for the SPAG initiative in England - I looked at a grammar SATS test supposed to be for Y6. I scored 5 out of 10 and 4 of those were guesses. I didn't have a clue what the terms meant, let alone be able to choose the correct answer. I can't really see the point of this

IME curriculum for excellence has really dragged down attainment in primary schools and leaves pupils completely unprepared for secondary school, esp in maths where there is little or no consolidation of key areas. The experience & poor quality or expected outcomes of my DC3 compared to DC1&2 who went through the system 6 & 3 years earlier respectively was stark. The introduction of a 2nd ML at primary school is laughable the 1st ML is hardly taught with zero continuity from 1 year to the next.

The whole set up in secondary schools needs to be looked at the broad and general curriculum from S1-S3 is not challenging and the lack of consistency across schools re the number of Nat 5s that can be taken needs to be looked at. Plus commonality re when the course actually starts, some schools start the Nat 5 syllabus in S3 where others cram into S4, the S4 route was the intention but schools that follow this route have to cut down the number of Nat 5s in order to fit in the required teaching hours, which forces specialisation far too soon. I question what value employers will attach to any internally assessed qualifications, i.e. nat 3 & 4.

Over the past few years there has been a significant and marked reduction in the amount of time and quality of teaching allocated to music and art, as budgets are squeezed the number of taught hours has been cut and teachers not replaced.

Hopefully the introduction of new tests in primary schools will highlight the fall in standards in primary schools and change can be implemented sooner rather than later.

So do you think they will ditch CfE then at some stage?

Not until everything is proven to be catastrophically falling apart. In the meantime parents who can afford it will continue to shore up where they can with tutors or opt out and go private.

CFE can't really be "ditched" -too much time and money has been spent on it for that to happen - but it will be reformed as a lot of the same problems are cropping up across the different authorities.

No, I don't think so. It was a long time in the planning and although there are some issues in some places, they'll hopefully address them rather than just chuck it out and start it again.

We tend not to get the same knee jerk reactions and changes in policy that England suffers from. Maybe because we don't have the swings in political dogma from Labour to Conservative that happens in Westminster.

It was the Labour/Lib Dem administration that started the change to CfE and the SNP Gov that implemented it.

As some else mentioned, Standard Grades "survived" for c20 years.

What does need to be addressed is the variations in the way it's been implemented. Ds' school is one of those that starts the Nat 5 courses at the end of S2, so they are still able to sit 8 Nat 5s. It did mean, however, that ds dropped the "expressive arts" in S2, when they're supposed to be included to the end of the "Broad General Education" which is supposed to be up until end of S3. (He'd have liked to do Art but the combination of Sciences and PE that he wanted to do had Art in all those columns so he ended up doing Computing Science as his 8th subject)

As a parent, I've not seen any issues with Maths - but that could be either or both due to the quality of teaching at ds' primary school (which had always taught in a CfE way) and/or 'cos ds is good at and loves Maths.

He's sitting his Nat 5 Maths in under 2 weeks and is confident of an A (top set). The class is already most of the way through the Higher curriculum and will apparently be starting the Advanced Higher curriculum in September.

As a Scottish primary school teacher who just found the thread, I found this interesting to read others views, especially on CfE

Meant to also agree with a PP that the lack of major angst about schools probably helps schooling up here: less energy needing to be directed into choosing schools.

That's not to say that there aren't areas, like Edinburgh, where people worry about catchment and there are more placing requests.

But at least in Scotland, you know the catchment of the school you are in - there's none of this incredible varying catchment distances according to the demand that year. Changing a catchment involves a full consultation period. There was an incredible stooshie a couple of years ago when Glasgow misjudged the demand for a new-build school (combining a few "old" schools) and they didn't have sufficient places for even its catchment P1s one year.

And once you're at school (unless it was a placing request), it's then automatic which secondary school you go to - although you can (as I did for ds) still do a placing request for a different secondary.

We also don't change schools after Nat 5s. A few kids might choose to leave or to go to FE college, but most will stay on at the same school and (depending on how academic they are) do Highers - or simply more (or re-sit or sit for the 1st time) Nat 5s or even just Nat 4s. Ds' school will work with local FE colleges for other options (either more vocational options or if there are subjects that the school can't offer).