Proposed changes to the governance arrangements for schools in Scotland

[SirChenjin]

I've been asked by DC3's primary to contribute to their response to the consultation - had a quick look at the questionnaire and it's pretty detailed to say the least. I'm not convinced that what is being suggested will do much to improve standards across Scotland, and it seems to me (although I may be very wide of the mark) that it's modelling the English system of Boards of Governors.

The changes are significant, no doubt about it. Has anyone got any thoughts, or have you contributed to your local response?

I'm currently part of the sub group of the parent council (secondary school) working on this. We were going through our proposed responses with the full parent council tonight.

It's a looooong read - and refers to other important documents (like 2 OECD reports, the Christie Commission and some SG documents). I actually went off and read them too ok, I read the executive summaries

Not sure it's modelling on Boards of Governors - the main thing we're objecting to is this Regional 10th body to oversee what schools are doing (we think ). The proposal seems to come out of nowhere, with no supporting justification, or even description of what they would do. Indeed, it comes just after they described how difficult it was to manage the overlapping responsibilities of nine bodies involved in Scottish schools/education

Question 14 in particular irritated me; it was such a leading question that of course no-one was going to answer No to

There is some positive stuff, eg about supporting collaboration but I'll need to go and get my notes to see.

Glasgow City Council already gives schools quite a lot of autonomy (at least at secondary school level), so we're saying that that is a good thing in being responsive to local needs.

It could be that HMI needs to be beefed up/its remit amended (eg to compare teaching of subjects across schools) rather than this superfluous extra body.

Thanks prettybird, that's really helpful

It's reassuring to hear that it's not modelling the Board of Governors approach, but I do wonder what they envisage for a system with greater involvement from parents and local businesses if it isn't something along those lines .

As an aside - did you see in the news that standards are continuing to fall in Scottish schools? I could weep.

The "Increasing Parental" involvement is an ongoing objective - the latest version of "HIGIOS" (How Good is Our School - currently on HIGIOS4) apparently has a lot on encouraging parental involvement. Ds' school already has a working party of teachers/SMT on it. It's not so much about involvement of parents in the running of the school but in their children's learning. That has a major impact on outcomes. It's not parents like you and me that they need to get involved - it's the "hard to reach" ones, who are either unengaged or have barriers (like language) to being involved.

I only know about HIGIOS as I was on the interview panel for a depute head and also the headteacher mentioned it at the AGM as a driver for the areas that they were working on in their development plan

I've not seen the detail of the PISA results - just seen the contradictory reports in the BBC (national) and BBC (Reporting Scotland) . The first said that although the UK's results had dropped, Scotland and NI's results were broadly the same as last time; whereas Reporting Scotland was going on about how much they had dropped

I can only specifically comment on ds' education (he's just turned 16, in S5 - but if the tests were done 18 months ago on 15 year olds, it was probably the year ahead of him). I've got nothing but praise for the education he's getting, the way he's being stretched, the level he is being taught at and the holistic approach that the school takes. How much of that is the school, how much of that is CfE, I can't tell as I've got nothing to compare with, bar my own (c40 years ago ) education.

I may just have been lucky with both the primary and secondary schools - and also with the fact that I have an intelligent, self-motivated ds who just gets on with studying of his own accord

Yes, I know that increasing parental involvement is an ongoing approach (not easy when most parents work, but there you go...) but in the paperwork I've read they seem to want to focus on this as a key driver for increasing attainment across regions - imo a far wider approach is required, e.g. improved housing, access to employment (and childcare), improved access to social services, regular testing, and so on. It seems (to my mind) that taking control away from councils and throwing more at HT as the way to improve attainment bit of a leap to make - esp as LAs are able to support access to a range of services that can support children.

Certainly none of my high school teacher friends (STEM subjects, many years experience) are particularly impressed with CforE, and I certainly don't think they are stretched as much as I was when I was at the stage mine are/were a couple of years ago (I have a 19, 17 and 9 year old), although there is more pastoral care.

I'll see what comes of our discussions at the Parent Council - at this point though it all seems a bit vague and lacking in focus, so it will be interesting to see what comes out of it.

I've only been following this at a very simplistic level, but my concern is that the SG is trying to produce a "Free school" system. Schools shouldn't be run by parents and businesses and the SMT without oversight from the LA IMO.

WRT to the PISA results they are sadly pretty predictable. Schools have had declining budgets due to WM cuts, and more and more children are in poverty which also tends to lead to poorer educational outcomes. They don't necessarily show a fall in teaching standards alone.

BBC website showing a clear drop in attainment levels in Scotland - maths, reading and science have all declined www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-38207729

Fine - I completely agree. My (limited) knowledge of the English system is based on friends and family who still live there - the lack of consistency and control across the piece concerns me.

I don't think it's down to a decline in teaching standards, not at all - it's all part of a wider picture, and whilst we'll have to disagree about who is responsible for the funding cuts and how money is allocated, the fact that other parts of the UK are faring better than Scotland is very concerning. The teaching unions have raised concerns about the implementation of CforE for years, and it seems as if the professionals really did know best - who'd have thunked it?

Just wrote a long reply and then lost it

We've specifically said in our response that we don't think an Academy/Two Tier approach is a good thing, that there is a lot of good supper from the councils.

Reading the BBC Report, I see it mentions the proposed Regional Education Boards. Our PTC is specifically arguing against them. There is certainly no argument in the consultation document for them - if anything, the emphasis in the document is how so many organisations involved in education (9) make it difficult to ensure transparency and support progress. So WTF does a 10th organisation do?!

So WTF does a 10th organisation do?!

Not a clue!! Transparency and support for progress is absolutely what we should aim for, but it must be meaningful - no point in having something that is transparently awful or support for progress for one small subset of pupils, if we don't actually achieve a significant improvement of attainment levels across the board, iykwim?! And an E grade really, really isn't the way forward...