What's going wrong with Scottish education??

[TinfoilHattie]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-39856284

Obviously very tempting to start another SNP bashing thread and I'm pretty clear that the blame for this lies at their door. It's shocking that performance is getting worst, not better and that less than half of S2s are performing well or very well in writing. It's all very well Swinney standing up and saying that it's not good enough but WHY is it not good enough and WHAT is he going to do about it?

Is it Curriculum for Excellence? Are the tests unrealistic? Funding? Changing expectations?

It's all very interesting for me as I have children in P4, P7 and S2 and those are the years which are tested. My kids are doing fine and I have no worries about them, but we're a family which values education and encourages reading. I do worry though about my daughter who spelled her new school as "Acadmay" and it wasn't corrected by the teacher.

So what's going wrong and how do we put it right?

Add me to the list of people who finds not doing higher Maths and English odd.

I am old enough to have been the last year to sit O Grades. At that stage I already knew I was going down an Arts degree path, and was heading for modern languages. But everyone did Higher Maths, it wasn't negotiable. Likewise, those headed for Science degrees did English.

My 14 year old has it all planned out - he's very keen on a medical degree but not medicine - something like biomedical sciences. My face when he said he didn't plan on doing Higher English was this.

Our school does 9 subjects in S3 reducing to 7 for National 5.

pretty I do actually have pages and pages of proper research because I got so bothered by people looking at me like I had lost my marbles for not doing a placing request (raw stats by school are all on the Scottish government website, but they have been mucking around with the format so may take a bit to access just now). My conclusion was that after adjusting for affluence and leaver rates most schools in Scotland are much of a muchness.

Nat 5 Physics out the way today and DD1 seems to think it went OK so fingers crossed. Her last one is Art and since her very biased DM thought her portfolio was fantastic I reckon we are in the home straight now.

My children go to DHS, I agree that they aren't doing anything particularly radical. They do have a low number of children on FSM but the school is the catchment for the whole town so it also includes council estates etc.

Leadership is a key thing and I expect their figures to go down as the leadership has changed. My DSs are post Dr White but if you fancy a google, you will see that the school had a period of not doing well.

The focus is on effort and I think in general there is a cultural expectation on the children that they should do well, disruption in classes is probably a lot lower than average. The teachers are the same as everywhere, some great and committed, others far less so and most in the middle.

Going by threads on here, they do less in terms of study support etc than most.

It's a small school with a falling roll. It makes it tough to provide choice, DS2 can't do the 5 Highers he wants, there is no other one he could pick so he can't get 5 in one sitting and he is waiting to hear if he can get a college place for the 5th topic (not a higher).

Pastoral care is inconsistent at times.

Some DC from affluent backgrounds have the expectation that their parents will get them tutors/influence/jobs etc so its not the case that it's the kids from the poorest families that are the least motivated.

People spend a lot on housing to live there in the expectation that they are getting a near private education. it isn't.

Unlike the majority of the top 10, they are keen for placing requests to keep the roll up and keep teachers.

I don't think in the main that the pupils are pushed very hard. Lots have tutors.

Maybe it's because they see having to deal with 55 languages, although a challenge, as a benefit to the school and enriches it.

You keep mentioning this and I'm interested to know what you actually mean by it.

Does viewing EAL as a bonus really mean that the entire curriculum is working? Obviously it speaks a lot for the school's ethos, but I don't think that you can use it as a good example.

www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/15139936.Exam_tables_revealed__Find_out_how_your_kid_s_secondary_school_performed/

The government's benchmark for 3 or more Highers, if I'm reading this correctly, for S.A., is 46%. That is still extremely low imo. Over 50% of school leavers don't have 3 or more Highers- what are they leaving school with?

Are the top sets all from the same background? Is the bottom set S3 Maths the same ethnic and social make up as the top set?

@wan, it took some searching to understand what you meant with DHS ;)
(Dunblane High School, in case you are wondering... ;) )

Sorry - I thought since it was referenced up page, that the shorthand would do :)

Howabout despite other areas we do have a lot in common - I did the same and came to a similar conclusion.

I remember having an argument with someone on MN (when ds was in P6 and I was doing research about his options and she was also looking at schools) who was convinced that the only decent schools were in East Renfrewshire (except for Jordanhill) and that any evidence of pupils succeeding of going to Oxbridge from Glasgow schools was unreliable/unbelievable (I posted a link to an article about two from ds' school - but because it was after offer but before their S6 exams, she discounted it and said "how do you know they actually passed and went?" checked with the head teacher later, they did )

Although ds was a placing request, that was more because of the rugby (the school is a "School of Rugby" - which is not based on talent but all about encouraging the sport - and he actually had more friends from the rugby club going to the school than he had at his primary school going to the catchment school). He'd have done fine at his catchment school (which is a whole 15 minutes walk away as opposed to 20 minutes walk ).

Through the rugby club I see kids (both boys and girls) who're at schools all over the Southside of Glasgow. They're all doing well. Some not as academic as ds, some just as academic. Parents have similar expectations of them to "do their best".

The other aspect of education which gets forgotten (or derided by those placing too much store by exams) is the importance of "teaching" pupils to become resilient individuals - the whole "holistic" education premise (one of the reasons ds' school encourages sport, music, gymnastics, art...). SIL, who works in the LA education department claims that Glasgow schools have a lower drop out rate in 1st year at Uni than East Ren. I've had a quick look but not been able to find research to back that claim up - but it would be interesting to check out.

@red, the way I read it is that only 5 SS in Glasgow have more than 50% of pupils with 3+ highers. The benchmark varies from school to school, but I don't know how it has been set.

Given that rugby attracts a particular social grouping, especially in Glasgow, I don't think you're really answering that question prettybird.

the way I read it is that only 5 SS in Glasgow have more than 50% of pupils with 3+ highers

Yes, that appears to be correct.

While acknowledging that not everyone is academic, that is shocking.

It's no good being resilient if you could not spell said adjective or use it correctly in a sentence. Leavers' destinations are also being fudged.

More than 90 per cent of teenagers entered a positive destination on leaving school last year, including university, further education and employment, the statistics show. Just over 22 per cent were classed as employed.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/zero-hours-jobs-count-towards-school-leaver-destination-stats

Interesting to look at how others view the stats as published. I tend to look at whether a school's percentage of pupils achieving 5 highers exceeds the total of their SIMD 4 and 5 pupils (least deprived). For Shawlands Academy in 2016 they had SIMD 4 of 18% and SIMD 5 of 13% and a total of 33% with 5 highers. For comparison Dunblane had SIMD 4 of 16% and SIMD 5 of 72% and a total of 66% with 5 highers.

The other way to compare for the academic cohort would be to look at the top 20% and their performance against the VC. However this tends to flatter schools with a larger pool of SIMD 4 and 5 to draw the top 20% from. In the case of Shawlands and Dunblane, Shawlands exceeds the VC by a larger margin than Dunblane, although Dunblane has a higher VC which is probably driven by higher staying on rates and the fact that they will mainly be SIMD 4 and 5 as opposed to a mixture. (why I prefer my cruder measure)

My DC go to a very economically mixed catchment school (it also has high levels of EAL but I don't think this impacts much either way) with very strong links to local colleges and employers offering apprenticeships etc. A high percentage of DD1's year group are leaving after S4 with Nat 4s and 5s to go on to vocational training. The better the economy and the jobs market, the poorer the school's comparative results tend to be because of this. Not everyone is cut out to be an academic or go to Uni and I think the education system and the way we measure it should reflect this.

I am pretty sure it was the Evening Times rather than Holyrood's decision to look at 3 higher stats - other papers do it differently and they are getting better at understanding the VC and the SIMD data.

@how, you need to help me out and explain in more detail what you mean and the acronyms ;)

Or explain in detail what's left of the independent metrics of the quality of Scottish education that the SNP haven't announced they're scrapping.

For Shawlands Academy in 2016 they had SIMD 4 of 18% and SIMD 5 of 13% and a total of 33% with 5 highers.

They therefore had 69% of pupils coming from SIMD1,2 and 3... These pupils are statistically more likely to be the ones to achieve Higher grade. I don't think comparing the SIMD rank with the Higher % is reliable.

It would be better to see a breakdown of the 35% of achieved 3 or more Highers. Obviously there would be issues re privacy etc there.

Who said anything about resilience being at the expense of the ability to communicate effectively or quality of English teaching?

And the whole point of being a "School of Rugby" is that it is to make it accessible to all - and to break down prejudices from those that think it is "elitist" and just for a particular "class"

I can assure you that having been involved with the rugby club for many years (since ds joined in P1) that this particular club (which works closely with the school) is not at all elitist and has kids from all sorts of backgrounds, from all over the South Side (from Govan to Newlands, from Govanhill to Pollokshields) and is very definitely not "all middle class" (in fact the parents would find that laughable). Many of the parents have brought their kids along (starting in primary school) because, even though they have no rugby background, they want to encourage rugby rather than football.

Many of the kids who join the School of Rugby in S1 have never played rugby before and their parents have no knowledge of the game. The school encourages participation in it via the primary school transition week, so they all get a taster and decide whether to come into the rugby classes.

The proportion of private school kids amongst the >200 junior club members is very low: under 5%.

Subs are kept very low (only £65 for the year) to make sure it is accessible - and even then, there are arrangements made for those who can't afford even that.

And did you read the bits in my previous posts where I said that ds' school has a very high proportion of SIMD 1, 2 & 3? some of whom play rugby (As added proof, it is getting one of the highest allocations from the Attainment/Achievement Fund so that takes some of the sting off the extra council tax I've had to pay)

So again, I go back to the point that I've made before, that so much of the success of an individual school seems to be down to the quality of the headteacher and his or her Senior Management Team.

Sorry, I have got my SIMD rank muddled! I would still like to see the SIMD breakdown of Higher scores.

Can you address the question of the social and ethnic composition of the top sets, prettybird? I don't know why you are so defensive of the rugby club. It really is a middle class sport.

Can't contribute to the high school experiences much ( I left just before SNP came in to power) but I'm utterly fed up with my DD's primary school and it sounds like the issues are endemic.

She has a teacher who I would guess has maybe been teaching for 5 or so years - so not a newby, but not much experience of past regimes or curricula either.

DD is so unchallenged by school that she doesn't want to go. She's a bright girl - not in a "my kids a genius way", but reasonably quick. But her teacher will only teach in these bloody namby pamby child centred ways that just don't work for her or push her and she's utterly bored. I just want to hand her a blackboard and some chalk and tell her to actually TEACH them. Instead they have this 'set their own objectives for the term', 'choose what to work on today' and even 'decide what sums to do' nonsense which is just awful.

I ended up being fairly stern with her at our last parents evening. We had one at the start of term where she basically said she was aware the 'top set' maths kids weren't being stretched and she'd need to come up with something else for them, but nothing happened. I then had DD coming home in tears thinking she's stupid and bad at maths - why? Because the teacher will ONLY teach them to count on their fingers, even for double digit sums and DD struggles with it. I strongly suspect that - like me - she has Aspergers and I can't bloody count big numbers on my fingers, I lose track of them

So I taught her other ways to do sums. She got it straight away, immediately became super enthusiastic, was suddenly writing out pages of sums and like a different girl. Until she came home, howling, really distressed, because her teacher had told her she wasn't allowed to do maths that way.

I'd taught her fucking chimney sums. She understands them perfectly. But it didn't fit the teacher's approach so it wasn't allowed She's nearing the end of P2 and they've barely started on subtraction, written work comes back with spelling mistakes missed out (work that's been marked)...I despair of it I really do.

They also seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on 'topics' where they learn very little, and not nearly enough time on the basics. DD came home from their Viking topic with a 'longboat' - painted bottle - they'd made and immediately said "we had to make these and they are really rubbish and nothing like a longboat can I put it in the bin"

We run an after school club, and the number of kids we have coming through who have basic maths and english issues is shocking. I was in one day and one of the staff was helping a 9 year old boy - no learning difficulties although some behavioural ones - with his spelling words which were very basic 4 letter words.

I don't want a system where my 7 year old chooses her objectives - I want them chosen for her by an experienced, qualified professional teacher who understands her strengths and capabilities and sets targets to stretch her.

And our school's books are so old, scarce and tatty that the PSA is having to fund new ones, along with basics like whiteboards. Because funding has been cut so much - but all the kids in an affluent area from 5-7 get free lunches, so that's fine!

Sorry, ranty!

I hated project based learning as a child - my dad loves crafts but the stuff she brings home shows it's obvious no one has tried to push them in that, it's slapping paint on things like nursery.

Fundamentally learning through play can be excellent but not if you don't have the staff to get round all the children and bring the learning out.

My dd, not dad! And the self set targets - is the point of those to boost their confidence? As dd sensibly always seems to choose stuff she can already do so not sure what the point is otherwise!

It really is a middle class sport.

Can't comment on pb's particular club, but in the cities, yes it is more middle class and obviously promoted over football in private schools.

However, once you get outside the big cities, it's very much not middle class in the likes of the Borders.

FWIW, although some of the kids from Dunblane do play Rugby via Stirling County, the school doesn't field a team in any leagues - it's all about football (and they do very well).

statistically I was great at mental maths as a child (even if I do say so, natch) and never did it in my head - I keep saying to dd 'it's so much easier if you look at the numbers', especially for larger ones!

DD's good at mental maths now, but she imagines the sum - I can see her doing chimney sums in her head which is quite funny to watch (she kind of moves her eyes in a way where you can see what she's doing)

I think she's probably actually very good at maths ( I am too, username is ironic) but she needs different teaching methods and almost needs to understand what the point is. So they're doing "groups" at the moment which is boring her stiff - when I extended it and explained it leads to times tables which you can learn, she went away and wrote out every times table.

Like your DD she loves craft, but challenging craft. The stuff they do, like you say, isn't bringing anything out of her.

I think the concept of setting your targets is to build confidence but they seem to spend more time on that than they do on learning

For those looking for Maths support, I highly recommend Carol Vorderman's book, I think it's called Help your Kids with Maths or something. It sounds like it would be gimmicky, but it's just a really well laid out book with decent explanations.

Thanks wankers. Yes the targets they set themselves seem to be the only thing they are measured in, as far as I've been able to glean so far!

@wan@ (just cannot bring myself to spell your username ;) ), I had one of CV's books. It was English actually, but I wasn't overly enthused.
For maths I just cannot recommend enough Kahn Academy, which, btw, is FREE ;) but it is not on paper.