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?

"That’s the particular degree that I am head of, but I don’t think it’s unusual"

2/3 being S5 leavers is, the stats are very much the other way round, that a lot more S6 leavers go to university, both in percentages and numbers, which is why I wondered what course it was, though that'd be a bit outing I suppose, lol.

I haven’t looked at leaver numbers and destinations across the country, so no doubt you are right tabulahrasa.

The subject and the institution are both fairly traditional – nothing out of the ordinary there. Also, it being a Scottish degree the first year students who have come straight from 5th year will be taking two other subjects in addition to mine (and those other subjects may well be their main degree subjects), which is why I said it wasn't unusual - those other subjects will therefore also have significant post-Higher entries. It may still not be the norm - I was surprised when I saw the figures as I’d expected it to be the other way round. I’m not sure it makes a difference to the discussion about school standards, though.

"I’m not sure it makes a difference to the discussion about school standards, though."

No, it doesn't, sorry...I just got interested

howabout - your dcs sound wonderfully self-motivated. Being bright isn't always the same as being self-motivated, and even being bright and self-motivated is not the same as being well taught. I think that my dc is doing what she is told to do. For instance, she is not doing homework, because she is not told to do homework. That seems normal enough to me. In my experience setting certainly helps the bright kids to make more progress. Particularly in maths, where the top set may be doing work which the bottom set will only do a couple of years later, or may never get to. And the bright children can be taught in a way that suits them, and without having to sit through slow explanations, and to plough through a lot of easy work at a speed that is too slow for them.
Although it is possible to differentiate in the work that you give to different ability children in a mixed ability class, and I have seen this done at primary level - most although not all English primaries seem to operate this via their system of different ability tables - this is a more basic system than setting. DC says that in fact there is almost no differentiation in the lessons she attends. She says that there is some level of differentiation in some maths classes, in that everyone is given a long list of questions, and the brighter ones will get on to slightly harder questions on the same topic further down the list. But that is it. In set classes, the brighter maths pupils would be doing completely different topics, and would be being taught in a different way and at a different speed.
I don't really buy children being completely self led. Eg, as one parent on here has mentioned, being told to "do a project of your choice". Effective teaching surely means guiding children on what the subject should be about, how it should be organised, how the subject matter should be analysed, type of language used, etc etc. Not just "write a project". My dd has had a "design a poster on Scottish culture" task. No explanation of what Scottish culture is, how to analyse it, how to lay out an effective poster, feedback on the poster, etc etc. I don't think that that is effective teaching - it's just an attempt to fill in the children's time without any input from the teacher. Proper task or homework setting is a skill which aims at the development of particular knowledge and skills. Bad task or homework setting is just throwing a random task at the students, with no focused instructions or discussion, and no considered feedback. That doesn't lead to any real progress. Especially in the age of copying down a few chunks from Wikipedia.
Maybe a small minority of children are capable of educating themselves. They could learn relatively effectively by staying at home and doing courses on the internet and working through text books on their own. But most children need a teacher to guide them. That is what is lacking in a poor school or education system.

On the question of the attainment gap. The Scottish government is pouring money into schools that have a lot of underprivileged children. The money is supposed to be used on reducing that attainment gap. Does anyone know how the schools are using that money? How would posters propose using that money?
If children with parents who are interested in their education do so much better, would it be effective to set up a mentoring system? Pairing a relatively educated person with a child, to talk to them about what they are doing in and out of school, to give them a bit of one to one help with eg reading and writing, to talk through any difficulties, to encourage them to join clubs in and out of school, to recommend particular books that they might enjoy reading, etc. Would this work? You could probably do some of this through volunteers.

user - do you know why AHs are as they are? And why schools aren't offering a full range of them, or the teachers to make those they do offer work properly? The Scottish system of AHs must cost a lot less to operate than the English system of A'levels. The children are being short-changed. And that's leaving aside the fact that they have already had one less year at school.
One thing I find strange about the Scottish system is that it seems to be so common for children to be offered a very limited range of courses both at AH level and prior to that. In English schools you would take for granted that the core academic subjects would always be available, at all levels. That being the service that schools exist to provide.

One of the reasons that subjects are more limited is that in England teachers can teach any subject, in Scotland they can only teach the subject they are qualified to teach.

I'm interested to know what international measures are deemed valid by the SNP, so we can be clear on the education goals Scotland is setting itself, over and above targets based on internal exams.

tabulahrasa Sun 21-May-17 06:34:10
One of the reasons that subjects are more limited is that in England teachers can teach any subject, in Scotland they can only teach the subject they are qualified to teach.

That's very unlikely at A Level, but much more common lower down the school, thus freeing up the specialists to teach the exam courses. I'm having to teach a yr7 Geography class though I am an MFL teacher because there was a gap on my timetable and the new Geography teacher is an NQT with a reduced timetable. What would happen in this instance in Scotland? Would they not have Geography for a year or are there lots of supply teachers waiting in the wings? It's a genuine question, not a sarky one btw. I've looked at school staff lists for where I lived in Scotland, noticed gaps (e.g. No music) and wondered what they did.

In Scotland, secondary teachers must have a degree in the subject they are teaching.

However, this can be quite broad. Physics teachers with a physics degree will teach S1-3 general science, and History teachers can teach Modern Studies, for example. So in your scenario, S1-3 Geography could be run by the Social Sciences dept but there wouldn't be an exam class.

I'm primary though, so not totally familiar with the regulations.

Thanks, RedScissors

Don't know what other schools are doing, but at ds' school they are using the Attainment Funds, amongst other things, to pay for extra EAL support and extra ASL support targeted at these kids, to work on involving their parents (looking at different ways of doing this and asking the Parent Council for ideas), buying some technology/software to help with the foreign languages and to make the internet accessible to the poorest (as many resources, like Glow, are online) and to help with uniform (including PE kit).

While the pupils sitting Nat 5s are off on study leave, I think the school pays for taster training sessions in different career options for those that are only doing Nat 4s and therefore not eligible for study leave.

whistlr the majority of English schools do not go beyond GCSE level, let alone offering a full range of A levels.

It's not just that they must have a degree in it, but their PGDE must be in it too in order to teach it.

DH's best friend from Uni is an ex head of Maths in the English system. He left the system because he and his staff were being asked to teach classes way in excess of 30 in addition to the class next door by video link. It was a rarity for the teachers alongside him to have a Maths degree like him. The school he taught in, like the majority, did not have a 6th form. None of the teachers were therefore ever teaching beyond GCSE let alone pushing brighter pupils towards the next level.

He has a son slightly younger than my DD2. He opted to tutor him for the neighbouring county's grammar school. His son now spends almost 3 hours a day travelling to and from school. He is loving the academic challenge but when we met up a couple of months ago it did seem to be coming at the expense of everything else (sport, music, social skills)

I would have made exactly the same choice for my DC in their situation, but I am very glad I don't have to.

I think a conversation around standards in Scottish schools is due and worthwhile. However if we are going to compare with England there does need to be some basis in reality.

Just a quick post, do you all know that your children get tested?
They sit PIPs in P1 and then AfE P3, 5, and 7.
Can ask for scores at any point & a decent teacher can break it all down & explain if to you.
I have concerns re DC maths & although not at a level of concern for school to flag it up, I know he can do better, his AfE reflects this.

That's not nation wide, FannyFifer.

At a guess (because I’m not a teacher), the AH situation is down to pupils numbers and limited resources. I don’t know how widespread it is, but some AH pupils are taught in the same class with the same teacher as the Higher pupils, if both groups are smallish.

In Scotland, secondary teachers must have a degree in the subject they are teaching. However, this can be quite broad. Anecdotally, I know of one MFL teacher teaching Higher in a language which is not the one they trained in. No idea if their situation is unique.

I agree that a lot of pupils are being let down by the system.

In the county I teach in there are 17 schools with 6th forms and 15 without, including three new schools (because of the rapid increase in population) which haven't admitted students of that age yet. It may be that they don't. I think there are enough variations within England to make it a difficult comparison to the Scottish system.

As an aside, who would want to be a maths teacher in England? The cost of living is so ridiculous in many places that any decent maths graduate would be better off going into industry. You certainly couldn't buy a house where I live on a teacher's salary.

Even when I was at school AH provision depended on a teacher being willing/ trained (?) to teach it. It was usually a very senior member of staff.

It also depended on the numbers of pupils. The rule of thumb was that they would run a Higher with 15 pupils and an AH with 5. I think that's fair enough.

For those in the Glasgow area, there is also the Advanced Higher Hub at GCU

http://www.gcu.ac.uk/outreach/advancedhigherhub/

It's not used by all schools (as they offer them themselves - sometimes partnering with neighboroughing schools including private ones) but it ensures that everyone has access to the "basic" AHs)

Not all pupils are tested, and not all tests are the same.

I thought AfE was nationwide like CfE.
They also do an iq type test thing.

I never came across a child in England who could not do a mainstream subject like maths for A'level (or GCSE) because it was not available. As has been said, some schools don't have 6th forms, and children go to the 6th form college. 6th form college is very popular among pupils, and many leave schools with 6th forms to go to them.

My school only offers certain AH subjects: English, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, History and French. No others. There are one or two available by distance learning (German, Latin) but no Maths, Modern Studies, Geography.

So - NOT a level playing field (or even A Level playing field) and very unfair when schools offer such widely different options and so some pupils are clearly advantaged by choice, never mind other things.