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?

Head teachers can barely keep on top of their workload as it is and, yet, the SNP expect them to become named persons for hundreds of children? Really, the mind boggles.

The curriculum was born out of the 'Big Conversation' and was supported by all the political parties of the time. From that came A Curriculum for Excellence. Not The Curriculum for Excellence. I remember when that change came as I was horrified at the hubris.

www.education.gov.scot/Documents/btc1.pdf

Initially all we had were the 4 capacities which were about broadening education beyond 'successful learners'.

Then a panicked introduction of the Experiences and Outcomes which I predict are going to be sidelined by the National Benchmarks.

It was originally based on social constructivism as a pedagogy and aimed at replicating a Scandinavian model, imo.

But.

To me, what happened, was an overlaying of this pedagogy onto an industrial model of schooling and the full implementation of this style of curriculum needs whole scale reform of the entire system. And, it has been implemented in a culture of cuts and widening poverty which has further hampered how it has translated into the real world.

I started teaching 20 years ago. Some things are better in education and some things are worse. But, schools reflect the societies they belong to.

If I were First Minister, I would start with raising the school age to 7 and turning P1 and P2 into kindergarten stages on the Forest School/Beach School/etc model of free play. Not play based learning devised by teachers to be 'fun'. Perhaps our children would be readier for formal learning at that point.

@BelleTheSheepdog - the SNP have had 11 years to sort things out, even if some things were started before they came to power. As far as I can see, things have just got worse and worse under them.

The spelling policy is just bizarre really. I was told once that the teachers were looking for other skills such as creativity and structure, and correcting spellings would dam age confidence. I completely understand this for P1 and P2 but after that it is just encouraging bad habits.

As I said there are lots of aspects of the scool and learning which are great. But I think the approach to writing is just unhelpful to the kids.

Teachers have responded to the parliamentary committee.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/education/15273106.Schoolstaffffromheadteachersstotraineesswarnovergruellingclassroommexperiences/

Yy. It was never meant to be a literal curriculum - more a series of broad guidelines as to what life long learning should look like

CfE is very vague and tells us what children are supposed to be able to do but not how to go about teaching them to do it. I'm lucky to work in a school where we have a curriculum coverage document for every stage so we can see exactly what we need to teachowever we have a lot of challenging children and parents who take up a lot of the PSA time. This means that children who struggle academically are being left to flounder along, whereas in previous years they would have had help.

Our LA does wants to have a zero exclulsion rate, so basically staff are being defied and sworn at on a regular basis and nothing is done about it. We were told not to apply for extra funding as there wasn't any, yet they have appointed a new Educational Services Officer for ASN - at a large salary.

The press wonder why there is a problem recruiting HTs - I'd love them to spend a day in our excellent HTs shoes and see all the shit she has to put up with

Ironically I've spelt school "scool" in both my posts but I'm going to blame that on the autocorrect!

That appears to have been the message to the committee, Donkey.

That's really sad, as when I moved schools from Scotland to a England in the 90s, I was a lot further ahead than the other children in my year.
Scottish schools had a reputation of being excellent in those days.....what happened??

I don't understand how, for example, reading or numeracy levels have gone down. If you have been a teacher for a good few years surely you know what level a say, P4 pupil should be working at and teach to that level. I'm not understanding how CfE changes that.

I am not sure either Jim but I think it might be that the soft skills (creativity, emotional resilience etc) are getting more attention at the expense of more traditional learning. I actually think there is a lot of merit in the more rounded approach but unfortunately kids still need to know how to write -both for the exams and for employers.v

CfE has been unfortunately timed with a lot of change. Before CfE, we never had the number of EAL children we have now. Children with ASNs went to special schools. Autism and ADHD were practically unheard of. Behaviour units were still open and exclusion was a real possibility. As someone said upthread, there are now far too many schools where three or more members of staff are breaking up fights or trying to prevent a meltdown.

On top of all of dealing with all of that, teachers are also trying to work out what the hell they're teaching and how they're going to cover 379 Es&Os. As well as fit in the Daily Mile, Mindfulness and Growth Mindset.

It could be that in the past 10 years there has been a relevant turnaround of teachers, so the new ones were brought up in the new system. At my school all the teacher are pretty much young/younger/youngish and very few would have been teaching for more than 10 years (which could mean that things are going to get worse in the future...)
It could also be that the old staff is demotivated and tired (see today's report).

That's interesting Wizard I think I might send ds2 (14) up to stay with his grandparents in Scotland if that's the case because I am shitting myself about the changes going on down here.

@Red, but surely all that you describe is true for England as well; and even more so I would expect.

I don't understand how, for example, reading or numeracy levels have gone down. If you have been a teacher for a good few years surely you know what level a say, P4 pupil should be working at and teach to that level. I'm not understanding how CfE changes that.

Acceptable teaching methods changed. We are now expected to use 'active learning' which has been turned into everyone in class moving around with whiteboards and various beads and buttons.

We used to teach! Chalk and talk, followed by 20 examples on the board. The children sat in silence. You took out your child who needed extra help and worked with them. Then you sent them back to their chair to try it themselves and got out the ones who needed extending. It worked.... but it's not acceptable nowadays.

@Red, but surely all that you describe is true for England as well; and even more so I would expect.

To some extent, yes. I believe the % of children educated in ASN units/special schools is higher in England than it is in Scotland. I also think education in England has been better funded that it is here.

However, I really don't know enough about English education to comment in depth.

I was helping out in a class when a couple of kids asked me if something was growth mindset - had no idea what they were on about. Then the teacher gave the spiel.
I think they spend to long in a lesson writing out the learning intentions, then the success criteria rather than just doing the lesson. For some of them, half the maths lesson is writing.
What is EAL?

EAL - English as an Additional Language.

So children who are either new to Scotland, or who grew up using some other language at home.

I think they spend to long in a lesson writing out the learning intentions, then the success criteria rather than just doing the lesson. For some of them, half the maths lesson is writing.

Yup. For years the powers that be would insist on seeing these in every jotter.

One teacher I helped would print the LI and LO on labels and stick them in the jotters. Much more efficient but I bet she ended up buying those labels herself.

All those labels, ink and her time. At one point it was also dictated that the children had to write them so they understood them (yeah, cos it works like that!).

When the SNP came to power we had maximum class sizes of 20 in S1 and S2 for English and Maths - now it can be up to 33. John Swinney's brother heads up English for the SQA so they know what is going on.

It has no rigour. Tests are non-existent so a pupil may go from age 3-16 without having any checks and balances beyond teacher judgement about how they are doing.

Inspectors have no teeth. Our Maths dept was rated very poor in 2005. Nothing has been done about it and results remain appalling.

Curriculum for Excellence gives lists and lists of things they should "experience" but there has never been any exemplification - what does Excellence look like at age 11/12 etc. There is no one person who knows what is going on.

When Higher Still was rolled out, there was money for training. There was nothing for the new qualifications and materials are poor, or dated. We can't afford more.

Teachers have been cut because the SNP have weaselled out of their commitment to maintain teacher numbers.In my school there are subjects we can no longer offer (or never offered) which are considered essential for most pupils.

There is huge inequality and some schools offer opportunities others could only dream of.....in my area pupils can learn string instruments, but no other. Yet in many schools the LA offers brass, woodwind etc. Same LA.

There needs to be a minimum curriculum - all schools must offer x subjects.

Class sizes reduced in Maths and English again.

Much more examples of what good work looks like.

Clearer ways of reporting.

Sorry, bit of a brain dump but this is some of the stuff that occurs.

From looking at my DCs jotters there seems to be a lot of thinking about learning and not actually learning.