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?

I wonder if ds' positive experience at primary school was because it already had a high proportion of EAL pupils (60% ). It was an exemplar of best practice at coping with it (with both a bi-lingual teacher and an ESL teacher) and the techniques that it used were very similar to the principles of CfE so there was very little difference in practice when it was implemented). The staff were (and are) very committed with an abnormally low turnover.

Can't say why the secondary school seems to be coping so well - bar an extremely hard working and dedicated SMT . The school has 55 languages spoken and a high proportion of SIMD1,2 & 3 pupils so has plenty of challenges.

My dyslexic child's maths attainment fell like a stone at High School..

I should say primary were moving to CfE slowly, more in the project work. But the primary English and maths was hanging on in as more traditional. So high school was more true to CfE.

My eldest has apalling handwriting. I mean really, really dreadful. All through primary it was an issue, he did extra lessons, was assessed for dyspraxia (borderline but not ticking enoguh boxes for a diagnosis), was often marked down because a teacher couldn't tell a 0 from an 8 in maths, for example.

First parents' evening and secondary and we go in expecting to hear the same again "Bright boy but he really needs to work on his handwriting" - none of that. They aren't bothered.

We are lucky as the kids are both in popular schools, with high achieving pupils and motivated staff. Parents here value education are not going to put up with slipping standards, or have the means to pay tutors or for extra help. As per usual it's going to be the kids where parents aren't interested, there's a high turnover of staff or a high percentage of children with SEN who will suffer.

My daughter's year is huge - she has been in a class of 30 since P2. We kicked up a stink about it at the time but were told that the 25 limit in P2 could be waived in exceptional circumstances, and that having lots of children in the school is exceptional. My older child is in classes of 30 at high school except for the practical sciences, home ec or art when it's 20.

Agree that there's too much navel gazing. Too much getting children to think what they know already, write it down, give them targets, write them down, think about how you're going to go about learning what you have to learn, write it down - by which time you've wasted 45 minutes and it's time to go out for the Stirling Mile or yoga in the playground.

The problem is Education in Scotland and England is overwhelmed by stupid, ill-thought out practices that there is no evidence have any impact but which successive education ministers impose on teachers. They are hugely time-consuming and along with restrictive teaching to useless tests which simply 'weigh pigs' and are sticks to beat schools and teachers with, result in children who are actually poorly educated.

Y6 students come to secondary school in England and can recite grammatical terms, pick them out in writing but can not produce the kind of complex analytical extended writing by themselves that they are required to for GCSE. It is the product of primary schools being forced to teach to tests rather than educate chldren.

At secondary school in England the curriculum has narrowed significantly and the focus is now on teaching children to pass exams in English, Maths, Science, Humanities and MFL.

Nothing else matters to the government. It does not suit many children but they have no option. If your child would be better suited to Technology, Art, Music, Drama or PE that is tough. The school will suffer in the DFE performance tables unless every child takes GCSE English, English Literature, Maths, Two Sciences, MFL and Humanities and achieves Grade 5. Those subjects count most in the Progress 8 score the school is given. If the Progress 8 score is low the school will be inspected by OfSTED, downgraded, and turned into an Academy.

That will make no difference to the school's performance because Academies do not do better than local authority schools and in amny cases perform much worse.

The new GCSEs are extremely hard- many contain A level subject matter. They are entirely examination based. Y11 next summer will sit about 35-40 hours of complex examinations. Students are already increasingly disillusioned and stressed by these GCSEs and at this point have about 15 hours of exams to sit.

Standards are not rising but the governments persist with their plans- all based on measuring teachers and beating up schools.

Can you imagine DRs being told by people who know nothing about medical matters how to operate, how to treat patients? Teachers are not allowed to use their professional judgement to do their jobs.

Teachers are leaving in droves. WE have three friends who have bern teaching 10+ years, and lved their jobs, all leaving their jobs this summer because they have just got to the point where they hate what they are having to do. One is re-training as a Physiotherapist, one is opening a micro-brewery with his brother and the third is going to work in an estate agents. They will all earn much less money, at least initially, but have just given up the fight in education, are exhausted and reckon life isfor living and enjoying not for spending marking in different colour pens and running endless extra catch-up classes.

It is an immoral system that puts children and their needs behind a whole list of factors that are about political scheming and interference.

Sorry, that was a bit of a rant about England but I am so angry about what is happening to our children in schools now.

Don't blame you Lulu. For all my frustration with cfe I would still rather my kids were enjoying their time at primary school rather than being drilled for tests. It's one of the reasons I'm more likely to stay in scotland than move back to England.

The presumption of mainstream has dramatically changed what happens in classrooms. I read in the Scottish Education Journal today about how the number of ASN pupils in primaries in Scotland has increased 73% from 2011 to 2016 (it's on my desk, so can't check the exact numbers). My colleague and I were not at all surprised by this figure.

What this means is that I spend all my time as a class teacher dealing with five children whilst desperately trying to teach twenty others. I can't even finish a sentence, and In can't even begin to describe how wearing this is as a working environment, and how depressing it is to see the fed up, pained faces of all the children who are eager to learn and trying to listen, and just can't. Those five are just the most dominating, there are a whole range of other needs which just can't be met, because there is only one of me. I've been teaching ten years, and in the same stage for most of that time, so theoretically I should have a bank of experience and resources to work with, and each successive year it should be easier. But its not, every month seems to be harder at the moment. It's a sad state of affairs, and I kid myself that my own children aren't sitting in classrooms like mine, but in reality they probably are.

Staff at our school today got told that inspectors don't like seeing topics that aren't "meaningful contexts for the children" so that means no rainforests, no vikings, no ancient Egyptians. So I'm guessing we'll be doing a lot of local studies and Scottish history.

My DH who is a Deputy Head, had to take a boy with ESBD from a Special School into their mainstream secondary school in a tough area. He has a statement and 25 hours of support (paid for by the LA ). He is taking up inordinate amount of teachers' and support staff' time in every lesson, every Break and Lunchtime. 160 staff have done additional three hours training after school on his specific needs so they can deal with him and support him.
He will not co-operate if he does not think he should have to. He hits other children, throws things at staff - hit a teacher in the face with a ruler - loses his temper, kicks, swears, shouts, runs away, is really rude. But his parents insist he is in a mainstream school. He has all of the symptoms of ASD but CAMHS will not diagnose him because he scores ok n Inference. He is extremely bright. There is no one he responds to positively once he is in trouble. DH - possibly the most tolerant man in the world- says they are spending hours every day trying to manage him. SEN say they have to meet his needs. They are under significant pressure not to Permanently Exclude gecause of his statement. The Special School will not have him back. He was P EX from his previous school before that for the same things.
DH says if our DS was in the class with him he would remove our DS from the school because the children are not able to be taught. Many are scared of him.It seems his needs outweigh everything else.

I agree about the endless Success Criteria and Learning Intentions. It means nothing to most kids, but we are told we have to do it. The latest thing we were told was that we had to have Learning Conversations with the pupils.

So when we had an audit from the LA, we were slated because they asked the kids "Does your teacher have learning conversations with you?" We discuss their work with them all the time, but hadn't been calling it by that name

It seems to be all about spouting the right jargon. I know of 2 former members of staff with less than 5 years' experience who have got promoted posts because they can talk the talk and are bloody useless classroom teachers.

Sadly I can't see things getting any better in the near future. Those of us who have taught for years know that it's shite (as have most of the previous trendy notions been).

Staff at our school today got told that inspectors don't like seeing topics that aren't "meaningful contexts for the children"

Translation - have to turn them into good little Nationalists with no knowledge of anything outside of Scotland. What a crock of shit. How exactly are they squaring that with the idea that the C for E is broad and allows children to explore their own interests?

Mrs lol. This was the worst thing in primary: dumbed down projects. Or political ones about the EU or the UN. Local projects I am all for but they also should do something about the wider world.

We had been told the same about topics that aren't "meaningful contexts for the children"

As TinfoilHattie says - an absolute crock of shit. So they will learn nothing about the past or other countries or cultures. How very insular and pathetic. Is this some new SNP propaganda?

We told our HT it was a heap of poop and are just carrying on with our usual topics. I will justify what I am teaching to any inspector.

My thoughts exactly. Let's have a curriculum that allows us to follow the interests of the children....but don't allow any contexts that the children may actually enjoy!

It's a very patronising attitude too.

Like the whole phonics debacle. Clackmannanshire should have shown the way but she. I asked about phonics I was told that it's not a good method for the children in better off areas! So mixed methods it is then.

Don't know why "she." popped up there, should read "when"!

Vikings - Shetland, Orkneys. Romans - in Scotland
And could you just incorporate some compare and contrast into the topics - rainforest against Scottish forests; life in ancient Egypt vs life in ancient Orkneys?

I'm a secondary teacher. There are so many problems that I genuinely don't know where to start but a few of the most pressing issues to me at the moment would include...

Recruiting good quality candidates into the profession and then keeping them. Many of the students and probationers I've seen in the last 5 years have been poor - for a variety of reasons.

The constant changes being made to the qualifications we are delivering - and the lack of information. I've just started teaching students who will sit Nat 5 next May - and I have NO IDEA what format their exam paper is likely to be. I haven't seen a specimen yet.

Constant revision to above mentioned qualifications.

Workload.

An annual pay cut due to increasing pension contributions.

Happy to discuss any of the above further but didn't want to write an essay!

I am very against the Scottish-ification of the curriculum. I have no problem with children learning about their heritage and some stories in Scottish history are great - Mary Queen of Scots, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Highland clearances, Clydebank Blitz. But it's also important for them to learn about their place in the world too. So far my kids' topic work is sort of balanced - they've done Jacobites, Scottish Wars of Independence, Vikings, Victorians and Romans but also Caribbean, Australia (with an exchange teacher from Sydney), France the Titanic and the Egyptians.

We have Roman ruins less than a mile from my house. The Antonine wall cuts right through central Scotland. Vikings had a huge impact on the history of Scotland. Thousands of Scottish people left in the 19th century and went to Canada, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. Also there are children in my kids classes whose parents are from France, Greece, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, India and even - gasp - England - are we telling them that their heritage and culture doesn't matter because all that's important is Scotland?

I've got two in primary and I haven't a clue what they are doing academically in school. There is no real communication from the school, parents evenings they just say they are doing fine. There are no text books. They do rubbish like how to be resilient but my P4 struggles with the times table. They do very little in Friday half days. And golden time!!! What the hell is that? I do despair. We do a lot at home and they have tutors for maths.
SNP is banging on about independence and ignoring everything else. How can they run the country when they have let down our young people so badly?

Our local secondary school has 8 teachers leaving this year. There is virtually nobody applying for subjects like HE, technical and computing so I can see these subjects no longer being offered. This is not a little school but 800+ in a large town with big catchment area. I'm so glad my kids have finished school as it's only going to get worse

I'm intrigued that so many here blame the SNP.

Are the SNP also responsible for poor literacy rates in England?

Today’s OECD study of basic skills ranks England lowest in the developed world for literacy, and second lowest for numeracy.
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/britain-named-worst-in-developed-world-for-literacy-so-yes-school-reform-is-needed/#

Peterhouse it's because Scottish education has been falling at an alarming rate while the SNP have been at the helm.

Hapa our school only does times tables up to 10 by p7, I wonder if that's the norm?

We have gone further at home because to me it's normal to know your 12 times table! Then they are given timed tests with all sorts on and the kids who do regular stuff at home or with Kumon do better of course. It's really odd imo, like you should only aim so high.