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?

Under CfE in the primary I knew the projects were suggested and agreed on by the children, Vikings didn't get a look in.

Didn't one of the architects of CfE recently share that one of the aims is that the brightest are no longer challenged in the same way they were a generation ago? It was on the BBC Scotland documentary reviewing Scottish education since its inception.

I think that represents the biggest divergence between Scotland and England when you look at their education systems.

@Stargirl, huh? one of the aims is that the brightest are no longer challenged in the same way they were a generation ago

This is the documentary:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08gcxb6
but alas it is not available on iPlayer, nor on YouTube :(

That's what he said. I nearly fell off my chair with that and the recording of the use of the tawse in one term at a standard Edinburgh comprehensive in the early 1980s - they gave up recording at 10 000....

One thing that concerns me in these discussions is the belief in an apparent choice between "narrow curriculum doing little but reading, writing and maths" versus "child-centered flapdoodle-ry based on a random hodgepodge of 'topics'."

There is a third alternative, and it is us: a broad balanced curriculum that includes sufficient time on history, geography, science, civics, RE, music and art BUT WHICH TEACHES THESE IN A RIGOROUS MANNER BASED ON A KNOWLEDGE-RICH, SYSTEMATIC CURRICULUM.

A subject like history, properly and systematically taught, should be including lots of reading and writing within each lesson. So it constitutes literacy time AND gives students lots of actual knowledge.

Sorry, "it is this," not "this is us." Need more coffee.

As for letting kids choose and set the topics covered in school.... I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I can hardly think of a more effective method for ensuring the further sociological and class-based stratification of education.

OK, let's get the kids to choose stuff. Perhaps in School 1, the kids will pick football, pirates and goofy fun stuff. In School 2, across the other side of town, kids will pick ancient civilizations and Vikings.

No prizes for guessing which one is the middle class intake school where kids get read to and taken to museums, and which is the poor intake school where kids mostly play computer games and stare at the telly.

@Mary, in fairness I would not know where to start to change the curriculum or the way it is delivered (assuming THAT is the issue). What I do see at MY school is that there is not a great deal of rigour (but I don't mean it in a negative way). When people ask me what my kids (P1 and P3) do at school, the best I can come up with is... sod all :D The interesting fact is that when I ask other parents what THEIR kids do at THEIR school, I get pretty much the same answer.

What can we as parents do about it?
I am very loud and clear in expressing my views to the school management. I try to be tactful. Dismissed completely and immediately, with suggestion that I take my child elsewhere / private.
Any real suggestions as to what might help?
Are there schools out there who recognise the problem, and are trying to buck the anti-rigour trend?
NB can't afford private.

How many parents notice and care about this?

@whistlerx, that is the million dollar question.

The report is already old news and is not in the papers anymore.

Tbh whistler a few years back I asked around if other parents were unhappy with the high school's plans and it was a series of tumbleweed moments!

I think quite a lot (note, not a scientific quantity, I agree...) of parents notice and most CARE.

The question is: what can we DO'?

You can move your child to a 'better' school but it is still CforE.

You can go private if you can afford it (most can't) but why should you HAVE to?

Belle there is still the belief, in some quarters, that the 'teachers know best' and that is promoted by local Councils imo so some parents dont question it, I agree

I am not teacher bashing by any means, but the Curriculum / implementation is not working, by these figures

There has been so much complacency in Scotland about education for many years now. Whatever the faults in the English system, at least they seem to be trying to raise standards there.

I don't know much about primary education, but from my limited involvement standards don't seem high and able pupils aren't really pushed.

From what I've seen where I live, the quality of most of the teachers coming into the profession isn't great. Too many have poor grammar and low standards, and in the secondary school I'm most familiar with, poor subject knowledge which particularly affects their teaching of able pupils.

For ages now in secondary, pupils have been able to pass exams by regurgitating what they've done in class and too often don't understand basic principles of the subject .

Combine that with too many headteachers who aren't up to the job but just talk the talk, and it makes me very worried for the future.

I would agree that the standard of those qualifying are quite poor. I'm fed up hearing new teachers using bad grammar and seeing poor spelling. Myself and another older teacher are used as the go-to people when they're not sure if their SPAG are correct,

In secondary, in some subjects, the standards are woeful. I had Grade 8 and 6 in two instruments but only got a B for higher music. A couple of years ago 18 students from my local secondary got As and the highest standard any of them had was Grade 4. And yet some politicians wont' agree that exams have been dumbed down.

Any ideas on what parents should be doing about this? Either on their own or collectively?
Parents here seem in general to be a lot less assertive / pushy than in England. And to accept less communication from schools.
Plenty of private schools follow the Scottish curriculum, so presumably similar issues there?
I also worry about how the curriculum narrows to only 5 subjects in S5.

I wonder about the effect that this lowering of standards is having on Scottish universities - will they be able to maintain a good reputation, within the UK and internationally?

Slightly different perspective here. My children are going through the English system but we have lots of family and friends in Scotland.
A few plus points for the Scottish system are children start school at 5 and you can defer entry for younger children, more young people appear to be staying on for 6th year than in my day which means applying to Uni with your exam results.
This is so much less stressful than sitting A levels and going through UCAS at the same time.
Obviously Scottish teenagers who choose to stay in Scotland don't have tuition fees.

While some pupils make good use of 6th year, others appear to have a very easy time of it, particularly if they've achieved excellent grades already. Nothing particularly wrong with that but they then go on to do a 4 year Scottish degree, the first year of which might be a pretty easy year too ( depending on the subject of course)
A previous poster mentioned complacency and if I was to comment on any differences it would be that while our Scottish friends are all hugely talented, bright and capable, I would say they lack a certain 'fire in their belly' compared to my children and their friends. There seems to be a bit more 'drifting' along in the Scottish system.
The English system is far from perfect and very stressful at times but I would say that the young people I know here seem to be more focused than their Scottish counterparts.
I'm aware this is anecdotal and a generalisation. The vast majority of young people are working very hard especially at this time of year. There is a balance to be struck between putting so much pressure on our young people that they crack under the strain but also having a rigorous academic system which prepares them for a very competitive future.

The Scottish survey results are nationwide too. So even if pupils from a school are part of the sample, the school and teachers get no feedback. There is no way of knowing how a pupil is doing relative to pupils in other schools. So, if a department is under- performing this will only be found out at S4 level which is too late.

I would welcome being able to see how pupils I teach measure up to those in other schools - feedback I could use to inform my own practice. At the moment I can only guess. I am also a sole teacher so no other classes even within the school to compare with.

So, I just drive them on and hope my old-fashioned ways yield good results. So far so good but who knows.

What Euphemia said.....

I've just told my DD in no uncertain terms she's not following me into teaching. It's such a "cushy job" that no one seems interested/bothered to investigate why people are leaving in droves and why there are vacancies everywhere.

Cream - I am sure there is some truth in the attitude but I am not sure that competitiveness will be the route to success for future workers. The evidence is that emotional intelligence and resilience produces successful leaders, and in future years creativity will be just as valuable as a large know based. The problem is that you can't really focus solely on those soft skills because kids still need the academic balance too. And I am not sure all that stress around sats is good for any kids.

What would be good is consistency in approach and subjects. The language requirements are hopeless really because the subjects being offered at primary are not necessarily being carried on at secondary.

And I would happily lose the daily mile!

What I would love to know is what Jordanhill does differently to get such good results every year.v

As a parent and employer, have seen at first hand the decline in basic standards of education in our young people. Dd left high school 9 years ago, Ds is in S4 at the same school. Even in that time the decline is staggering, never mind comparing it to when I was at school in Scotland in the 70s and 80s. Appalling handwriting, half arsed homework, lax school uniform...Ds is guilty of them all and gets away with it because no one at the school seems bothered. He has been told that two of his S5 subject choices probably won't go ahead, as there aren't enough teachers to cover the classes. I'm so glad my dcs are nearly through it all... hopefully he will be able to leave and get an apprenticeship somewhere.