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?

It is worth remembering that PISA has only been carried out since 2000 and a quick google provides numerous articles and academic sources critiquing it.

Indeed, nothing is perfect, but as Andrew Marr pointed out, these tests were deemed OK when they showed that Scotland was doing well, so it is a bit rich to criticize them if things don't go your way.

Political opportunism does indeed have its pitfalls Arkadia which is why I am resisting the urge to jump on the SNP bashing bandwagon unreservedly.

"The closest native speaker must be at least a 4 hours' drive plus a ferry journey. (we are in the central belt)."

Do you really think that, or was it exaggeration for effect?

Native Gaelic speakers do not all come from or live on islands...

@tabulah, i suppose they could have moved, but in this case Gaelic and Swahili should be treated the same ;)

"i suppose they could have moved"

Or be from somewhere a lot closer where Gaelic is still spoken.

Or in fact in Glasgow where there's a fair few native speakers.

The country that all of us on this thread are living in right now is the UK. Isn't it?

No problem with learning about Scottish things, but what about learning about the rest of the UK too?
Unless Scotland goes independent in the next few years, I expect my DCs to look for a good job wherever they can find it. For many young people that initially means London. It may do for them too (though the education issue may kabosh that).
The sense I get is that the constant message is that you are Scottish, not that you are British.
I am very far from being someone who harps on about being British, and I can't stand the government in Westminster. But the fact remains that we are all UK citizens. I'm not sure that that message is being conveyed by the Scottish curriculum.

So PISA has been around mere 17 years so far, and let's drop that for some completely new measures we make up? That doesn't add up, does it?

When I was at school in the 80's I learned about the Vikings, Romans, Egyptians, Aztec, both world wars and the English Monarchy (pre-Act of Union). I learned zero about Scottish History, loos ike the balance is being redressed.

I live in Glasgow and there are 3 native speakers of Gaidhlig upstairs waiting for me to finish making their tea. They go to a school full of other native speakers!

Well according to Wikipedia there are some pockets in central Scotland were 5-10% of the population speak Gaelic. How many 10s or 100s of people that is I wouldn't know (and whether they actually emigrated, rather than being indigenous). I bet that Polish is way more popular, though, especially in the central belt.
As I said, except for the twee factor difficult to see the use for Gaelic instruction at school.

That doesn't add up, does it?

Maybe we won't notice in a generation's time since they wont be able to add up?

I don;t have any issue with there being a little more focus on Scottish history and culture than there was, but not the way it is now, so that every subject has to be taught from a Scottish perspective, as if nowhere else in the world exists or produces literature etc.

It's a not very subtle form of brainwashing especially on kids who may not be exposed to much beyond x factor or the football at home. I don't want to enforce stereotypes, but this is more likely to be the case in poorer homes, another reason for the SNP to keep the poor poor and uneducated - more future voting fodder for them.

I'm a teacher who doesn't have a single yes voting teacher friend . Not sure what that does to some folks spreadsheets though 🤔

"except for the twee factor difficult to see the use for Gaelic instruction at school."

It's not twee, it's a language, a language that people speak, in this country...in places well within an hour and a half of even the most eastern parts of the central belt, even if you ignore Glasgow and other places within it.

Whether there's any point teaching any second language at primary when educational basics aren't doing so well is a fair enough point, but I'm not seeing the need to be quite so condescending about Gaelic in particular.

I personally find the pushing of Gaelic very irritating when it's combined with a real lack of support for EAL learners in mainstream.

As someone else pointed out- there are probably far more Poles in the Central Belt. Where is the drive to include that language?

Moreover, Gaelic schools are almost 100% white middle class children with suspiciously low rates of SEN. It was a well known secret that the Gaelic school was as close as you could get to a private education without needing to jeopardise your lefty credentials.

Tabulah, not to be pernickety, but Scotland is a nation, NOT a country. The country we live in is the UK.

"not to be pernickety, but Scotland is a nation, NOT a country. The country we live in is the UK."

Where did I say otherwise?

Arkadia, not to be argumentative, but Scotland is a Country. It is also a nation. As far as I am aware the words are synonyms. The UK is a union. The Act of Union didn't turn Scotland into merely a region.

"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) consists of a group of islands off the western coast of Europe. The largest, Great Britain, comprises three countries: England, Scotland and Wales. Ireland, to the west, consists of the UK's province of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
United Kingdom | The Commonwealth
thecommonwealth.org/our-member-countries/united-kingdom"

"not to be argumentative, but Scotland is a Country"

Makes no odds because I said this country... I'm pretty sure we are in a country.

Well, what do you know. I stand corrected it seems...

Tabula, I wasn't arguing with you - I agree with your post :)

Nyx, I know... I was just still going -

But it's got nothing to do with anything anyway?

Of course children should learn about their country, but they also need to learn about the wider world around them. I really worry about the narrowing of Scottish education.

I'm absolutely all in favour of Gaelic being preserved in areas where it was spoken, but when children in the Gaelic schools are essentially getting a private education while funds are being cut to support for children with SEN it's not really on.

trixy - don't get me wrong, I think there's all sorts of valid points about Gaelic and tbh languages in general that are worth discussing...

I was just objecting to the characterisation of it as not existing anywhere other than islands and somehow remote and twee when it is a living language used by people in this country - especially on a thread where people were complaining about the lack of Latin...