Scottish education - what’s gone wrong?

[miimblemomble]

Expat / emigrant Scot here.

I keep reading on threads here that ‘Scotland had a great education system but that’s all gone now’ and other similar comments. My SIL lives in Edinburgh, she’s not a fan of Nicola sturgeon or the SNP and part of it’s because of what they have “done to the schools”. I haven’t seen her in over a year now (thanks Covid) so haven’t asked what she means.

So is it true? What has had such a bad effect on the schools? I grew up being told that Scotland had the best education system in the world (not sure how that is measured) but that doesn’t seem to be the case. So what’s happened since?

Cheers all.

Many things, trying to close the attainment gap by pulling down achievements at the top? Curriculum for excellence? There was supposed to be some review paper done which has been delayed and delayed and now is delayed until after the election, funny that....

Scotland has plummeted down so many international league tables for education that the SNP withdrew us from most of them to hide the embarrassment!
I think it’s multi factorial, OP. Far too much interference in schools and prescription of curriculum by the SNP, repeated reorganisations of exams, refusal to implement any good ideas if they originated in England, like the prolonged resistance to the academy system.
My own DDs were given a particularly biased schooling in history, which covered nothing except the Scottish “wars of independence”.
There is also the free university places fiasco - the SNP cannot afford to sponsor enough places for all the Scots kids who want them, as they are too stretched by spending over £97million per year on free places for EU students.
As a result, the universities have to offer more places to fee paying English or non EU international students to balance the books.
This means proportionately more kids from poor backgrounds in England go to university (using the loan system) than poor kids in Scotland - which defeats the whole purpose!

In other words the lefties have made their usual great mess of things that once worked well. Wasn't the SNP quite right wing a good number of years ago. Thats what I was told.

I'm not convinced that curriculum for excellence really is that excellent. No one seems to know where we should be etc etc.

Curriculum for Excellence for a start. At least with 5-14, we knew what to teach. Now it's all "I can" statements, working in groups and active maths. There's no point having confident individuals if they can't do the work when they're not in a group.

We were promised infant classes of no more than 18 - now that's gone up to 30. Increased inclusion with no additional support - my friend is told to fuck off on a daily basis and has to evacuate the whole class but no additional support is provided for a child who obviously had great need of it.

School buildings - we were told about 5 years ago that 2 of our classroom were not fit for purpose but we are still using them. On top of this, they are trying to close several small schools and we would be expected to accommodate some of these pupils. Our town last had a new school built in 1974. Since then the population has increased by around 25% with more and more new houses being built.

DD's teacher in p3 was in her 70's and had taught all her life. She was a huge critic of the curriculum for excellence. Fitting so many things in, that the basics are left behind. She said barely any came in to the class with the basics ready for her to teach what she needed to in p3 and that's a school in an affluent area with little deprivation.

Yes c f e - being chucked in without adequate staffing or facilities, poor implementation.

There's no point having confident individuals if they can't do the work when they're not in a group.

I agree. This is something I noticed with my P6 during home schooling. She basically couldn't do it. Couldn't do anything at all independently.

I addition, a lot of schools - thankfully not ours-- are moving towards a completely play based curriculum in P1 and some P2s. My friend teaches P2 in a local school and is tearing her hair out at having to, essentially, teach 2 years' worth of work in one year. She has noticed a big decline in their overall ability in almost every area since the play based approach began. Our school's more formal approach is now deemed old fashioned

I'm not a teacher but I do have three kids all state educated in Scotland and went through the system myself (back in the dark ages).

Agree with the whole "reflection" on learning thing - I remember my eldest coming home in P1 with a massive ring binder of stuff and having to set his own goals in all curricular areas, then revisit those goals to assess progress at Christmas and then again at Easter and again at summer. In P1. Further up the school, spending ages setting learning goals and writing about learning journeys and navel gazing about the learning experience rather than just getting on and bloody teaching them.

And yes to the focus on Scottish to the exclusion over everything else - my S1 has now done the Scottish Wars of bloody Independence twice, once in P6 and once in S1. And they revisit it again in Higher. Yet he knows nothing about Tudors, the Irish famine, the English civil war, and loads of other stuff which is UK history but not Scottish-specific.

Obsession with "Scots" and diverting resources which could be supporting basics of English and Maths to producing copies of books and material in "Scots". More and more piled onto teachers in terms of literacy hours, daily mile, however many hours a week of PE, whatever other smart initiative they come up with without actually speaking to teachers who say that no, it's impossible to deliver 2 hours a week of PE per student when you have one hall which is needed for assembly, lunch and everything else.

Some interesting comments here.

All this reflecting on learning stuff - that will be the stuff on the homeschooling schedule that I’ve been thinking ‘what’s this nonsense’ and missing out. Why the need to write extensively about how you could approach a maths question differently when you’ve just zipped through them in 2 minutes.

The learning in groups is interesting too. My p4 is a nightmare for trying to work independently - ‘I can’t do it’ is the standard cry. To be fair, he’s being left alone a lot as we’re both working and on calls throughout the day but it’s noticeable that his p2 sister is actually able to just sit down and get on with it by herself. He’s the one who has better standardised scores but as a p2 she has now been homeschooled for the same time as she has spent actually in school.

Oh my word this is depressing. As a graduate of history, I'm actually upset that dcs are having such a narrow historical education. In order to truly understand history, you need to look at the experience of different countries.
I've also read that classes are very crowded in some areas, with 33 or 34 children. Is that true?
The free university places really pisses me off. It should be means tested and more money should be put into apprenticeships etc.

Curriculum for Excellence basically. Bits of it are good, most of it is not.

I think it's fair enough to learn about Scottish history and it's certainly not to the exclusion of all else! The vast majority of History is still UK centric although there is an element of departmental / teacher choice. Some schools focus on Russia / America etc. You couldn't possibly fit it all in or please everyone.

In English we have the Scottish Text section which is a fifth of the course. Don't think that's focusing on Scotland above all else.

yes my DC was in a class of 33 before we moved her and the noise was incredible. Well MissEliza they're getting a good education on history being written by the victors (of Scottish elections), nationalistic hubris influencing history teaching is harking back to the 19th century after all.

Hmm some of this chimes with what my mum told me (she was a primary teacher, but retired maybe 15 years ago) - not able to properly acknowledge the higher achievers / start of the push to hand out "I tried my hardest" stickers to the whole class on sports day... she's glad to be out of it.

I know it's OT but I remember reading on the FWR board that it seems that the more repressive / traditional cultures tend to go too far in the other direction when they do start to loosen up. Maybe that's happened here - the recognition that lower achievers weren't being helped enough translated to far too much focus on being "fair"' and not making pupils feel bad?

OTOH the education system here in France is very very traditional by comparison ;-) I cannot imagine either a teacher or a student's reaction at being asked to reflect on their 'learning experience"!! There has to be a happy medium between chalk-and-talk and happy clappy.

And also I'm no expert in the ins and outs of it all but from what I do know resistance to academies can only be a good thing.

"Nat" 5s and "Nat" 4s.

I mean come on!!!

Sad to hear these experiences, I have just primary aged who seem to be getting on ok (homeschooling aside)

Also need to get my head round the uni finding situation. Is it not also true that Scottish students have to start paying back loans at a lower threshold? And I'd heard about the restricted places - why is more noise not made about this? (Oh yeah, SNP acolytes)

This OECD report that's been delayed, you can bet your bottom dollar it's not good otherwise the government would be rushing to publish. And it's now historic, I know anecdotally that many state schools in England provided actual online teaching in the first lockdown, we're not even getting that now.

We should start referring to it as the "damning OECD schools" report - and to refute that they'd have to publish

@kurtrussellsbeard

And also I'm no expert in the ins and outs of it all but from what I do know resistance to academies can only be a good thing.

I would never support the introduction of academies in Scotland, both from a parental and teacher point of view .

Arguably, the English curriculum is still too British centred but it's much broader than the Scottish curriculum has apparently become. Mind you, the only non Scottish topics I can remember from my school days were the Tudors and the Victorians.

Yes @StarryEyeSurprise it would be horrific I think.

@Waverless that's terrible! You should be getting online teaching. I would complain to your local authority if you're not.

@RaspberryCoulis I don't agree it's navel gazing to be a part of your own learning experience. Long gone are the days when we should be filling young folk up with information. It's a crucial part of learning to set your own goals and revisit this to see if you have achieved your targets. I think most people in employment do this regularly and it's a fantastic skill. You need to know why you're learning and you need to actively think about how best it is to do it. A bit of self reflection is the best way for this.

I agree on no to academies, though the concept of getting a place in your catchment school seems to be eroding anyway sadly. This has always been a huge plus.

All this learning intention stuff reminds me of the smart Alec kids answers going round
Q- how do you know Tim has more than Ben?
A - 'Maths'

There is a whole range of issues that have impacted it. Universities in Scotland used to be at the forefront of research into learning and education, this is no longer the case. Once teachers in Scotland were being trained by educationalists who were carrying out this research into how children learn, now instead they are, for the most part, being taught by teachers who have come in from schools and who basically teach students based on their own practice, having no understanding of the theory behind this. Lecturers who do have a background in research, have often come from fields outwith education and never actually taught in a school themselves so have no experience of connecting the theory to practice. This has meant we have schools that are full of teachers who do not actually understand how children learn, they rely on a prescriptive curriculum to tell them what to teach and Curriculum for Excellence doesn't do this. We also have student teachers at certain universities spending more time studying philosophy than how to teach numeracy to children.
Alongside this, you also have teachers increasingly moving into leadership roles in school very quickly, without having spent the time required in the classroom to really understand the practicalities of classroom practice and organisation or to develop their own understanding of children's learning. I've known headteachers who have only been teaching 5 years, with only 2 of them being as actual class teachers.

This is alongside SNP's and the universities' push for mastes level education for teachers, excellent in theory and would be fantastic if it were not for the way this is being carried out at universities, which is effectively leading to teachers getting masters and even doctoral qualifications, graded on undergraduate criteria.

There's even more to it than this (have a look at some of the stuff Walter Humes has written, he foresaw this happening) but I believe that this is much of the crux of it. Teachers are coming out badly prepared to teach from the universities, and if they get into the right school with the right headteacher then they'll be in a lucky position to move forward and continue to learn what they need, but in many cases this just isn't happening.