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.

Oh you're that poster... the one which won't hear a word of criticism against your beloved SNP.

Whatever. The navel gazing hasn't worked for any of my kids at primary level and lots of their friends' parents think it's pointless too.

Eh okay then ... I've actually been nothing but critical about the SNP's approach to education but you carry on.

Couple of articles on CforE
www.thenational.scot/news/18019298.curriculum-excellence-negative-impact-pupils-report-claims/
(from 2019)
www.tes.com/news/what-curriculum-excellence

@NCnotAllThat
My DS is good at maths - not a genius - but he gets maths. I have been asking since P1 for him to be 'stretched' - wording advised by MiL (ex-teacher)- still waiting for it three years later. The home learning maths was woeful for us. He could do the stuff they were setting in p1

@makingitupaswegoon sounds like they are similar. He’s also could do most of the home learning in P1 and I’ve been trying to ask politely how he progresses. I’ll borrow your MIL’d wording next time (no teacher friends or relatives here). I just keep being told DC does the same as everyone then can go to a challenge area which when I ask DC about sounds like games he can do alone rather than any further concepts etc. DC last term
in school also frequently mentioned that when he finished his maths work he would help another child with theirs. I don’t mind this (good confidence building for my DC and teaching soft skill likes helping friends etc) but was going to monitor this term as to frequency as it felt like this helping the o to et child was in place of any additional progression work for my DC (it’s hard to get full facts from a 6/7 year old of course!)

Scottish Texts at N5 and Higher can boil down to just 6 poems or 4 short stories, covered over and over again. There will be generations of children who know 6 Duffy poems and not much else in terms of literature. I have no problem with teaching Scottish texts but the rote learning and narrowly written mark schemes mean pupils can simply regurgitate and get full marks.

So much of the curriculum (or SQA exams) requires knowledge of how to answer the question rather than underlying understanding of techniques or literature.

My dd could read way above the books she was getting in p2, with matching comprehension. I asked the teacher about extension and she told me that it was fine that they were doing easier things in class as long as we were reading other things at home!

Good luck on the extension from the teacher - if you can access kumon maths I can recommend that. Mathletics is good too, essentially go online for maths extension.

@NCnotAllThat
Yes, all of this sounds familiar. We usually got teachers trotting out 'don't push him', 'it's not all about facts' when I tried to explain DS was bored rigid reciting the 2 times table (again). We had some progress in P3 but this came grinding to a halt with lockdown. Other kids in DS class think he is a maths genius - he's not , he just likes numbers

@turtletattle
Yes been there with reading too. DS brings book from home to read in class now as there was nothing available at suitable level in his class area

And yes, my dd was also set to bringing up less able kids which is nice and good in itself but not if there's no extension going on. Don't panic @NCnotAllThat it's a nice problem to have and we are lucky there are so many online schemes now.

'We're teaching them to read for expression' - my dd is brilliant at accents and expression. Yes we just stopped bothering with the once a week school book, and took books in.

As a teacher I hate curriculum for excellence. It's is barely a curriculum since so much is left to individual teachers choices and it certainly doesn't delivery excellence.

"Active" and "collaborative" learning while including "digital literacy" at every opportunity. Sometimes the best way to teach and to learn is sitting at a desk with good old paper and pencil. So many children even far up the school don't have a solid grasp of their times tables or spelling because they spend so much time on play and group work.

I hate the way we teach maths - teaching 4/5/6 different complicated ways of doing calculations when one way would work. Today I had children drawing out 46x6 in increasingly complicated ways (not my class I'm just covering) they didn't understand why they were doing it and used nearly a full A4 sheet to come to the answer!

Too much focus on Scots and Scotland - every geography and history experience and outcome has to relate to their own area or Scotland. For example we study the amazon and to make it fit the curriculum have to link it to Scotland. World history doesn't easily fit in unless you craft some weird way of relating it to Scotland.

And yes the reflection and success criteria and learning intentions. Lower down the school they don't understand them and it feels like half a lesson is taken up trying to explain them before beginning the bloody lesson.

Ah thank you OP that was quite therapeutic

My dd has only done American history and WW2 so no Scottish history in her school and that S4
In fairness when I done my O levels and highers I could tell you matte about B52 bombers than any Scottish history.

More not matte

Thank you all (and sorry for shifting the focus of the thread slightly!) It is very helpful to read all this and I will look online as suggested. I suppose I have been naive in not really knowing what the “curriculum” is now (I tried looking once and couldn’t pin anything down to what my child should “know”). I also think P1-2 I was more concerned with settling them into school as a quiet child and building up confidence that way and of course the initial learning is rapid (first phonics, learning to writing etc etc) and I’m now at P3 wondering why the learning seems “slow” (for any of a better word). I was quite surprised when our neighbour (P5/6) was chatting during the snow and said they were doing 6 times tables as I thought that would all have been done much lower down the school. I’ve a lot to learn clearly. Or tod me wonders if I should go back to being blissfully unaware rather than over worrying about something I can’t change.

Thanks for articles also. Interesting reads - I wonder what if anything will change before my children it the senior phase. I do like that there is some mention of building social skills up.

The Scottish Heinemann books are all on Amazon btw, I bought those to get a better sense and found them good, and then there are the bond ones too for verbal reasoning etc.

Greetings from a demented mum - c f e and lack of any detail in feedback drove me nearly potty.

@Onebabyandamadcat

As a teacher I hate curriculum for excellence. It's is barely a curriculum since so much is left to individual teachers choices and it certainly doesn't delivery excellence.

"Active" and "collaborative" learning while including "digital literacy" at every opportunity. Sometimes the best way to teach and to learn is sitting at a desk with good old paper and pencil. So many children even far up the school don't have a solid grasp of their times tables or spelling because they spend so much time on play and group work.

I hate the way we teach maths - teaching 4/5/6 different complicated ways of doing calculations when one way would work. Today I had children drawing out 46x6 in increasingly complicated ways (not my class I'm just covering) they didn't understand why they were doing it and used nearly a full A4 sheet to come to the answer!

Too much focus on Scots and Scotland - every geography and history experience and outcome has to relate to their own area or Scotland. For example we study the amazon and to make it fit the curriculum have to link it to Scotland. World history doesn't easily fit in unless you craft some weird way of relating it to Scotland.

And yes the reflection and success criteria and learning intentions. Lower down the school they don't understand them and it feels like half a lesson is taken up trying to explain them before beginning the bloody lesson.

Ah thank you OP that was quite therapeutic

Re saying everything needs to link to Scotland, it doesn't- I attach one set of es and os for the Soc Sci part of the curriculum as an example ( history comes under people, past events and societies).

It's up to the teacher to choose the area they focus on. My favourites are The Swinging Sixties, The American Civil Rights Movement and WW2.

There's no requirement to only teach topics that we can link to Scotland so not sure why you're saying this.

@kurtrussellsbeard
Btw I'm not saying I'm a genuinely talented professional in case I'm accused of sour grapes here. smile As mentioned in a previous post I just about shit myself daily at what I still need to learn.

It definitely doesn't come across that way at all. In my experience the best teachers have often been those with the attitude you describe, knowing they always have more to learn and questioning practice which means they are constantly learning and developing as teachers (and learners themselves). The problem is that often these teachers don't think they have the knowledge or experience to go for leadership roles, and instead they go to those with less experience but with an attitude and air of 'I know what I'm doing', even when it's far from the truth. The problem is when these people get leadership roles, they automatically see themselves as the expert and don't see the gaps in their own knowledge. One of the teachers I mentioned before (who had been teaching less than 5 years before becoming a head teacher) led a staff development session for a group of teachers, someone asked a question which he answered completely incorrectly with absolute confidence. When I asked him afterwards where he got his information from he told me, "oh when people ask you questions like that you just make up the answer on the spot".

@starryeyesurprise
Ok, they must have been class teachers before promotion though. It's near impossible I'd think to become a PT with no teaching experience ( in Scotland).

They need to have classroom experience but someone moving into leadership roles with limited experience is problematic as we then end up with people at the top, making key decisions, without the fundamental understanding that's required to make such decisions.

Wbeezer

I dont think soft skills aren't important just that they are aquired relatively quickly when the pupils are ready to aquire them, they don't need to be laboured for years at the expense of actual subject knowledge or practical skills.

This.

Also agree with others about the jumping around before children are able to grasp concepts. The response always seems to be 'it's ok, we'll revisit it again.'
Surely it would be far more sensible to consolidate learning before moving on?

Someone should send this sensible thread to John Swinney. Instead of using a bunch of academics to look at the problems in Scottish education they should just consult Scotnet

Soooo many things. Presumption of mainstreaming is the one most teachers would suggest I think.

It's interesting that people are talking about maths because I love all the strategies we teach now. The children in our school are definitely far, far more confident with mental arithmetic and have a much better understanding of all concepts taught than they did 5/6 years ago.

As a parent I agree with @onebabyandamadcat - I have three DC and don't understand why maths is taught the way it is under CfE. Back in the day when I was at school we were given Heineman textbooks and it felt as though you did hundreds of one particular type of sum before going on to the next one. This meant each type of sum was embedded into our brains. With my DC though I see that they move on from one type of sum to another very quickly and they get confused about which method to use, or start using part of one method and then use part of another.

Back in the day when I was at school we were given Heineman textbooks and it felt as though you did hundreds of one particular type of sum before going on to the next one. This meant each type of sum was embedded into our brains. With my DC though I see that they move on from one type of sum to another very quickly and they get confused about which method to use, or start using part of one method and then use part of another

It's a shame that repetition seems to have been lost. I prefer to focus on one method at the time and really drill that for a couple of weeks, before moving on. Ideally DC should develop the knowledge and confidence to have a preferred strategy for mental arithmetic, long multiplication etc.

“Social conscience”, does anyone else get told about the head’s social conscience when they complain that their child is not being challenged. My son, P4 loves maths games out of school so he does quite a bit at home. He said school maths is dull cause he learns nothing, yet when I ask for more challenging work I am told that the teacher (and head) have a ‘social conscience’ which means that they have to concentrate resources on those struggling. Does anyone else get this? Is it something that is taught to them, that you have to concentrate resources on those struggling. The education act states that every child’s needs must be met, but if you are able your needs are totally irrelevant.

I remember when I was in primary school we had spmg books for maths and you worked through it at your own pace so in p7 you’d have kids on green books, orange books or purple books depending on their level. Reading wise we chose a book to read to the teacher each day from any level we wanted. It was definitely less class learning for maths and literacy and more individual. We did class learning for topic style work, art, music etc. We also had visiting teachers for art, music and drama which have all been cut now as well.

I feel like learning made more sense and was more logical when I was at school. Also I find for my eldest whose dyslexic all the the strategies and weird ways of explaining maths in particular are awful for him. In home schooling we skip past all the examples and i ask him the questions at the end of the activity and he (usually) gets them fairly quickly. If I try to go through all the examples of different stragies provided he ends up crying! As do I. I actually bought an old maths book from when I was at school and he much preferred going through it 😀

C for E, and not enough emphasis on results. I have seen a report which was basically excellent in all areas however the exam result was 16 %, in no circumstances is 16 % excellent