OECD report on Scottish schools... damning ?

[Ianrankinfan]

According to the Guardian the report on Scottish schools is “damning”
It says that the system has failed to keep pace with the latest best practice and has no long term strategies .

Recommendations include scrapping the SQA. .... which Nicola Sturgeon defended not that long ago ,...
What do you think... teachers especially... what are your views ?

Yes, I think that's true. But it comes back to children needing to have a certain bank of knowledge, and what the best way is for them to acquire that knowledge! Sounds like following the methods the CFE promotes isn't it, so teachers, and students, are having to work extra hard to make up for lost time in earlier years by doing "quick and dirty" cramming for them to manage in the exams the SG (and to be fair, educational institutions such as unis) insists they sit.

I've felt uneasy for ages that Scottish schools seem to have become giant guinea pigs in testing educationalists' theories. Yes the theory of holistic learning and whatsits is nice and sound, but training teachers in its implementation has been piss-poor by all accounts. So the teachers are left floundering, doing what they see as best for the children within the spirit of CFE while trying to cover the whole age-relevant body of knowledge - but then having to give up and revert to tried and tested methods to actually get them through exams. Which themselves haven't been designed (seemingly) by anyone with any understanding of how CFE is supposed to have worked.

I'm not a teacher or anything, but just comparing what English children of a similar age to DS had to do in home learning is really worrying to me. I know it's a different system and all, and it's possible that the depth of knowledge of certain things (numeracy, possibly, and maybe the concept of research methods) is greater in Scottish pupils, but the overall level England seems to be working at seems way ahead to me. Especially in terms of written work... (I know everyone was joking/ despairing over fronted adverbials being taught to 7 year olds, but even though no one really needs to know what they are called, that level of writing technique has only been introduced to DS now at the end of P5 (9-10)). It's not just his school as far as I can tell - as all the CFE worksheets on twinkl and so on were the same. I'm sure there is a certain level of catching up at high school, but again, that seems to be being done through "traditional" teaching methods. It really is a mess. But now DS is embedded in this mess, and I do worry for him and his peers.

Sorry, that was in reply to flossy on exams being good for some but not all, but I agree with wings too! I'm not saying exams are the devil's work, and they do help consolidation and so on - but they really don't seem to fit with the way CFE is implemented so far, especially in the jump from primary to secondary, and again from lower secondary to exam years.

I wonder at the increased effort to mark assessments where the subject matter covered was so broad too. CFE has been poorly implemented, don't you wonder why 14 years on you'd have confidence in their ability to course correct with even more fundamental changes at the top?

I agree it is a huge education policy experiment.

Private schools that offer a levels /IB will be 🤑🤑🤑

This could prove to be a costly knee-jerk reaction to the report. The SQA has never functioned well, but I suspect this will lead to big redundancy payments followed by rehiring as consultants.

The pressure on teachers to get results has led to spoon-feeding and continuous assessment wouldn't change that. Not to mention the huge discrepancies in standards between schools, largely depending on catchment, which would make moderation very difficult, as has already been pointed out.

CfE seems to be a failure and I have no faith in the government to change that. There's plenty of jargon and talking things up but the reality is mediocrity.

But "Curriculum for Mediocrity" isn't so inspiring.

More honest though.

Secondary teacher here.

I find CfE very wooly and vague. Much of the criticisms I've read, I agree with. I think CfE has enabled a lot of shitty practice.

Not sure how continuous assessment is the way forward though.

They need to fix the BGE curriculum before they revamp assessment imo.

The whole situation with education in Scotland makes me sad and angry. My eldest started school in 2011 and the whole academic side of education has been a complete let down. He could be achieving so much more but the system doesn’t let him.
My youngest is pretty average in ability but isn’t being supported to be the best he can with nonsense approaches to education such as letting pupils choose their own level of work rather than having ability groups.

My experience is that pupils get lots of feedback in primary school and then in the S1-3 BGE there is nothing. The BGE doesn’t seem to support progress at all, it like they are in a holding pen until senior phase when everything is thrown at them in a hurry. As to pp said, the BGE really needs to be revamped.

As for continuous assessment, I agree that it should play a part but not the whole. It could never be moderated sufficiently and would leave those going on to higher education unprepared. Perhaps exams are old fashioned but the fact that they have lasted so long is perhaps because there isn’t another viable alternative.

This is going to be a further shambles in education led by the SG. I have no confidence in them whatsoever since they won’t even acknowledge the many issues with CfE.

Does anyone know what’s happening with the SQA in terms of the recommendations for it to be scrapped? Since contributing to this thread last year my DC went on to get 6 Highers and 3 Advanced Highers at Grade A. I’m still not convinced by the CFE though and find it very ‘exam technique’ driven. I’ve got another DC in S4 and am wondering if there’s any likelihood of the landscape changing in the coming years she has left in school.

The SQA IS getting scrapped but I'm not too sure of a timetable. I'd be very surprised if anything affects your DD tho. They're not known for efficiency.

I know this is an old thread but all the "scrap the SQA" didn't come to much, did it?

CfE is a disaster. All the think about what you already know, write about what you'd like to find out, reflect on how you learn, write about next stages for your learning leaves too little time for actual teaching!

If they are to "scrap exams" they would need to go to a system like they have in the US where they have regular, formal testing within schools on a smaller scale to give kids an average grade, and unis would want to set their own entrance exams too.

But clearly, it's all Westminster's fault. With the fiscal levers of independence we would have our magic money tree, class sizes of 10 in Primary school, free laptops for every child and 1-to-1 teaching for Highers. 🙄

FamilyTreeBuilder You do know that SQA is being replaced though?

My experience of children going through it is it seemed to remove requirements to think for themselves. They had to learn essays almost by rote for the exams, then adjust them slightly on the day to fit the questions. The marking seemed bizarre so that actual stock phrases had to be used, and you could lose marks for using synonyms rather than the required phrase.
The way science was taught, particularly the chemistry was bizarre and confusing ( I have a science degree), they spent of time “unlearning” things in 5th year for higher because the Nat 5 had been simplified so much you couldn’t build on the knowledge to move forward.
Our area only allowed 6 Nat 5s so you only dropped one subject for higher. This is far too narrow too early.
Spaces where limited in subjects that I would consider mainstream, so children didn’t get their subject choice and had to wait til 6th year to do the Higher.

So they said.

I see no actual evidence of this actually happening though.

Do you know what fronted adverbials are?