Education

[Motheranddaughter]

Have been catching up on the report into Scottish Education and am really quite shocked
Another failure of the SNP government

What needs to be done to turn this around

Yet each time a failure like this is reported a bunch of Nats turn up to deny it/say it is worse in England/blame Westminster/point out irrelevant failures of the UK government as if two wrongs make a right…

I despair of it ever being fixed, it's been allowed to slide and slide and this isn't against teachers, the vast majority of whom want to do a good job. Policy changes on top of policy changes that just haven't worked or made things worse.

It's not the fault of the young people either.

For me, the main thing that could make the biggest difference quickly is parental involvement and early years intervention. Children whose parents value their education and put effort in will arrive at school better able to learn.

I'd like to see a bigger range of getting community involved in doing 121 reading and maths etc in schools right up through high-school.

When I retire and have time during the day I'd love to do something like that. I'm sure many people would.

The SNP have changed Scottish education from knowledge and skill based to ideological.

As long as they brain wash them into voting SNP then nothing else matters.

They offer “free” university education but don’t educate children well enough to get there!
Nat voters need to waken up to the shower of utter shite at Holyrood, and lose their ideology in favour of running the country effectively

We must move away from the presumption of mainstreaming and invest heavily in ASN education. Pay teachers and PSAs more in ASN schools. This needs to start at nursery level and continue into secondary.

We are drowning trying to accomodate the needs of everyone in mainstream. It’s a scandal that so many children are waiting so long for a special school place. The tolerance of ‘trauma’ has also totally backfired- the recent EIS survey on violence really showed this. Schools in Scotland are not safe.

I’m a P1 teacher, so I’d also add on that teachers must be put back in nurseries. There’s a real mess brewing with the new deferral rules, the freeflow pedagogies and poorly trained nursery staff who don’t have any experience of schools.

And yet people still keep on voting for them. 🥲

Parental involvement and ability to nurture has always been the key factor in children being secure and stable. Historically in Scotland the one dominating factor driving lack of success is POVERTY and all that goes with it. Visiting a large, poor scheme you'll find epidemic drug use, getting younger and younger and all the issues it leaves behind. Childhood adverse experiences are rife and they contribute to liklihood of early school difficulties, unemployment, poverty. Early years intervention projects were funded successfully in mid 90's. It's always the same parents who come along to clubs, take their children to groups, work on life skills at home, they aren't the intended target. Until you go into very poor areas and see how over run with violence and gangs they are it's impossible to really see the scale of the problem. The advent of a Play led curriculum until end of P3 means many don't have the development of skills in P7 they would have done 10 years ago. Play is essential but Highers haven't changed to accommodate these changes. Work was done in 90s with vulnerable parents and children age 3 onwards & lots of initiatives put in place and early years Nurture rooms had very good outcomes. The Tories got rid of all that. Reform is needed at the S3,4,5 stages that accounts for tech skills kids now have and let's them demonstrate knowledge all year and fully in exams this way if they choose. The constant comparisons with elsewhere is meaningless as POVERTY is huge in Scotland. The male mortality rate in Shettleston a few years ago was 36. 36.........We are not fucking Finland!!!! Treating young children who want to sit exams like suspects is draconian and just feeds into their low self esteem. Do we want them to succeed or not. It's a great idea to volunteer 121 it makes a big difference, please do it.

If you are in their preferred postcodes (mostly SNP heartlands) you get preferential entry to university. If you are on non preferential postcodes you might not even be considered as the SG fund too few places and the universities don’t want more when Scottish Students are so loss making for them.

So for courses such as Law at Edinburgh university you can see this policy means those entering the Scottish law profession are more likely to be SNP supporters.

The Tories got rid of all that.

The SNP have controlled the Scottish legislature since 2007. They have had more than enough time to put those initiatives back in place. They never had sure start centres in Scotland but had that money to use in other ways.

I was brought up in abject poverty in the 60s and 70s. As were most of my friends. Parents use it as an excuse to check out now. Lack of examples set etc.

However, the fact remains that children have always grown up in less than ideal circumstances, the SNP have had control of education for a fairly long time. It was apparently their No1 priority and yet here we are. It's quite frankly got fuck all to do with the Tories.

Have you got a link to the report?

I am seen as trouble in my school for daring to point out the terrible state of education. We are, indeed, not Finland!! Finnish education works in Finland because of the Finnish. They themselves admit it doesn't work well with immigrants who move to their country and aren't of the same way of thinking.
They state that they play for the first two years in order to learn the rules of school - ours just play.
They state they have no bad behaviour because bad behaviour is not tolerated. Our behaviour has never been worse!
They play throughout school because when they are learning it it focused and fast paced. Academic achievements are thought of highly. Ours can't concentrate on one instruction without interrupting to tell me how I could do it better and nobody can use full stops and capital letters.
The SNP have a lot to answer for. Let's hope they're caught out soon!

Finnish education works in Finland because of the Finnish.

Finland are tumbling down the PISA charts too.

I agree with you regarding heavily investing in ASN education. There are too many children who are struggling in mainstream schools and nurseries without the one to one support they really need and who would really benefit from the specialised provision of ASN settings.

I don't agree with you regarding teachers in nurseries. There should be far more focus on the teaching staff in P1 - P3 being those who specialise in the early years. I've known many teachers who have admitted that they don't enjoy teaching the lower year age groups and just try to get through the year they've been assigned.

And nursery staff are trained specifically in their own field and in the benefits of child led play and early years pedagogies. In addition, I've previously seen some excellent teachers in nursery settings...and some very poor ones.

@PTSDBarbiegirl why are you blaming the Tories. Education has been devolved for 16 years.

Where did you get the stat about Shettleston? Do you mean life expectancy ?

I wish I thought people voting SNP would wake up - Gilruth’s talentless ‘Covid innit’ response nowhere near good enough to explain 15 years of decline, affecting the poorest kids the most.

but oh no instead we get foreign policy grandstanding rather than any proper sort of response to the education (or health) crisis.

Is this the report on education that's been promised for years or something else?

Does anyone have a link? I'd be interested to read it

Pisa rankings:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/62da381c-8feb-4503-9169-c242391bd10a?shareToken=575e9274c89d0b07597e8d65979a676d

tbf free university wasn't anything to do with Snp, ill let you away with the rest.

Dc2 was the last years to do Standard grades the C O E was being phased in and it looked like absolute nonsense.

Thank you!

Ouch. That report and article are pretty damning

I am referring to the Tory wrecking ball cause of shameful poverty levels via destroying industry creating hopelessness and the worst hard drug problem in the west, killing young men in droves. These people have children and these children struggle and can't cope in school and so on and so forth.

You do know that funding for drug rehabilitation in Scotland comes under scotgov and they reduced and reduced it so that we not only have the worst figures in the UK, also in Europe, so is that the Tories? The SNP also diverted massive amounts of money meant for the NHS and covid and many more to christ knows where.

It suits them enormously to keep Scottish people down and rubbing salt in by blaming westminter/Tories etc as that's how they get their votes.

It's always one grievance after another when if there was anyone with sufficient brains and competence they could have run the country better and independence could have been a natural next step.

People honestly need to wake the fuck up.

There’s none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Big bad Westminster….aye right. First hand experience here due to a now deceased family member with alcohol addiction…absolute clusterfuck.

Local government and public services on their knees (and I’ve spent a lifetime working in the public sector) amd what does that absolute fucking neep do…yep, let’s have a council tax freeze!! COSLA are now stating that there are some councils facing bankruptcy and even statutory services will be withdrawn, but yep, let’s blame Westminster.

Fucking hell I despair, I really do

The SNP have it easy. They muck up just blame the Tories. Feeding in to the chippy Nat mentality. And I say that as a proud Scot. Shame on them.

It's not a 'Big bad Westminster' problem being able to establish that a seed that was planted by Margaret Thatcher has over 40 years given rise to even worse generationl social problems than there already were. Education can't close these gaps because they are multi faceted. SNP, Labour, Greens, Tories or LIB Dems would not be able to solve these problems now. I think SNP have absolutely fecked education esp Primary but I can see where the problem started, sorry if you don't feel the same.