WT Actual F has happened to Scottish education under the SNP???

[YellowPixie]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2vk9gm4e0o

Analysis has been done into the pass rates of SQA exams, looking at the total cohort of S4 pupils and Nat 5s, rather than just the ones entered in the exams.

Only 40% of S4 kids passed Nat 5 maths. 25% have a pass in biology which they say is the most popular science. What a fucking shambles - no wonder they want to scrap Nat 5s, they can then pretend that everyone's a winner and give all S4s an "achievement certificate" irrespective of whether or not they would know a fraction if it came up and slapped them.

Who is fashin at road signs? Why would that happen?

Strawman surely

I should hope that most sensible teachers point out that we preserve our own language for cultural purposes, but learn to communicate in Standard English in order to be understood by others.

It was something that I used to address when I was still teaching, particularly when examining the concept of register.

I'm fond of using "outwith" myself, but I used to have to point out to pupils that - while it's used in Standard Educated Scots English, it is a word that is not used in modern Standard English. There wouldn't be time to go into this in detail nowadays, I'm afraid - CfE has meant that the each subject has been pared to the minimum in order to make way for all the nonsense - but it used to be possible to make a comparison with the development of Standard English by examining "There is a green hill far away without a city wall..."

Unfortunately there are many people who get upset by road signs!

We promote Scott’s language for political purposes you mean

When 5-14 was still in the place, the advice was to value the language that the child brought from home - though I admit that there are inherent dangers there: "Ma dad lets me swear, so it's aa right!"

My late husband spoke Standard English at work and the Doric at home. I'm aware of schools in the north east still teaching Doric literature, but I've noticed that the traditional Aberdeenshire accent is dying out: the last time I visited Ballater, most of the local children sounded as though they came from Edinburgh.

We had an absolutely ridiculous situation when an attempt was made to improve MFL provision in Scottish schools. I can't remember the precise nomenclature now, but I recall that the native language was L1, the main MFL was L2 and the additional MFL was L3.

I discovered that some of the terribly nice middle class teachers at one of our feeder primaries had decided to get round the lack of MFL expertise in their school by using [synthetic] Scots as their L3. As someone who still does speak Scots in an appropriate setting, I found that patronising at the very least.

There are certainly swathes of children across Scotland where they mainly hear Scots spoken - not so much now as previously, admittedly.

I’d find it patronising in that context too. The “normal” speech around me growing up was pretty much Scots although my DF (an accountant) would use more standardised English in formal settings.

What you are saying is coming from a place of utter privilege. Of course as an adult you can dismiss "wokification" but these kids are entirely new to a lot of these concepts. They are exposed to far right propaganda every day of their lives on social media. This learning is new to them.
Great if you personally feel we can move on to a higher plane of equality that can glibly use the word " wokification". For the rest of society perhaps just learning to look up at the fine buildings in Scottish cities with street names commemorating slavers is a baby step in the right direction.

gingerlybread and if you'd read my post you would see that I said these subjects should be taught. I don't want them not taught. But I do think the focus on decolonialisation, trying to erase or whitewash the evidence of our involvement and wanging on about this at the expense of a broader historical education and global context, is self-serving and not about educatin, but about cultural cringe, hand-wringing and self-absolution.

Many scots were slavers, plantation owners, colonialists. So were many other peopole in the history of the world in other contexts. It is absolutely right to learn about slavery and colonialism but if we only focus on our own wrongs it's still centring the west and focusing on clearing away some kind of guilt. It's a bit like an abusive partner saying "we're going to sit here and talk about me until you accept how sorry I am."

There's a whole world of history out there, much of it sidelined by the traditional focus on western history, monarchies and technological progress. We should be un-sidelining it and teaching kids about everything. Intead the whole decolonialism project is keeping the focus on the west's role in everything.

As in 'porage [sic] oats', you mean?

No, I don't mean for political purposes. I still hear children speaking Scots, though not as much as previously - this is inevitable, given the influence of mass media. They still speak Scots because they hear their parents and grandparents speaking it.

There is, of course, very much a class distinction which has become increasingly marked since James the VI moved south with his court and switched to using English as a literary language.

Really? But most/many towns have Gaelic names. The village I grew up in has the English translation written under it on the road sign. I’ve never met a Gaelic speaking in the area (Galloway) and it wasn’t on the sign when I was growing up but I assume someone thought it was interesting (probably one of the many English incomers who tend to be the driving force of things like the village history society which is lovely to see).

I've just thought: perhaps you meant Sir Walter? As a supporter of the union, he certainly used both Scots and English for political purposes.

Did they tell you that, or are you assuming? Surely most parents would find that interesting rather than feeling excluded by it. The child will have heard the words spoken, in their lessons about it, it doesn't really matter that parents don't know everything the child does!

The Scottish focus and pushing of Scots (often weird fake pseudo-scots with ridiculously inconsistent orthography that makes no sense, rather than something actually good e.g. Burns) has always annoyed me as it's so parochial and is so prevalent that it shoves other much-needed learning, e.g. science, out of the way. As a non-Scot I just shut up about it. But it's another example of the way the curriculum is so ill-thought-through and gives no thought to actual inclusivity. Dyslexic? Polish or Chinese as a first language? Learn this poem full of different spellings to what you're trying to learn already and you can't complain because all must kneel at the altar of Scottishness.

I still think you’re talking nonsense. They don’t teach o levels in Cockney rhyming slang or Scouse. It’s just the SNP trying to great a cultural identity. It’s just political.

@SkiingonKaraSea which English unis were Scottish students with 6 Nat 5s not getting offers? Surely when applying Scottish kids will have Higher results too. I would have thought 5 good Highers would trump Nat 5s on whatever algorithm they use for offers. My youngest looked at a couple of London unis and issue was more the banding of AH results required (A1 required in one or two subjects).

My late father was Eastern European and he coped well with both English and Scots.

ETA He acquired Scots through his work and would refer to my maternal grandmother as his "guid mither".

Scots is normally only used within the context of language and literature and texts written wholly or partially in Scots might appear in the specified texts for Nat 5, Higher or Advanced Higher.

Similarly, you'll find that English dialects may sometimes appear within the context of literature exams in England. For example, "Silas Marner" sometimes appears on the set text lists for GCSE, and it's not unusual for texts which include American dialects to be used.

At least one of the English boards used Sean O'Casey.

If you study Hardy or Dickens at any point, then of course you're going to have to come to grips with English dialects.

Gaelic is a proper language. "Scots" is not. Putting Gaelic/Scots on a higher footing is not going to do anything to boost tourism, and the fact that modern languages are no longer compulsotry at Nat 5 and just involve pre-learning and regurgitating means that visitors just have to speak English and get on with it. I don't get the rage with ambulances or "poleias" cars, it's pretty obvious what they are as the checker pattern and flashy blue lights are enough of a clue even if you don't speak Gaelic. That's all just a bit eye-rolling.

I do hold though that using the odd Scottish expression such as outwith or dreich is not the same as "speaking Scots". Judith whatsit on the TV weather will say it's dreich, or that there's a strong haar rolling in on the east coast, or to expect smirry rain or whatever, that is standard. Just as my DH who has a regional English accent uses words and expressions as part of HIS standard English which are not used here but are common where he comes from. That does not mean that he is speaking his own special language.

In linguistics, there's a debate about whether Scots is a language or a dialect. You'll find a lot of people insisting it is a language, but it's so entangled with politics and identity issues that it's hard to take the arguments at face value.

It's always seemed to me that if to write it down, you write non-dialect words in English with different spellings to reflect how an RP or non-scots speaker would read the spelling, then it's a dialect of English. This is the same as when people try to "write" Scouse, Cockney, Yorkshire dialect, Cornish dialect etc. They're writing what a standard English speaker would have to say to sound like the dialect. I've always found the whole Scots-pushing project a bit daft for this reason.

Even Burns was doing this, writing in local dialect as a political statement by re-spelling English, as did many other Romantic poets as part of their interest in folklore, vernacular etc. Burns' poetry isn't how he wrote his letters for example, irrespective of how he spoke.

I would rather my kids were taught some basic science or computing or something useful for 2025 rather than being taught how to haver like a scots politically correct medieval peasant . It’s nonsense.

A linguist will tell us that every language spoken is actually a dialect of some kind - it's just that some have more clout than others.

Personally, I can't stand Synthetic Scots or the poetry of Hugh McDiarmid. I don't think that it's ever going to be feasible to have a standardised version of Scots - that ship sailed a long time ago. The final nail in the coffin was probably when James VI had the Bible translated into English rather than Scots. The people who push Synthetic Scots tend to be middle-class types who have found a niche market for themselves.

There's a particular author who persists in "translating" children's books into Scots. I'm using inverted commas here, because I'm 99.9% certain that he never naturally speaks the language that he uses in the books that he has published.

I recall one woman who became a bit of a name in the Scottish folk scene trying to sell her wares at a book fair for teachers. She had "translated" proverbs into what she thought was Scots/Lallans. She had used a dictionary.

One of her posters proclaimed: "Keek afore ye loup." In vain did others try to persuade her that "Keek" did not mean "Look".

I once had a PT who spoke not one word of Scots in his everyday language. Nevertheless, he had a short piece of writing published in "Lallans". I can't stand that particular magazine because so much (not all) of it is fake.

Yes - we then have the argument as to who decides whether or not something is fake. I'm sure that someone could point out that Nabokov was not writing in his native language when he wrote in English, but people with his linguistic aptitude seldom appear.

When it comes to translation, the norm is to have a native language style checker. I doubt very much that that has happened with any of the publications written in Synthetic Scots.

On the other hand, I have no issue with studying texts in various Scots dialects and no issue at all with speaking Scots or English as appropriate. As I've said above, however, we tell children to use particular dialects/languages within an appropriate setting for the purposes of communication and that we use English as a lingua franca.

When we're looking at working out meaning from context within Indo-European languages - no matter which language - it can also be useful to look at related words in various dialects including English and Scots particularly if a school has a strong MFL Dept...but if I move onto that, I'll be rambling here all day.

At one point, we'd have been able to cover that within the space of one lesson. As I've indicated above, however, the CfE has meant that we no longer have the wiggle room that would have allowed the useful cross-fertilisation of ideas in schools. I find it ironic, particularly since cross-curricular cooperation is pushed by the CfE.

Too much time is wasted by the demand that all subjects must prove that they include, for example, Health and Well-Being. It's actually possible to do that as an organic part of the lesson. The problem arises when staff are required to provide proof that it has been covered and that can take time away from the subject specific material.

The 5-14 Curriculum wasn't perfect, but if I had my way I'd have that in place of CfE. The problem is that someone had the notion that parents weren't doing their job properly, so now schools are being expected to cover matters which at one time would have been covered by normal parenting and common sense.

My friend’s son has gone to an English uni. The standard entry requirement for his course was A*AA at A level and for Scottish students the standard requirement was Highers AAABB in S5 and AAB at AH.

My nephew’s friend’s Oxbridge offer was AAB at AH but obviously that was after having gone through the various entrance assessments.

I’m not aware of those offers placing any weight on the number of Nat 5s.