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.

It all seems very mixed up. ‘Decolonisation’, which often seems more like colonisation by woke American theories out of place in a European context, suggesting we shouldn’t focus on ‘the west ‘ except we should only look at the western slave trade and ignore that trading to the east, but also focus just on Scottish soldiers in WWI and Scottish poems about how awful it is to lose your Scottish accent when your family move to England (presumably for opportunities they couldn’t get in Scotland).

I believe fewer Scottish students are doing AH because increasingly they have to go to another school to study them - consortia arrangements.

If DD had done 3 AHs, she would have had to go to 3 other schools in our LA which is all over the place - different schools do different subjects. She does one AH at another school but the taxi and/or bus (it alternates) is frequently a no show, meaning she has to make her own way home or we have to take her/pick her up. This just isn't possible for the majority of students, and even more difficult if you did more than one AH. Even some of the HIghers are now in other schools, involving travel, so again kids are being disadvantaged under the SNP.

That’s shocking. I get that it must be difficult to offer a broad range when class sizes get smaller but it really impacts on equity of access.I didn’t bother doing any Sixth Yr Studies (as they were when I was at school) - I started and dropped them when got unconditional offers based on Highers, just did some more Highers instead and I didn’t seem particularly unusual at my school. One of my friends left, worked abroad for a year while I was in S6 then started at Edinburgh Uni at the same time as those who had stayed for S6. Compared to that, my DS’s cohort seem to have be far more likely to do AHs but we live in a city and from his school it takes about 15 minutes to walk to another high school.

I think what has shocked me most (in curricular terms) was learning that teachers are now teaching N5 and Higher classes simultaneously. All of the children are in the same room.

When I was at secondary school, this would've been unthinkable. My CSYS English class had 6 pupils in it but the teacher was only teaching CSYS English.

I am a primary school teacher so I know how to differentiate. My current P2 class has children reading fluently and children not yet able to decode a cvc word. But, at the N5/H/AH level children should surely be in a class where the teacher is only teaching one course.

here's an article today on consortia teaching. You may need to read it in incognito mode to bypass the paywall

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/secondary/consortia-arrangements-between-scottish-schools-rise

Stargirl1701 I agree. I don’t see how they can support the full range of needs at each level whilst teaching three curricula at the same time.

I went to a private school in the late 90s/early 2000s. This is how we were taught. We alll passed exams. People who would never have got into uni under their own devices did, we all did. We all got five highers.

It’s very depressing. I felt like crying when I saw Labour’s new plans for improving education in England. No equivalent in Scotland of course - same old same old. I can’t help but be cynical in thinking that it serves the SNP well to have a badly educated population - more votes for them from the economically illiterate.

I do think that the current situation suits the SNP politically so even if it is educationally devastating our kids they’ll stick with it.

Banning exclusion - oh we’re so progressive compared to horrid old England. - could someone please stop that child assaulting others?
Teaching them made up Scottishy nonsense and Gaelic? We’re our own country with our own language!
Crappy Scot’s poets rather than Shakespeare in the curriculum? Who’d want to hear about that guy? He’s English so probably a bigot.
Swapping maths and sciences for massage and learning about the genderbread person? Who needs knowledge when you can be progressive instead!

I think the English reforms are a disaster though. England has been flying up the PISA rankings because academies have raised standards. They’ve been given a lot more freedom to do whatever they think is the best way to raise educational attainment and it shows. They have been given the power to pay teachers what they are worth and increasing the salaries of teachers such as physics teachers means you have physics teachers. The unions hated their lack of control so a lot of power is being taken back into local authorities. And standards will duty slip again, but politicians are far more interested in politics than education.

Swapping maths and sciences for massage and learning about the genderbread person?
what on earth? What school has swapped out maths and science 😄
Though, you lost me at "crappy Scottish poets"

The whole system is an absolute joke my third DC is sitting here higher prelims just now. She hates school, high schools whilst they were never great are awful now. Bullying and violence is rife. If you’re different in anyway you’re a target. Teachers have no control over the classes, the kids know this. Some of the stories! DC3 tells me about all the different teachers she has, one of her Higher Chemistry teachers puts slides up for them to copy then goes on his phone. She’s panicking as she doesn’t understand the work. Another of her teachers has been off sick since September, she’s just had supply teachers and this is her higher year.

DCs friend lives 5 mins from us she’s got a conditional for law at Edinburgh Uni which is fab for her, she’s SIMD1. DC3 knows she’ll have to do a 6th year and work extra hard to get into uni as she won’t get that offer and I don’t think that’s fair. I’m all for encouraging people from poorer backgrounds to go to uni (I was one) but it doesn’t seem right to me.

Which brings me onto ASN, inclusion hasn’t worked at all. Doesn’t work for the ASN kids or the other kids around them. Not enough support staff or resources. In mainstream they end up out of class sitting in the Hats office with an iPad after the class has been evacuated again for them throwing tables as they are just so overwhelmed as they shouldn’t be there in the first place.

There seems to be a whole tier of ASN school missing now the moderate level. There’s only severe and complex and they are bursting at the seams. Every space is being turned into a classroom. Due to council budget cuts wholly inappropriate buildings are being converted into schools. Don’t these children deserve purpose built schools for their needs? Shortage of support staff probably in every school so it becomes more like keeping the children safe and fire-fighting than getting any worth while teaching done. Staff leave as they are fed up being kicked, hit. Spat at, hair ripped out their head, covered in bruises, broken bones etc. it’s in no way the children’s fault, every child deserves the best care and education but they don’t receive it sadly.

Every mainstream primary class will have at least 3-4 children with ASD or ADHD if the teacher is lucky she will have a classroom assistant to help her. Can you imagine 30 children with maybe 5 shouting, swearing, causing chaos, taking up all your time, the rest of them are going to get neglected.

No jobs for young teachers and yet unis are churning out student teachers still. Councils are even getting rid of the probationer system.

"one of her Higher Chemistry teachers puts slides up for them to copy then goes on his phone."

This is what my Higher Physics teacher did nearly 30 years ago (obviously no phone, but she just copied on the board information that was in the books. No experiments whatsoever).

Standards have been dropping for decades

This is EXACTLY our experience too! Every last sentence.

My state school child barely goes in to one subject as they have no teacher and they never get a substitute with any subject knowledge so they’d rather stay at home with a textbook.

what on earth? What school has swapped out maths and science 😄
Though, you lost me at "crappy Scottish poets"

My DCs’ primary school did hardly any science ‘ science experiments. They did more at home with me for fun than they did at school. When they did do anything vaguely resembling science, the teachers got a lot of it wrong and didn’t understand it. This was a big issue for my DS as he loves science and tech stuff. But there was endless time for “scottish focus” and shallow wellbeing modules that were box-ticking exercises and didn’t actually help anyone or change the bullying culture.

There are some great Scottish (and Scots) poets, but there are also some terribly crap ones being taught in school because they’re Scottish, and because quality and understanding what makes a poem good or caring about whether it’s interesting to learn is not a priority. A lot of these really poor Scots poems they were being made to learn didn’t even seem to have an author. I googled to find out who had written them and there was nothing, sometime just a name I’d never heard of but no other info.

It’s frustrating, it’s like the whole curriculum is put together by people who don’t understand the materials or children’s learning.

It is better in high school in terms of science and lesson content, but there’s still a lot of literature that’s there because it’s Scottish but sadly is not very good. And that’s unnecessary as there are good options.

The poems (including at secondary) reminded me of pieces of music my DC played when learning to play the piano. They were clearly written as ‘learner’ pieces and were almost all incredibly dull and lacking musicality. I learnt with simpler sections from longer classical pieces by great composers. It was exciting to be able to play a bit of a sonata or a piano concerto even if it was only a dozen bars with the ‘twiddly bits’ removed.

As for science, that seemed extraordinarily lacking in primary. The teachers just didn’t seem to have a basic grasp of science at all. Maybe they hadn’t studied it since S3? It hardly featured at all.

And don’t get me started on the ‘wellbeing wheel’! The number of times I had them pull out a ‘perfect’ wheel my DC had completed while being seen by CAMHS - right up until the mental health difficulties clearly spilled over into school at which point even the school recognised it was nonsense.

The drive towards the inclusion of SEN pupils is down to money. Provide a safe working / learning environment for teachers / pupils? Nah. Let’s save money, call it inclusion and make ourselves sound all progressive (to those who have NO idea how bad it is.

A friend of mine was shocked to hear about the violence in a local primary. ‘But it’s meant to be a nice school’ she said. She had no idea that it’s no longer enough to live in the catchment area of a nice school. If a distraught child is in your child’s class then your child is going to witness and / or be subjected to violence.

The SNP's primary focus is, and always will be, independence, and this means that they have massively dropped the ball on their day job - governing Scotland for the benefit of Scottish people. Education is just one area out of many they have failed in, in my opinion.

They're always banging on about their goal of eradicating child poverty in Scotland.
It's an excepted fact the world over that education is crucial in eradicating multigenerational poverty, not an extra tenner in benefits or whatever measure SG is using.
High quality education leading to skilled jobs is what's required

The fact that universities are given targets for students from postcodes where the average household is considered deprived, is an admission of their failure in school education.

Unfortunately this is completely correct.

Children are being traumatised every day.

There needs to be a nationwide rule for what is not accepted IE results in a removal from school premises.

At the moment children can kick, punch, strangle others and stay in school to continue to hurt others the very next day. Management in local authorities allow this to save money.

If you haven't seen it with your own eyes, you wouldn't believe what children are now experiencing in Scottish schools.

I know. Charged by the police with assaulting a pupil one day, back in class sat next to them the next day because they are only just back from a 3 day temporary exclusion and the school cannot do back to back temporary exclusions. It’s insane. The poor child who has been physically attacked, knowing what awaits them in school the very next day.

Schools are powerless. Police are powerless. Nothing will change unless the SNP is booted out which might not even be at the next Parliament. No one cares.

I've always voted SNP and walked on independence marches.

I simply cannot now as they appear to be allowing local authorities to have children experience violence in schools, whilst simultaneously promoting the UNCRC (which is the polar opposite of many many children's experience in school).

The thing the SNP never seemed to take on regarding independence is that the best way for them to have advocated for it was to do a good job of governing Scotland; education, health, transport links, economy…. There are many avid Nats who still refuse to see any problems but that just makes them seem unhinged and puts people off even more.

There are 3 boys in DD class with 'anger issues' who regularly lash out. We've had the kicks to the head, bruises and strangulation marks to prove it.

We are lucky there are two classes in each year group. There is another child and if she is ever placed in a class with DD again she wont be going back to the school. The 2nd time she attacked DD (DD won a prize and she was jealous as she is permanently front and centre of every flipping list/class/blog/FB post) I was talked out of phoning the police.

The parents replied that 'she normally calms down if she's given a book to read in the corner'.

Its a 'nice school' in a 'nice area'.

We had strangulation and did go to the police, as a last resort, as it is so dangerous and traumatic.

They were amazing and I couldn't thank them enough as I wasn't sure they would take it seriously as the individual is lower primary age.