Scottish education system - ‘It breaks your heart’

[Dunderheided]

Well it’s only one viewpoint; and it doesn’t certainly make for cheering reading.

In the book, published last month, Gibb said: “I take no pleasure in reading about the crisis in Scottish and Welsh education and the hundreds and thousands of children being let down by their schools. When designing their curriculum and school systems they allowed any appraisal of robust education research to be obscured by idealistic notions of how children learn. Beware the tragedy of good intentions.”

Gibb told The Sunday Times: “It breaks your heart when, you know, education systems are going down a route that the evidence says isn’t the best approach.”

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/scotland-failing-education-system-nick-gibb-robert-peal-jxfzw07tm

I can’t read it due to the paywall but from the subheading I totally agree. Poorly researched ideology has been pushed through with no thought of running the ideas past teachers first, and both the CfE and inclusion policies are doing untold damage to Scottish education.

Nothing will happen because the SNP will never admit they were wrong. The education system will keep plummeting down the PISA rankings until we get a change in government.

The SNP recently commissioned a big review of the exam system - which didn’t seem to look at the exams themselves at all. I was horrified when my DC reached exam age; it seems to be an awful lot of memorising chunks of text and regurgitating it in exams.

Sadly, universities which are meant to lead the robust research are now bogged down in ideologies across all subjects.

Yep my HE kids are switching from iGCSEs to higher & so far the step up is worryingly small (same experience by older friends)
I'm shocked by how much of higher maths in particular was covered by the iGCSE syllabus.

Iirc Nicola sturgeon said she wanted to be judged on her education record and that education was “a priority”.
I’d hate to see the things that weren’t her priority!

A poster on her recently said her greatest achievement was introducing benefits to lift children out of poverty. If she’d done the rest of her job properly, and done what she said she would on education Scotland wouldn’t have as many children in poverty!

Giving out benefits is not an achievement, it is a failure.

Here is a sharetoken for the article:
https://www.thetimes.com/article/a17d2ebb-a61a-488a-a4b8-2b4c4fc7012c?shareToken=c054aeff542e73db7c3cf6b124674ca2

The Scottish government commented:

“Pisa assessments in recent years have shown that students in Scotland have a higher awareness of global issues than the OECD average, and were less likely to witness issues with behaviour in school than in other parts of the UK.”

sorrywhatpardon??? Scottish teachers report FAR more issues with behaviour than other parts of the UK. Far more. what planet are the government on where they think they have no behaviour problems and the more important educational area is global issues? The Scottish government have very neatly demonstrated the exact issue the article described.

“Scottish pupils are more indoctrinated into our preferred political ideologies than those in other countries”

ahh surveying children - by their teachers presumably. They do this to show the SEN system is working too. There will never be any change until there is honesty about the issues.

It definitely is less educationally robust than the English system from my experience of both systems. There is so much indoctrination into LBQT and Scottishness it’s very strange system. I don’t think it pushes brighter children enough. Although maybe more inclusive to SEND kids.

Also not to mention them allowing 18 month to two year age gap in primary education “year groups”. Based on some notion of copying Scandinavian countries.

Non evidence based ideologically driven is a term that could be applied to many of the SNP policies.

Physically and mentally hurt!!

What a dismally low bar.

I found this discussion online, which I’ll listen to when I have time. My children are still in lower primary, but I worry about the journey ahead.

By the sounds of it Jenny Gilruth should have a tonnes of relevant experience to bring to this … (from the Scot Gov website):

“Jenny Gilruth MSP was reappointed as the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills in May 2024.

Brought up and educated in Fife, Jenny Gilruth is a graduate of Glasgow University, where she studied Politics and Sociology, and of Strathclyde University where she studied for her Postgraduate in Secondary Education (Modern Studies).

Prior to being elected in 2016, Jenny worked for over a decade in education, most recently as a Head of Department in a Fife secondary school.

Prior to that, Jenny worked at Education Scotland as NQ lead for Modern Studies, supporting the development of the new qualifications and also as a Modern Studies teacher.”

Although maybe more inclusive to SEND kids.

Hollow laugh…. You clearly have no experience of this, for a start it is not SEND, it is ASN in Scotland. Too many people (including politicians) confuse the inability to take legal action or get compensation in Scotland compared to England with meaning it is better than England. Parents don’t complain about EHCPs here because there aren’t EHCPs here. CSP (the only legal plan) criteria are so tight that only 0.2% of children have one, compared to over 5% of children having an EHCP in England. Though a CSP does not have the same benefits as a EHCP even if you get one. Children with ASN are been failed right across the Scottish school system. ‘Inclusion’ has just meant the closure of bases and specialist school for all but the most profoundly disabled (being a non-verbal autistic child with learning disabilities is not enough) forcing children into mainstream with very little support. Some of these children, who clearly were never going to be able to cope, then lash out at teachers and classmates but the schools can’t do anything as there is nowhere for them to go. A lot end up on part time timetables or out of school. All the while the government cut council budgets and the council in turn trim a bit more time off the teaching assistants in each school.

Duplicate post

Yes agreed. My high functioning ASD child cannot cope with mainstream state so we pay for mainstream private which is fine. BUT the VAT really does stick in the craw. They’d be fine in a calm, orderly mainstream state but that doesn’t exist which is why we have to pay for private, and the VAT is not supposed to be charged to those who use private schools due to ASN, but in order to avoid the VAT a Scottish child has to have a CSP (which you cannot get if your child is already in private, AND is almost impossible to get) AND the local authority has agreed to pay your mainstream private school fees, which is estimated to be next to nobody. So we pay the VAT too.

Paying through the nose for an education that the state is supposed to provide for free (but doesn’t because it’s so shite!). Rant over.

Just to be clear, I did not post this to throw shade at the poster! 🌸 I meant that points to our school system being in very dire need of improvement.

Just in case that wasn’t clear, and it looked like my post was being antagonistic- it wasn’t meant to be!

They kept saying no VAT on SEN in private but what this actually boiled down to was councils could offset the VAT they paid for children placed in private/independent schools against the VAT they received. This was tested in court.

Unlike England, councils in Scotland also can’t place a child in a non-specialist independent school, or online school (other than I-sgoil which has a long waiting list) or legally provide an EOTAS package regardless of CSP. You also can’t force a school via a CSP even if you could get one.

I was wondering though are asn/send are they more likely to be excluded from an English school system if they misbehave? I mean seems like they don’t really get excluded from Scottish state school. I was thinking that was maybe a plus?

Depends on the child reallly. Many qualify for a legal right to 1:1 support through ECHPs which isn’t part of our system which helps children in England cope, and if your child is not getting the help specified on your child’s EHCP you can take legal action.

My ASD child is perfectly well behaved just cannot cope with constant shouting and screaming and general hulabaloo, as well as being a magnet for bullies who the school could do nothing to protect them from. Their mainstream private is packed with these sorts of kids. Geeky, well behaved, regularly get full marks in SQA exams.

This is so sad, and worrying. Mine is in lower primary and feels like they do hardly any learning.

Are there any signs of the tide turning?

And who should we be voting for? I'm so worried we'll either just end up with more SNP...

I listened to OPs posted discussion. Depressing. But especially depressing was the teacher/education pipeline that is led by ideologies not evidence. Including the play based learning introduced in early primary when there is no evidence that undirected play helps learning.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2025-09-15/debates/E7A26973-7F7B-41E0-8A02-689BEA99F336/ChildrenWithSENDAssessmentsAndSupport

I'm in England and my child has an EHCP. I had to take the local authority to tribunal twice. There is absolutely no way she'd receive any extra help at school if I'd left it up to the local authority.

Although the big debate on Monday focused on England as it was about our system, at least one MP made the point that the SEND system should be national. I know education and health are devolved but it does seem bonkers that children in England have legal rights to SEND support (even if they're hard to enforce) and children in Scotland don't.

The link above is to Hansard.