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

@BleinhamOrange I have 2 YP with ASN.
My Scottish County simply does not diagnose until post 18 (if you are lucky). I recently sat on a train and listened to a Senior Councillor tell his companion (a politician) how the local council had successfully 'spun' the reduction of provision for ASN kids by with drawing previously approved & timetabled support over the very weekend before School went back in August. "It didn't give either the HTs or the parents time to complain" he chortled to his companion. As we got off I stopped him to tell him how disappointing I thought was, how unwise it was to sit & laugh about it on public transport where he might, you know, be sitting next to one of those very parents.
I couldn't help thinking about his own bizarre cognitive dissonance as he sat there with his assistance dog & white stick but didn't comment on this. His companion looked embarrassed, he said 'what the public dont understand is you can't get more provision from the same pot'. True, but the way it was done & finding it funny was pretty horrible.

More generally, having spent time at both an excellent Scottish state High School & a poor English Academy requiring improvement A
the experience was very similar for a child with ASN / SEN. Barriers to education but no legal structure to complain in Scotland.

Non paywall version of the link

web.archive.org/web/20250920030243/www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/article/scotland-failing-education-system-nick-gibb-robert-peal-jxfzw07tm

”It is bad enough that things are going so wrong in Scotland, but worse still that nobody appears to see a way out of it.”

That pretty much sums up the Scottish Government. They seem to have given up trying to find solutions for anything and thought ‘stuff it, if it is going to fail be might as well install our ideologies as it does so’. I think quite of few would like to be in opposition for a bit so they can just complain instead.

Perhaps we should have a wider discussion about education in Scotland and why restorative approach is not working

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-violent-injuries-against-school-staff-most-common-in-scotland

Also - why is SG insisting on mainstream inclusion at all costs rather than increasing the number of specialised SEN/ASN settings?

Mainstreaming is not inclusion for many children - quite the opposite. Even if they are able to sit in class, as opposed to in a base/hub or out of school, they can be socially excluded with no similar peers to form friendships with. That is completely aside from the issue of dysregulation.

This.
I heard someone describe it as people have been replaced by pdf documents. And that is true- pupil support staff have been cut to the bone. You maybe have one person between 5 classes, and a huge number of children who require highly targeted support- which isn’t possible to give.

The biggest change between when I was at school and now is the acceptable bar for violence and children's safety.

Now, children can be kicked, punched, hair pulled, strangled whilst working, walking to class or back from the toilet, and it's really normality and the person causing harm stays in school.

This would never ever have happened before.

Yet, the government will not set out concrete requirements to keep children safe.

That was pretty normal when I was at secondary school (90's). Casual bullying was pretty standard behaviour and unless a teacher witnessed it directly nothing was done about it.

No school is perfect but in my experience schools nowadays take reports of bullying far more seriously than in the past.

I'm referring to very young children and assaults being witnessed. Some happening after being evacuated to another classroom.

This certainly didn't happen in the 90s (when I was at school).

And have no cash because of the SNP insistence on no fees.

plus the “everyone’s a winner” ethos of the curriculum for excellence.

Why inclusion? cheaper innit!