Good morning and welcome to this meeting of the Education Committee. We are in public session, so everyone should turn off their mobile phones.
I am quite happy to go straight to questions. We provided a written submission that focused on the questions that have been raised by the committee and a supplementary submission that focused more on Careers Scotland.
I shall start with an issue that has been looming behind our investigations but which has not really come out to the extent that it might have done—I am talking about the extent of disaffection and discipline problems in schools. I am not sure whether much about that percolates to your level, so it may be that there is not a great deal that you can say about it, although I would have thought that, because you deal with learning materials and methods, Learning and Teaching Scotland might be getting such information. Do either of you have anything to say on that?
That is certainly an important issue to some teachers, but I do not think that it is an overburdening concern. The majority of teachers are realistic and optimistic about meeting the needs of young people. We do a number of different things to support teachers. Yesterday, knowing that I was coming here today, I searched the Learning and Teaching Scotland web service, and I found 167 results for the word "motivation". That shows that, as part of the case studies exemplification with which they are supplying us, schools are identifying motivation as an important criterion for when they make changes and improvements to how they operate. We are working on a number of different projects in which the problem in respect of motivation has clearly been evident, including the assessment is for learning programme and the use of information and communications technology for learning. We are planning our national in-service event in September, at which there will be a seminar on the motivated school. It is a matter that teachers have brought to us, and we have tried to respond in a number of ways.
I suppose that my underlying question is about whether well-motivated schools, well-motivated teachers and well-led schools can have an impact on reducing discipline problems, thereby allowing more time for proper teaching as opposed to holding pupils in check. Instinctively, one would think that they can, but is that the case?
There is no doubt that good school leadership is important. I am not thinking only about the head teacher but about the class teacher as a leader in the room. Pupil leadership is also an aspect of leadership; all those are encapsulated in what you ask about. If a lesson is purposeful, if the teacher is clear and motivated, and if young people as individuals and the class as a whole have clear expectations of the lesson, it will be more motivating and supportive for everybody's learning.
There are two key elements in pupil motivation. One is the universal element, which concerns what we need to do to ensure that we motivate and captivate all young people so that they can all realise their full potential; such things need to be done universally. The other element is the targeted element, to which you have referred and which concerns specific strategies that are required with people who are at risk of becoming disaffected.
Before we widen the discussion, I want to pursue the differential between boys and girls. There is considerable evidence—both in the number of highers that are achieved and more generally—that girls seem to be more motivated than boys. For whatever reason, there are many more discipline difficulties with boys than there are with girls. What insight do we have into why that is the case? To some extent, there seems to have been a reversal of what used to be the position when the nature of society was different. We face a particular challenge in that regard.
From my perspective, part of that is about rates of maturation—girls mature earlier than boys. The age and relative stage of the development of girls and boys must be taken into account. Peer-group pressure is also a factor.
I have an additional point about language development. There is evidence that girls develop their language and reading and writing skills earlier than boys, but we should not stick purely to gender issues because there are obviously girls who find language development difficult. We should concentrate on developing teachers' expertise in thinking about different learning styles and about the different ways in which young people respond to text, pictures, video or audio, or to a combination of those things. If a teacher is thinking about personalising his or her learning and differentiating their teaching approaches to make them appropriate to individuals, that will address some of the differences, which are gender issues, stereotypically, although they not just about gender.
I want to come back to Christina Allon on a couple of points. One of the things with which we have been struggling is how to spread good practice. Careers Scotland grew out of a large number of disparate organisations that have come together in the past five years. Can you share anything with us about what you have learned in that process about how to spread best practice? We already have an emerging view in schools that some places are responding outstandingly well to that challenge, while other areas are just not aware of where the most exciting work is going on.
The initial point is about awareness. Do we know where there is good practice and can we identify it? Where we can do that, can we take some of the lessons learned from evidence of good practice and get the people who have been involved in developing that to talk to their colleagues and their peers in other places?
Obviously, Careers Scotland deals with students towards the end of their secondary school careers—I know that from talking to Careers Scotland staff in my own area—so it is not possible for Careers Scotland to redress all the challenges that somebody might have met in the entirety of their school career. I know that a lot of the work that Careers Scotland has done has demonstrated that employers are looking particularly for young people who have life skills and the capacity to work in teams, and who have the potential to be motivated even if the school environment has not motivated them for whatever reason. Given what you know about what employers are looking for, is there anything that the committee should draw on as we think about the policy conclusions? How does one ensure that students who are not motivated by school per se have, before they end their school careers, one or two basic life skills that are required by the employment market, at least as a passport to life and work thereafter? Is there anything specific in that area that we should consider including in our recommendations?
I will expand on two points that I mentioned earlier. One of those is that students must see the relevance of what they learn to the outside environment. Some of that is about undertaking some learning in other environments, whether in a college or on an employer's premises as work experience.
I commend the brevity of Careers Scotland's submission, but it might be helpful if you could let us have a one-page note on core skills that is written for the non-cognoscenti. The subject overlaps with what we have done in our inquiry on curriculum development, so an explanation in simple language of the core skills might help us with the final report.
I would be happy to provide that.
I was interested in what you say in your submission about too many people having fallen into their careers down the years. That applies right across the board and not only to people whose aspirations are not well fitted to the labour market, because the fact is that people do not form aspirations with regard to future careers. Should there be a much more structured part of education—perhaps even part of the curriculum—in which pupils consider the world beyond school and how they will make their way in it? There does not appear to be much in the school curriculum that addresses that at the moment.
Certainly; that subject is close to my heart. Everyone should be able to develop the career planning skills that will enable them to adapt proactively to change in their personal circumstances or the requirements of the labour market. The foundations for those skills need to be laid early in school, not when pupils have left school. First, they need the motivation to take control and think about careers. Secondly, they need to learn to understand themselves, their skills, their aspirations and their circumstances. Thirdly, they need to understand the labour market, where opportunities come from and the link between them. Fourthly, they need the decision-making skills to make those connections. Those skills need to be developed in the school system, not after people have left school.
I suspect that "goals" makes most young people think of a five-a-side football facility.
Do you think that school visits can stimulate young people to great endeavour or to follow the career path? Two obvious examples not very far from here are the Scottish Seabird Centre, where children can go and, through the use of closed-circuit television, see birds as if they were within 2ft of them, although they are in fact many miles away; and the National Museums of Scotland, including the Museum of Scotland and the Museum of Flight, where young people can see Concorde, in which there was a major Scottish contribution through invention and construction of its wings. Can that kind of experience stimulate young people into thinking along—
Absolutely. It is all about young people seeing the relevance of what they learn at school: it is about the world that we live in, or the world outside. Often, it is about capturing their imagination through experiences outwith school. Those experiences can then be taken back into the school system, and learning can be built around that. Those excellent educational resources should be viewed in that way.
After Lord James's plug for East Lothian, I am tempted to—
You had your shot last week.
I have a couple of questions for Margaret Clarke, although Christina Allon may also wish to comment. When we started our inquiry, I expected to hear more about the importance of subjects such as music, drama, physical education and other subjects that have not traditionally been regarded as core academic subjects. Those subjects have, however, been inspirational for many pupils, although that has not emerged in evidence from our questioning so far. Perhaps that is because of our questioning, or perhaps the subjects are less important than I had thought.
We want the emphasis always to be on considering education in the round. Some individuals are particularly gifted in music, PE or the arts, and schools try to play on and develop those strengths. It is about considering the whole child and their needs from early years right the way through their education. With academic subjects, that becomes a more secondary focus; teachers still tend to think along subject lines. Through such developments as the curriculum for excellence, there is an emphasis on moving away from seeing secondary schools as being just for the academic process of achieving exam success in individual named subjects and towards considering the needs of the whole young person and preparing them to have a passion for learning generally and a commitment to lifelong learning from birth to beyond secondary school.
I was expecting to hear more about the last point that you made. The curriculum will always have limitations for some and, as Christina Allon pointed out, some people will be motivated by considering their long-term career prospects. We are discussing how to motivate pupils to engage with the school and see the benefits that school can give them. Many things attract pupils to a school and give them a sense of belonging—I am thinking of extracurricular activities. I was expecting to hear more about that. Perhaps Learning and Teaching Scotland is not the right organisation to ask about that. I would like to get a handle on evidence on the importance of schools that offer such activities. I am aware that there are many good schools in East Renfrewshire, which I represent. What marks them out are things such as the quality of the school orchestra, the school shows that are put on and the general level of activity that goes on in the school outwith specific lessons in the classroom. To me, that shows that pupils want to go to school; they are skipping into school in the morning—at least at primary school level. Do you have a view on that? Do you compile evidence on it or can you point us in the right direction?
We are clear that such activities enrich the school experience hugely, because they are fundamental to the ethos and values of the community. A number of them relate to leadership in the school—I do not just mean the head teacher—and the links that the school has with its community and with parents. Those things are intertwined; schools are not just to do with the academic bits of education. Some schools have breakfast clubs so young people are there from the early morning. Some schools cannot close at night because young people and others from the community are still there using sports facilities. Such schools are vibrant hubs for their communities; they gain from and give to the communities. It is a two-way process in which the school is regarded as a centre within the community. That also touches on support, to which you referred.
Is there a sense in which school orchestras or school shows are results of good motivation as well as causes of it?
Yes. It is a two-way process. That takes us back to the need for the school to establish its own values and have an ethos that supports and encourages. The two are obviously interrelated.
On a technical point, at the end of Learning and Teaching Scotland's submission, you have listed relevant work undertaken; do those headings refer to reports of various kinds?
Yes.
Are they all available?
Yes. A number of them are available online.
Yes, it would be.
My next question is about that. Under the heading "Curriculum and pedagogy" alone, you have listed a number of welcome initiatives in your submission; we are discovering that there is a lot of good practice, but we are not quite sure how teachers find out about it. Who spreads it around and provides leadership on good practice?
That relates to what Christina Allon said on Careers Scotland's behalf. Within Learning and Teaching Scotland, identifying and disseminating good practice is hugely important. We identify good practice through effective links with local authorities, schools and other national bodies and we work with Careers Scotland, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education and others to ensure that there is a shared view of what is good practice.
Is it fair to say that that dissemination of best practice is coming up from the local area—I do not suppose that we could say that headmasters are "below"—and is not being dictated from on high by Scottish Executive guidance? Does that approach work more effectively, or does it mean that such dissemination happens in the best schools but does not happen where the leadership is less motivated?
Clearly, in the case of heads together, that will depend on people accessing the community. As I indicated, the figures show that well over two thirds of the head teacher staff are trained to use the community. During May, there were 40,000 hits on the community's web pages and 3,000 different visits were made. The rising trend in the figures for the use of the heads together community indicates that head teachers are increasingly valuing it as a place to go to discuss various topics.
My question is related both to what has just been said and to what Wendy Alexander was talking about earlier. You were talking about skills for work, and in your written submission, you say:
I accept that acknowledging achievement goes far beyond academic attainment and exam performance. The most simple way of doing that is by praise. Everybody—not just teachers and parents—can work together and be appreciative of one another. It is not a one-way process. The teacher and the parent should praise the child, but the child can also, by enjoying the lesson, share their fun. It will feed back to the teacher that they have achieved something in that lesson. On a very small scale, the use of praise can help to celebrate success.
I once received a prize for improvement in singing, which I thought was a little ambiguous.
Some of the evidence from the teaching unions was quite scathing about that culture of award ceremonies. They said that it was back-slapping. They poured scorn on putting smiley faces on jotters and so on, and said that it was not cool for teenage boys to get that sort of thing. I presume that you would disagree with the unions on that.
That applies to one gender and to a very particular age group. I was speaking more generally. I would guarantee that youngsters in primary school and in the early years love smiley faces and so on.
We are talking about tackling disaffection. I read more and more in the evidence that we are receiving that we need to create a climate for learning, raising children's aspirations and tapping into their enthusiasm at school. That is somewhat different to the ethos that we were used to 30 or 40 years ago, when there was a traditional learning situation and discipline systems. Respect was assumed and did not have to be earned.
In my view, what we have moved away from is the climate of fear that existed in some schools, where young people were not treated with respect and were expected to do what they were told regardless. Society has moved towards the view that children have the right to be respected from birth. There has been a shift away from the old-fashioned, traditional culture whereby head teachers and teachers instilled discipline by running around the corridors in black gowns. We now have an atmosphere of respect from the teachers and other adults in the school who work with young people; there is mutual respect. That is evidenced in the majority of schools' statements of their aims; the ethos to which they aspire is centred on a number of values.
It also helps MSPs' motivation to receive praise occasionally.
Although teachers can accept that approach in principle and theory, the difficulty is turning it into practice, particularly for the current teaching workforce, which was brought up and trained in a different ethos. Is that changing? Are those principles being put into practice the more that the new cohorts of young teaching recruits come through the system? Is there a problem with the older age groups?
I pay tribute to the new teachers who are coming into the profession—whether in their 20s or as a second or third career—highly enthusiastic about the approach that I have described. It is easy to speak to staff in a huge number of schools and feel that vibrancy; one can feel that they genuinely identify with the learning community and with its ethos and values.
I have a question about parity of esteem for the witness from Careers Scotland, who has been silent for a little while. Parity of esteem has many implications and we have heard a number of examples of how it works or does not work, but it is accepted that parity of esteem across the board—that is, between academic subjects, practical subjects and skills development—is an important theme in the underlying topic of value. Are you able to give us guidance on practical models for the implementation of parity of esteem?
Parity of esteem is critical. It builds on people's aspirations, skills and potential. It recognises that the important thing is for everyone to realise their potential, rather than the potential that someone else thinks they ought to have. There are examples from across the country of packages being developed that take a practical skill—in anything from catering to construction—and involve local employers, the local further education college and school staff. Such programmes equip people with qualifications and accreditation that they can use in the world beyond education.
That would be very useful. A question on discipline is linked to that, which is where I began. We are getting the impression that a number of young people are coming out of school with no skills. They are no use in the employment market, and they have managed to go right through the educational system and have ended up ill equipped to survive. They then feed into the bottom of the unemployed and incapacity registers. That is no doubt sometimes linked with mental health problems and other factors. Are we managing to crack that to any extent? Careers Scotland must have the best view of that. What observations can you offer us?
A number of programmes are now beginning to show evidence of success. I mentioned one earlier called WorkNet—its strapline is "No one is unemployable", That stems from a focus on business culture and employability. We have piloted that programme in a number of different contexts. Some of those pilots have been in emotional/behavioural disorder schools—those 11 schools cater for some of the most challenging young people. Through that programme, which involves school staff and Careers Scotland staff working jointly with the pupils, we have been able to secure success rates of 80 per cent for people moving into positive destinations. That compares favourably with the accepted success rate of about 30 per cent for young people who are moving out of care into the world beyond school. We are beginning to see success coming through from some programmes.
Are those programmes working for people who come out of care? Is that the same cohort?
Absolutely; it is the same cohort. It includes people coming out of care with a very mixed group of skills and with fairly volatile backgrounds. The programmes are beginning to succeed with that group.
I would welcome some further information on any evaluation that you have done on those programmes. We have not concentrated on that cohort in our inquiry, but it is hugely important, so any guidance that you could give us would be helpful.
Learning and Teaching Scotland's submission says that
As far as integrated children's services are concerned, there has been a bringing together in respect of how a young person's needs are addressed as a whole, which encompasses education, social work, health needs, support from an educational psychologist and so on. It is apparent from a number of conversations with folk in schools that insufficient time is being spent with educational psychologists and others and it has been suggested that a school-based counsellor could offer more informal training and support and perhaps intervene before problems developed to the extent that professional help from an educational psychologist was required.
I would be interested in receiving feedback on that work.
The submission from Learning and Teaching Scotland states:
We have given the witnesses a bit of homework. Thank you for your evidence, which has been useful to the committee's inquiry.
We recently published "A Climate for Learning: A Review of the Implementation of the ‘Better Behaviour—Better Learning' Report", which considered pupil behaviour, motivation and disaffection, so we are in a good position from which to give the committee a handle on the matter.
It is reasonably evident that any school can experience individual issues from time to time, but are you telling us that a direct relationship links good leadership, good motivation and the school ethos, which reduces the problem that schools, particularly secondary schools, sometimes experience?
Yes—a direct relationship exists, particularly with leadership. I brought along Alan Stewart because he was our lead on pulling that evidence together, so I will ask him to comment on the background in a little more detail. We found key factors that underlie success, but much can be achieved by strong leadership, as I said. Some areas face bigger challenges than others but, even in challenging areas, success is possible.
We found that the 40 per cent of our secondary schools that had very good leadership also had a very good climate and relationships and generally good pupil behaviour. The responses and views of teachers in those schools on management of discipline, respect between pupils and teachers and how consistently standards in their schools are upheld were much better than the national average. As Bill Maxwell said, that was true in schools in areas of social deprivation. For example, in one school in an area that has a high score on the index of social deprivation, all staff believed that indiscipline was dealt with effectively, that mutual respect existed between teachers and pupils and that standards were consistent.
That is encouraging. The committee's observation on its visits to schools is that we can almost smell a good school when we walk through the door.
Yes. That police officer's observation is borne out. The move towards integrated community schooling approaches is increasingly strengthening our observation that a school plays a lead role in its community, not simply in managing behaviour within the school bounds but in setting a tone and so on.
I have two questions. First, does the inspection regime, focused as it is on school-by-school inspections, really let us get a handle on the quality of experience in the different environments in which the present cohort of pupils is being educated? I am thinking of specialist schools in that regard.
The member is thinking in particular of the cohort of pupils who become detached from mainstream school for whatever reason.
Yes; I mean pupils who face significant disaffection and motivational issues.
As the member will be aware, we inspect special schools. Increasingly, we are also inspecting projects that are half attached to mainstream schools. In the longer run, we are considering the possibility of doing neighbourhood inspections under which we would not only look at the primary and secondary school establishments in the area, but we would stand above that to look at the quality of interagency working that supports the most vulnerable pupils in the area. In that way, we can tie specialist provision directly to mainstream school provision in a locality.
You will see our challenge from a policy point of view. If our objective is for the children who are detached from the mainstream to achieve the best possible educational experience, and if there is no comparable evidence base that attempts some sort of like-for-like comparison, how will we know that the right decision is being made for any one pupil? Everybody says, "That's the HMIE's job." I suggest that you create an across-Scotland like-for-like comparison that can help people to reach judgments on the right location—mainstream or otherwise—for a particular child.
Indeed. We benchmark nationally across schools that deal with similar issues. For example, we routinely look at a number of schools for kids who have severe emotional and behavioural difficulties and will compare and encourage cross-comparison among those schools. Of course, assessment needs to be much more sophisticated than looking at just exam results and so on—as I am sure you are well aware. It is therefore more challenging to do, but we do it. We publish aspect reports occasionally, which consider all subjects. We recently published one on residential special schools, which is a way of cross-fertilising best practice as well as of showing where we are finding the most common weaknesses in mainstream provision.
My slight reservation about your submission is that it consists of seven reports that we should all read. It leaves the impression that your role is to observe rather than to police or enforce. It may be that your role is to produce reports that suggest good practice but not to police or enforce, which leaves parents with the question "Whose job is it to ensure that any one child's educational experience is not unduly disadvantaged by the disruptive behaviour of others?" It may not be your job, but clarity over ownership on that issue is important. Some of the evidence has said that it is HMIE's responsibility, but your submission is all about seven reports that suggest good practice and no mention is made of your being the owners of the problem. How do we think through that issue of ownership?
Our role is one of transparent accountability and, through that process, we hope that we drive improvement. Ownership of decisions about individual children must rest with local authorities, which are responsible for individual kids in that way. We help to support that process directly by publishing reports on the various provisions that local authorities may use outwith the main stream as well as in mainstream schools. In recent times, we have published a number of critical reports on provision, particularly in respect of kids who have been pulled out of mainstream education for behavioural reasons and have ended up in inadequate project-type provision that has a denuded curriculum. We make that clear, and local authorities need to respond and to improve that provision.
You talked about the accountability mechanism. What is that?
Local authorities make provision for individual pupils; we hold them independently to account for the quality of provision. I would extend that even to independent schools. When a local authority places a child in an independent school it should maintain responsibility for ensuring that what it is doing is appropriate, that it is sending the child to the right place and that it monitors the quality of what is happening in that school. It must not abdicate responsibility for a child by funding the child in an independent school.
We have heard previously that under the new HMIE inspection regime the expectation would be that a school would be inspected once during a child's primary career and once during a child's secondary career. Is there the same frequency of inspection for special schools and for children who may be proving disruptive at school and are therefore impacting on the educational experience of their peers?
The same generational cycle applies to special schools and provision for primary and secondary pupils.
We should also be clear that as part of that cycle we have a range of follow-through arrangements for every inspection so that, according to the needs of that school and its capacity for improvement, we will return to that school on the back of the inspection that we did. We will have given main points for action. In schools where there have been important weaknesses we will have fairly regular involvement with the authority and the school to help them to create an action plan.
Last week, we heard that some of this cohort of students would be expected to spend less time in school and more time with Right Track, Fairbridge and other projects or in a further education setting. Does inspecting that provision, which might account for 50 per cent of the students' educational experience, fall within HMIE's remit or is it the responsibility of another statutory agency?
That clearly falls within our remit. For example, we will sometimes carry out aspect tasks, in which we get an overview of the success of a type of provision that might be emerging across the country by visiting various places that provide it. Moreover, when during our normal school inspection programme we come across a school that is making significant use of such provision, we will dig a bit deeper and carry out an audit trail to find out whether such programmes have been effective and whether they are well monitored.
It is always helpful for a submission to refer us to seven other documents. However, because you sit at the centre of that nexus, I wonder whether you could submit some supplementary evidence on what works and what does not. Many people who have testified to the committee have a sense about what works in their little patch, but they are also very keen to have an overview of the evidence in the seven documents to which you have referred. I am sure that one of those documents will tell us about what works, but some supplementary evidence that draws those elements together would be much appreciated.
We can do that.
Last week, we heard evidence from Right Track, Fairbridge and Spark of Genius, each of which takes a slightly different approach to this matter and perhaps has slightly different catchment groups. I realise that evaluating and comparing their approaches would be quite difficult, and I dare say that there is no single answer in that respect. Nevertheless, it would be useful to receive a comparative evaluation that highlights which approach definitely has a track record of success, which is a bit more iffy, which applies to a certain category but not to another category, and so on. Although there is good practice across Scotland, a lot of money is going into a wide range of different projects. We need to know from a public perspective whether they are working, whether we should go in one direction and not another and whether that is already covered in your reports.
It is hard for HMIE to be definite about whether the approaches that are taken by Right Track, the on track programme and other such projects are right, wrong or whatever because many of them are quite small scale and have been introduced only recently. Indeed, in many cases, there might well be a mix, because some approaches might work for some kids but not for others. That said, we have published reports on such programmes; for example, we carried out a specific report on Spark of Genius that concluded that its approach had potential.
That would certainly be helpful.
I had the same question so I will not pursue it. However, I would like you to expand on one point. We are hearing slightly conflicting evidence about whether there should be a greater role for the centre or greater flexibility at local level. We are being asked about both those options and they do not necessarily conflict; flexibility in the curriculum and allowing teachers room to motivate are not bad things, but leaving schools to continue to disappoint their catchment is not a good thing, and we have to get the balance right.
Nationally, we are rightly moving from a position where approaches throughout Scotland have been pretty uniform, and we are encouraging flexibility. In some respects, that has been quite slow to take off and sometimes the—quite wrong—expectation that HMIE is looking for something formulaic from schools can be a brake in the system.
Will the driver be things such as the pupil inclusion network and the partnership working that LTS is doing to allow heads to form communities and speak to one another, which we heard about earlier, or guidance laid down by the minister? Where will the national guidance come from, or are we already there?
Guidance on principles and the test to apply when adjusting the curriculum will be appropriate. Undoubtedly, the curriculum review follow-through—developing the curriculum for excellence—will reset national guidance on the curriculum over the next few years. However, there need not be a push for that to be prescriptive.
I have three brief questions, the first of which is about parental involvement. How can the parents of disengaged pupils be encouraged to participate in school life and support their children's learning?
Parental involvement is one of the key things that helps in schools that are improving motivation and behaviour. Our review of integrated community schools considers the matter as well. I ask Alan Stewart to make one or two comments from the detailed evidence, but I start by flagging up the fact that the introduction of home-school link workers is a significant development. We often hear positive comments about such workers and we are encouraged by what we see. Many schools are appointing people who actively form bridges with harder-to-reach parents.
I echo what Bill Maxwell said about the introduction of home-school link workers. That is a key strategy to engage parents, particularly those of disaffected pupils. Such engagement is important at the pre-school stage and in the early stages of primary school. There are often social problems in the family, and home-school link workers can help parents to understand how they can best help their children. I am thinking particularly of the nurture groups scheme that is run by one or two authorities, which includes support for pupils in the early stages of primary school and helps them to manage their anger. It also engages their parents, and the support and counselling that they receive often help them as much as their children. That engagement needs to continue throughout pupils' school lives. It is not that they become dependent on that help; the support and help can continue, and the evidence that we have shows that it is successful.
My second question is about the re-entry into the system of pupils who have been temporarily excluded—or pupils who have been permanently excluded, for that matter, although there are far fewer of them. What constitutes best practice in that area?
Best practice involves a positive engagement with the parents and the pupil about what is expected when the pupil returns, whether the engagement is verbal, written or whatever. I hesitate to use the word "contract", but there should be a detailed discussion about what went wrong last time, with a focus on the solution. That includes what the pupil needs to do to re-engage effectively and what support the school or other agencies can provide to ensure that that happens.
It is also important for exclusion to be seen as an important feature of the stratagem, among other sanctions. We found that in schools that are good at promoting positive behaviour and have a good regime of behaviour management, exclusions are understood by pupils and parents to be a severe sanction. That sets a context, and when pupils re-enter school after exclusion their parents take the negotiations seriously.
My third question is on permanent exclusions, which are obviously few and far between. If the head teacher, rather than the local authority, had the right to exclude after considerable disturbance, what would the effect be?
It is difficult to speculate about exactly how that would work. In the Scottish context, the local authority continues to have responsibility for the pupil. I know that circulars ceased to use the term "permanent exclusion" as such because the process actually involved a case conferencing procedure around a crisis whereby alternative placement for the pupil might need to be found. It is vital that the head teacher and the local authority are part of that discussion. If the child is going to move away from a school, the local authority has to find a constructive, good-quality alternative as soon as possible. It is vital that all that be done as part of a managed process. It would not be helpful to have a process wherein authorities could find themselves suddenly having on their hands a pupil with nowhere to go without a discussion having taken place about what provision might be appropriate for the needs of the pupil.
Is that a question that has been addressed by the inspectorate?
It is. We considered the issue when we produced our report on alternatives to exclusion, which focused on exclusion procedures and ways of avoiding excluding people. A small number of exclusions will occur each year but, when they do, it must be accepted that they are a bit of a failure of the system, which should have been able to intervene earlier to stop that problem happening or should have seen the problem coming and made a managed move before the crisis point was reached.
Yes, but if there is such a failure of the system, should not the other pupils be allowed to proceed effectively with their learning?
Consideration must always be given to the rights of the broad mass of pupils in the school. We would not advocate pushing back into the classroom disruptive pupils who are unable to cope in a mainstream classroom without sufficient support. That would not be good practice and we would be critical of it.
In "A Climate for Learning", we recommend that all authorities have access to off-site provision for the few pupils who exhibit challenging behaviour and, despite the number of good strategies that schools use to give them additional support, are still not coping in the main stream and are disrupting the learning of others.
Earlier, you referred to integrated community schools and the review that you did at the end of last year and we have heard other evidence that suggests that such schools are good at bringing together professionals and voluntary workers who are able to support young people and their parents. However, your submission says:
To some extent, the integrated community school model has suffered in many areas from a perception that it is a separate project that should run alongside other services in education and social work. It has been perceived as an add-on that can deal quite well with a few individuals who have particular problems by enhancing provision for them but which should not affect the usual practice of teachers in the school or social workers in the area. That meant that it was not becoming embedded in wider practice.
Do you have any specific recommendations for our report? Do you have any suggestions about pupil motivation or about ways in which we could help disaffected children, which would tie in with the development of that sort of approach?
The approach is not especially prescriptive; it encourages local partners to arrive at local solutions. The big recommendation would be to drive understanding of the approach and the roles of teachers, social workers, health workers and others by having all the front-line staff seeing themselves as working towards a shared set of objectives at the local level. That is what authorities need to focus on achieving. They need to take the integrated community schooling approach beyond being a project to something that is understood by and embedded in the practice of all front-line staff in an area. Our report "The Sum of its Parts?" contains some specific recommendations, which we can make available to you separately.
On a slightly different subject, I would like your comment on evidence that we were given in the previous session. We were told that the pressure that target setting could place on a school could be transferred to the students, as a lot of assessment is required. We were told that there should perhaps be less assessment and more valuing of achievement. What is your response to the idea that there should be less assessment?
Yes, we would encourage that general line of thinking, which the curriculum review is specifically pursuing. As a member of the review group, I am signed up to the argument that we should move towards a system that is a little more selective about the points at which assessment is made. We certainly should not introduce more formal assessment earlier and earlier in the system.
Are there specific examples of good practice from your inspections? Have you found any especially successful ways of celebrating pupils' wider achievement?
There are many and varied ways. We often comment on activity that is going on in the arts and cultural activities, and we note any community service involvement. Schemes such as the Duke of Edinburgh's award and the Caledonian award encourage appropriate activities and foster genuine motivation to achieve. "A Climate for Learning" describes how, beyond the formal exam system, less motivated pupils have often been helped by award schemes such as Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network schemes, which sit separately from the standard Scottish Qualifications Authority system.
Schools are becoming good at recognising and celebrating success and broad achievement, as we note in "A Climate for Learning". As Bill Maxwell said, we have started to report on broad achievement, which reflects well on schools. A consideration of HMIE reports enables the reader to appreciate the range of endeavours that schools have developed to involve pupils and encourage broad achievement. Schools celebrate success in many ways: at assemblies, which are regularly used for that purpose and represent an important public celebration of success; through awards systems and certification, which are valued; and by notifying parents of successes. The celebration of success confers status on pupils and their achievements.
During our inquiry, we have heard about parity of esteem—the matter is not entirely unconnected with the matter that we are discussing. The term is usually applied in the context of the relationship between academic subjects and more vocational ones, but the committee heard evidence that we should not just bung children who have difficulties into vocational streams. Wider options should be available to such children. Do you have useful observations on the matter? Educational and career choices must not be distorted and we need to demonstrate that there is value across the range of subjects and career choices, so different choices can be equally valid—that is an important subtext to our inquiry. What are the key issues in that regard?
It is important to avoid the traditional, crude thinking that regards the streams in which the least academic kids are placed as vocational and the academic streams as somehow non-vocational, which is clearly not true. Advanced higher physics is vocational for rocket scientists, just as some further education courses are vocational for other professions.
Do members want to comment?
No. The evidence was interesting and covered a great deal.
I thank the witnesses for their evidence. We are grateful for your input and expertise. We have asked you to come back to us on one or two points and if you want to make further observations to us, we would be keen to have the benefit of your experience. HMIE has a unique ability to assess what is happening throughout Scotland. The committee needs that perspective to inform its inquiry.
Thank you. We will be happy to come back to the committee on those points. On Wendy Alexander's point, I presume that we can extract from reports summary points that identify the key factors for success.
And, if there is evidence, tell us. If there is no evidence, say that too. People talk about things being evidence based, but nobody is better placed than you to determine whether there is any evidence. Clarity on that for report drafting would be enormously helpful.
That is right. There tends to be a bit of assertion in this field that is not necessarily backed up.