Future of Schools Management in Scotland
Item 2 is evidence for our consideration of the future of schools management in Scotland. Members will be aware that the Scottish Government appointed David Cameron to review devolved school management. We have invited him to discuss that work with us before we take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning on 23 February.
I thank Mr Cameron for joining us. I ask him to make a short opening statement to give us an overview of his work and where he is with that.
David Cameron (Review of Devolved School Management)
The review is very much work in progress. We have established a reference group, which has met twice. The group is widely representative of the education community. It includes representation from the national parent forum, trade unions, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland and School Leaders Scotland—it takes the usual format, with which members will be familiar. The group is proceeding in a consensual way. We have a general commitment to moving from the idea of devolved school management towards the idea of entitlement to lead, which is the direction of travel that we are trying to take.
We are trying to come up with recommendations that will fit a range of governance models. We are aware that school governance is being debated and might well be an issue in the forthcoming election. We felt that we had a responsibility to consider some of the review’s implications for governance but that the priority was to secure meaningful change, regardless of what the governance future might be.
We are still gathering evidence and trying to process it into the beginnings of a report. The timescales are unbelievably short. The reference group is scheduled to meet on 23 February and the report is due to be submitted before the middle of March, so I am under pressure to produce a substantive document by 18 February that the reference group can consider on 23 February. That has limited the review’s exhaustiveness.
Having placed the review in that context, I am happy to say more on its guiding principles, if that would help the committee. Otherwise, I am happy to move to questions, so that I can clarify the issues that concern members most.
Before we move to questions, it would be helpful if you could tell us exactly what your guiding principles are, as that will facilitate further questions.
The guiding principles for the review are that decisions should be taken as close as possible to their delivery to children and young people. That has to be done in the context of a national agenda, however, with a responsibility to deliver on that. The example that I commonly give is that it would be nonsensical to make a commitment to life sciences under the national economic strategy—which we are doing—if no schools in Scotland were offering advanced higher biology. We need to be clear that democratically endorsed decisions are taken and endorsed as part of wider national strategies. Schools need to be aware of what those are and they need to be responsible in that regard.
As far as guiding principles are concerned, not only is there the delivery of a democratically agreed and sanctioned national agenda, there is a commitment to deliver in the best interests of children and young people.
We have already begun to move in the direction of entitlements. The experiences and outcomes within curriculum for excellence set out the entitlements that young people have under their broad general education up to the end of secondary year 3. The further principles in curriculum for excellence go beyond that. There needs to be a recognition that young people have an entitlement, and we should not have unacceptable variation in how we respond to that entitlement in schools across the country.
Another guiding principle is that any arrangements that we put in place should be such that all schools can benefit from them. Currently, a secondary school and a primary school in the same local authority area can be operating under exactly the same national guidance from 2006 and the same local authority arrangements, but one of those schools will have the capacity to make meaningful decisions and the other will not, simply because of the scale of its budget and the amount of disposable income that the school is capable of dealing with. We need to find a way whereby the devolution, the entitlement to lead or whatever is to the benefit of all young people and all schools. That means that we will probably consider recommendations for federations of school groups.
There are other guiding principles aside from that. First, we are in a rapidly changing society that will change more quickly in future. We therefore need an agile, responsive system. Secondly, there is a feeling that, under the current processes, moves towards change—particularly when it is genuine, transformational change—are too cumbersome. Those are the main guiding principles.
As part of those guiding principles, will there also be an explanation of why change is necessary? It struck me at our round-table discussion last week that, although there are people who talk about the need to change the management of our schools and who say that the case for change has been made, others who gave evidence to the committee were not so convinced that the case has been made. Are we clear about why we want to make these changes and about what benefit children and young people and our teaching profession will get as a result of them?
There are possibly three aspects that need to be addressed in answer to that question. First, we have already moved through the establishment of curriculum for excellence to a situation where there is much greater capacity for schools to make decisions about how they provide appropriately for the youngsters for whom they are responsible. If we make the change in terms of responsibility, we need to ensure that it is reflected in our management arrangements.
I am being specific in differentiating between management arrangements and governance arrangements. The review that I am conducting is primarily concerned with management arrangements, and it will only touch on governance where that is relevant to the discussion. It is important to be clear about that.
We have created a different way of delivering the curriculum compared with anything that we have had previously in Scotland. The arrangements that we make require to reflect that.
The second point is that there is a general awareness that we need better-tailored, more agile responses to the changing needs of society and young people if we are to make the kind of transformational change that is important. Related to that is a dawning realisation—the Parliament is to be given credit for this—that we do not make transformational change simply by pulling one string on the puppet. If we pull the curricular string and change the way that the curriculum is delivered, we need to ask continually what other strings we need to pull on to ensure that that change is embedded and transformational.
11:15
There is a real concern that, over a long time, genuine and concerted efforts at change in Scottish education became more conservative—I use the term with due apologies and a lower-case c—as they developed and we have not gained from some of the radical beginnings that we had. Standard grade is a classic example of that. Therefore, there is a recognition that, whenever we contemplate making a significant change to address changing circumstances, we need to consider the context within which that change takes place and ensure that the context is supportive.
The third element is that there is clearly discussion about change not only at a strategic level, as the convener suggests, but at ground level. There is a significant groundswell for change among the members of School Leaders Scotland, who have expressed concerns for some time and have been mindful of the need to consider the arrangements for devolved financial management and governance in general. The Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland is also involved in the debate. Very radically, even the Educational Institute of Scotland has entered into a debate on school governance and moved away from its long-standing, traditional commitment to the local authorities in their current form taking the lead management responsibility. There is a build-up of debate that is not solely imposed. It is a groundswell of genuine debate.
I am interested in what you say, because it reflects much of what came out of the Donaldson review. The change is coming from within, which is a much better way of moving forward. Graham Donaldson said to us that everything that he wanted to achieve was grounded in asking whether a change would benefit our young people, which is exactly what you started with. This is probably a difficult question: do you have any ideas about how you measure improvement in outcomes?
Yes.
Would you like to explain what they are?
I take it that the simple affirmative will not suffice.
We need to be far clearer about the areas in which we wish to see improvement. Currently, we do not have benchmarks for a number of the areas in which we not only wish to see but need to see improvement.
A significant point is that, to achieve the ambitions of the Parliament, Graham Donaldson and others who are involved in education, we need young people who are more adept in the higher-order skills. We cannot simply operate on the basis of strengthening basic skills. There is a general consensus that we will not survive and compete as a low-wage economy in a global world. We need to consider, as Graham Donaldson does extensively in his report, how to develop highly skilled young people who are capable of innovation, creativity and operating within a knowledge-based economy rather than a traditional, manufacturing-based economy and certainly rather than simply a service economy.
That means that we need to start benchmarking our standards in relation to, for example, understanding rather than simply recall; analysis and evaluation rather than simply the kind of knowledge and understanding that we measure through a number of our current assessment procedures; and creativity and systems thinking. Those are key skills that are built into—I apologise for the duplication—“Building the Curriculum 4: Skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work”, which is one of the key guiding documents of curriculum for excellence.
There is a recognition that we need to begin to benchmark in those skills and look outwith Scotland at international standards. The programme for international student assessment—PISA—is the obvious example about which Graham Donaldson talks regularly. We need to take stock of whether it covers the range of areas in which we wish to see improvement, but we need to begin to benchmark and create standards. The international comparison is vital to that.
I was interested in what you said about higher-order skills and about knowledge and understanding and evaluation, because that was what was supposed to happen with standard grade. Those were the criteria—I remember them vividly from when I was a teacher. However, that did not happen and standard grade did not move us up the league tables. Why was that, if those features were supposed to be crucial to the standard grade set-up?
I will give my analysis of what happened with standard grade. We started off with serious and significant ambitions for curriculum design and assessment. The Munn and Dunning reports were forward-looking documents that promised the significant change that you are discussing and describing. However, as we went through the mill in the development of standard grade, it became increasingly conservative—again, I say that with due apologies and the emphasis on a lower-case c. There was a reduction in the emphasis on internal assessment because of concerns about teacher workload. We moved away from a broad general approach to assessment to the development of what were known as extended grade-related criteria. We moved back to much more of a tick-box mentality to step-by-step assessment.
The tools that we used for assessment for standard grade did not always deliver what we sought. For example, during the trial period for standard grade, it was suggested that young people might be asked in one examination to answer a question on Brazil, on which they would be provided with a great deal of evidence. The response from the moderating panel was, “You can’t do that, because they’ve not studied Brazil.” One wondered what the point of studying geography was if it could not promote a better understanding of a range of countries, rather than the one that had been studied.
That is a fairly sound illustration of why we did not necessarily follow through on our ambitions for standard grade and a range of other developments at that time.
You hinted that the curriculum for excellence should address such issues, and we all hope that it will. Is there any reason why fundamental change in school management can help that process? In other words, are you arguing that, because we have the curriculum for excellence, there ought to be, by logic and definition, a change in school management to reflect that?
That relates more to the flexibility and autonomy that schools will have in the delivery of curriculum for excellence. We need to review school management arrangements to reflect that. There is little point in empowering people simply through entitlement if, in reality, they cannot take advantage of that. We need to consider how we empower people better to take advantage of the opportunities that curriculum for excellence offers. However, a change in the management and devolved financial arrangements will not take us significantly further forward in capturing all the prizes that curriculum for excellence offers. On the issue of the wider range of skills, we need to look more closely at assessment and the experiences and outcomes and take a range of reinforcing steps to ensure that we get the delivery that we seek.
You made a clear distinction between management and governance and said that you are focusing on management. Will you expand on that? Was that principle imposed on you as part of your remit, or is that self-limiting? Why are you not touching on both?
It is partly self-limiting. When one enters into a commitment to conduct a review, one wants something to happen as a result of it. The wider the scope of the review, the less likely that is to happen. The concept that we have operated with is to try to get a set of arrangements for devolved decision making as well as devolved financial management that will fit within a range of governance structures. It is impossible to look at either of the two in isolation. If we asked a range of people who are involved in education what the blockers are to further progress, many of them would talk about the amount of funding that they have. Decisions about the amount of funding are affected because schools are part of local authorities and are not simply under the governance of an education authority. A range of issues around that will impinge on the review, but we wish to at least make concrete recommendations on specific issues about school management that fit within a range of governance frameworks.
Are you going to collect evidence of the benefits of devolved school management? Are you starting from the basis that autonomy and devolved school management are beneficial for pupils and will improve standards, or are you trying to prove the case?
That is an interesting question. Yes, I am collecting and looking at evidence through research and discussion. I am, for example, looking at the general work that has been done on the issue; there has been a lot of influential thinking on the impact of such arrangements and I am also examining impacts in other contexts and of devolved arrangements that are different from those that operate in Scotland.
In that sense, we are looking to prove what we think is a strong case that greater devolution and entitlement to lead could have a beneficial effect on schools and the system. However, it will not have that effect on its own and I think that other changes will be necessary. A clear body of evidence suggests that the more people are committed to the system, the more they operate on decisions for which they have been responsible and the more they operate in line with their own enthusiasms, interests and commitments—provided, as I said earlier, that there are clear parameters in terms of a democratically established national agenda—the more likely it is that we will raise standards and secure benefits for young people in our schools.
What you are saying is in tune with the political consensus—I certainly do not think that there is a party-political split over this issue—but the fact that we all agree with it will not necessarily make any difference. After all, a discussion is on-going about structures in education and the round-table conversation that we had last week, if anything, put big question marks over any gains in this respect. Such a move might save costs but to be honest I have to say that that case was not proven. What are the benefits of this approach? You mentioned benchmarking standards, using PISA and looking at assessment. I understand all that but, much as I agree with the idea of liberating teachers to be more professional and take more decisions, I am still trying to work out how devolved school management will in itself bring those benefits.
Indeed, one of the stronger pieces of evidence that we heard last week was that the biggest difference can be made within schools not between schools. In other words, we would make the biggest difference of all by driving standards in a school up to the level of its highest achieving department. Are you considering that issue at all?
There are frustrations of that kind around staffing. For example, schools can get stuck with surplus staff members and find themselves unable to do anything at all about the situation because the processes in question are difficult and challenging. Again, I echo the view that the problem is not how to get rid of what people have described as the dead wood in teaching but how to fire and maintain the enthusiasm of the many good teachers we have and improve the standards of those who are average. However, things would be improved if headteachers were more able to confront some of these issues directly.
In reality, though, DSM arrangements on their own will not effect such improvements. In that respect, I return continually to the image of the marionette; we need to pull all the strings together to ensure that movement is cohesive rather than isolated. After all, you fail to make gains in significant single areas because you have failed to make commensurate changes in others. That is more where DSM fits; if you like, in chess terms, it is less a queen than a bishop or a rook.
In some authorities, the real differences are made by quality improvement officers, for example, going in to support schools, which is perhaps the opposite of devolved school management. Are you going to look at what is happening inside schools? The big gain might well be made from driving up standards within schools, but the fact is that most schools are already fairly autonomous. Are you looking for DSM within a school, as it were, to ensure that teachers themselves are more autonomous?
11:30
Again, I need to be very clear about what I want to do in advance of having the meeting with the reference group on 23 February. I am determined that, as far as possible, we will establish a high degree of consensus within the reference group that we wish to make supportive statements about a number of recommendations that are explicit in the Donaldson report.
There is no point in offering power if there is not, alongside that, the capacity for genuine leadership in the exercise of that power. The issue of leadership is vital. We do not have 32 local authorities all performing to the same level in delivering change, which has been a concern for the Parliament, and we do not have—whatever the number is—well over 1,000 headteachers who would, in my view, currently be capable of delivering that agenda, so leadership is a massive issue. We will not get leadership simply by focusing on those who are currently in leadership posts. We need to take the clear message from Donaldson and look at the development of leadership as a key part of the world of education and teaching.
At last week’s round-table session, there was a lot of conversation about structure and process and we have had a wee bit of that at this meeting. I chucked into the mix the thought that we might be looking at the issue the wrong way, in that we are looking at structures and process and not looking at what the child needs and at some of the factors that influence the child’s ability to learn and have a positive experience in education. The examples that I gave included poverty, whether of finance, of opportunity or of aspiration; alcohol or drug-abusing households; and health issues.
Will your review focus on the outcomes for the child? What does the child need? Do we take an holistic approach to a child’s education that allows them to develop and grow into fully functioning adults? A bit of me believes that what happens in the school should be part of the wider community and part of how we look after the child and nurture them.
That is a key issue for devolved school management, because the more we increase the capacity of the school as a decision-making body, the greater difficulty we might create in getting co-operation around children’s services. One change that has taken place in local government in Scotland is a move towards corporatism and, in some instances, away from a commitment to children’s services per se.
I do not know whether the review will make a recommendation on the issue, but there is a debate to be had and it is certainly an issue that one would have to explore. Schools being part of a local authority make it much more likely that they will act on a corporate basis and will pursue shared priorities. That is a key discussion that we need to have, particularly with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities representatives on the reference group. It is currently a matter for discussion and I am not sure whether there will be a specific recommendation on it.
The other issue of concern is that, as part of the concordat, ring fencing has gone over recent years. There is no doubt that that has been widely welcomed in a number of areas, but some people in education have had concerns about the loss of ring-fenced funding and there is a general feeling among some educationists that budgets that the Parliament intended for education have been deployed across a range of other priorities and not always in the best interests of the child. There is clearly a set of important issues around joint working and where schools sit within structures, and we will need to take cognisance of those in the review.
One idea that came up last week was having a child development service for children from the age of one to three because, across the parties, we agree that early intervention is a key driver in ensuring that there is a good outcome for the young person. Do you think that there should be a child development service from age one to three or from one until whenever they end their learning journey? I have a much broader view of where such development should start and end; it should not be tied down to one to three.
Much as I would like to be given the powers through this review to rewrite everything in Scottish education and, hopefully, make some of the progress that we need to make, I can only pull the string of the puppet that I have and try to ensure that I am pulling it in a way that is compatible with other work that is going on.
That said, I will not evade your question. We are looking at a situation where health is the universal service for children from the prenatal stage through to three, and education makes a significant contribution, particularly where there are high levels of need. The best results will come where we deploy these services together in a co-ordinated way, with a clear focus on child development. We recognise that children will not learn if they are damaged, affected or vulnerable as a result of poverty or ill health. We are all aware that, for many children, the script of their lives is written at the early stages. Those of us who are engaged in this—including you as democratic politicians—must try to erase that script and write a better one for them, and with them. That is our ambition.
More joint working around children, whether through the establishment of a child development service or through some other mechanism that guarantees better communication and collaboration, would be helpful and entirely compatible with the commitments that the Parliament has made in relation to the early years strategy.
You have touched on some of the capacity issues that I wanted to pick up on. We all know headteachers in our local schools who are absolutely ready to take on as much responsibility as possible and have the ability across a range of functions to do just that. Equally, there will be other headteachers who have neither the capacity nor the inclination to take on all the different options, which at the moment might largely be dealt with by a central department. How do we ensure that we improve that situation and give headteachers and others what they need to take on board greater responsibility, if that is the direction of travel that you are moving in, which certainly is one to which we are all signed up?
The first observation to make is that you can overload the willing horse. It is not simply a case of looking at those headteachers who might have less capacity or less ability within themselves; we must also ensure that we do not add unduly to the workload of others. The best headteachers—this is a theme that you are developing as a committee—are those who work with their colleagues in schools and with their community to have a direct impact on outcomes for children and young people. We need to be careful that we do not impose an untenable administrative burden on them through changes in the devolved school management arrangements.
Since the national agreement on teachers pay and conditions, we have seen the rise of business managers in secondary schools. Secondary schools are generally well supported in ways that allow the headteachers to be relatively relaxed—if I can use that phrase—about some of the administration and budgeting and to concentrate on the delivery of education. That has not been the case across the board. Some primary colleagues have neither the capacity nor the support to do that. I suspect that that is also true in a number of smaller secondary schools and smaller authorities.
Our direction of travel is likely to be one where we think in terms of federations of schools, with an enhanced management team that would have responsibility for supporting not only the secondary school, but the primary schools. We will also need to think carefully about the skills blend that we would require from personnel.
I have a meeting scheduled for the 14th of this month with the director in Glasgow, because there are significant lessons to be learned from the learning communities model that operated in Glasgow. There are a range of other models around. I have been looking carefully at some of the models in England. The Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, for example, is very interesting. I know that there is a very strong view in Scotland about the academies and about following the line that has been taken in England in a number of areas. What has been interesting is that some areas there have in effect created their own education authority through the trust, but it is an authority that is at the service of the schools, rather than vice versa. There are lessons to be learned from that. Schools do not want to have all the responsibilities as individual establishments. Currently, they lack the kind of personnel who would enable them to deliver effectively on those responsibilities, should they have them.
Having federations of support is an interesting idea. From carrying out the review, you will know that we do not exist in a vacuum; we all know that starkly. Right now, councils across Scotland are having to take some serious decisions about funding. My local authority is taking serious decisions about the business manager and bursar back-up that you have described as a way of freeing up headteachers to concentrate on learning and teaching. When you look at the capacity of headteachers to engage in even greater devolved school management, presumably you will have to make reference to exactly the kind of structure and support they need for that to work.
Yes.
You touched on the issue of staff. One area of concern, certainly from the unions’ point of view, is how we balance giving greater autonomy to headteachers in their schools with national agreements on staff. You talked about the frustration that headteachers have in relation to staff. When we visited local authorities across Scotland last year, we picked up on that frustration. How do you see the staffing issue being dealt with?
One of the most controversial issues will be the balance between national agreements and devolved decision making in schools. That issue must be explored. One difficulty that we will have is that we are operating and will complete our work in advance of the McCormack review getting under way. We are most likely to allude clearly to the importance of the issue and to make some points around it. In purely technical terms, we need to show awareness that the McCormack review has been commissioned and that it is not up to the review of devolved school management to pre-empt any conclusions that it may reach on the issue. However, as you have done clearly this morning, we need to highlight the relevance of the issue and the need to explore it further.
I have a final small question. You say that you are gathering evidence. What is your perspective on the degree of variation across Scotland in devolved school management and on the differences in approach between local authorities at present?
Variation is huge in relation to what is devolved, what decision making is devolved and how the system works. School Leaders Scotland has done a significant amount of work on the issue and can give you figures for the extent of variation in funding in schools. At our previous meeting, we looked at figures that indicated that some schools were in receipt of more than 90 per cent of the funding that was classed as available for devolution; for others, the figure was as low as 70 per cent. There is significant variation in that area.
The reality is that, in the current climate, some of the money is spent before the school makes a decision. The key point is that schools have the capacity to make decisions about that element of disposable income. The issue needs to be thought through carefully, but there is significant variation. Interestingly, at this stage there are no significant correlations between that variation and variation in outcomes between the schools and authorities involved. That is a conundrum.
11:45
On that last point, I was interested to find out that Northern Ireland spends £1,200 a year less per primary school pupil than Scotland, but has almost identical levels of attainment. In secondary schools, that gap rises to about £2,000. It is interesting to drill down to find out exactly how best to get value for money, especially in times of economic hardship.
You talked about clusters and skills blend. How far-reaching is your remit? A couple of days ago, I was talking to a retired primary teacher who told me that she was an excellent maths teacher but that she was mediocre at teaching anything else, yet she had responsibility for teaching children over many years. Do you believe that there should be an increase in specialisms in primary schools so that there are more specialists, not only in physical education and drama, but in basic literacy, numeracy and so on? Clearly, some teachers are more adept in relation to certain subjects than others. It is not always easy to put a square peg in a round hole.
One of the possibilities associated with devolved school management is that a headteacher might be able to take that kind of decision and deploy staff differently from the way in which they are currently deployed.
In terms of specialisms in the primary sector, we must perform a delicate balancing act. The model whereby children are primarily in a relationship with a single teacher who has a responsibility for care and has an overview of their general progress creates a healthy situation in many respects. There is a clear need to supplement that with specialist provision in particular areas, but I am relatively open minded about how that might be done.
At the risk of sounding like a complete jargon-driven educationalist, I think that one of the things that is happening is a recognition that it is not necessarily subjects that drive education. Most subjects are artificial intellectual constructs and they all depend on a broad set of skills around knowledge, recall, understanding, analysis and evaluation. We are not seeing progression in our schools in those areas. We might see progression in subject knowledge and in the apparent levels of difficulty, but we are not seeing progression in the areas that I just mentioned—indeed, there is clear evidence that we are seeing regression.
It is a slight caricature, but it has been said that there are instances in which children are functioning more independently and with greater control of their own learning at the age of four than they are when they are doing their highers. When children are at their intellectual peak, they are at the point at which their education is most constrained by revision, exam technique and a commitment to ensuring passes at all costs, regardless of whether the educational benefits match that. One of the things that we see consistently in Scotland is people going to university and then changing their course options to ones that they could have got into with lower results in their higher exams. We also see a number of our younger people who have been well taught, supported and coached, but who cannot survive in an educational environment in which the kind of support that they are used to does not exist.
The point that I am trying to make is that we need a balance between the teaching and development of skills, and the essential subject knowledge, particularly conceptual knowledge, that needs to be in place to support progress. As we begin to think differently about what we are delivering through the curriculum, we might well think differently about what is the best delivery model in the primary school. My preference would be for a significant amount of the young pupils’ time to be spent with one professional who co-ordinates the educational activity around them and for that to be supplemented and supported by specialist input, involving either other teachers or other educational models. That is the kind of arrangement that would be more likely to bring success.
That sounds pretty sensible. When I was in primary school, a French teacher would come in from outside, but everything else was covered by the classroom teacher. There might need to be more flexibility, but the core of what you say is correct.
Professor Mongon said that studies have shown that the differences within schools are often wider than the differences between schools. That indicates a difference in terms of leadership—not only at the top of a school, but within departments in a school. How can we tackle that issue? Doing so will be fundamental in our efforts to deliver the best possible outcomes for the greatest number of children.
The information that you were given is absolutely right: you will commonly find that in-school variation is regarded as being 10 times greater than between-school variation. There is significant evidence that teaching matters. We need to address that. There is also significant evidence that young people from deprived backgrounds can thrive better in particular curricular areas, under the guidance of particular teachers, and in particular schools. There is no doubt about that.
Above all else, the Donaldson review has shown that teacher education is a career-long commitment and that it begins with pre-service training. Your example of your days at primary school is helpful, and much of what Donaldson says about pre-service training fits exactly with your model. There should be an increasing emphasis on knowledge of specialist subjects. He has considered how we can change structures in order to accommodate that, and he has considered how to make progress with the idea.
Teachers have to feel in control of their own development. My favourite quote at the moment is that self-evaluation has to look outward as well as inward. If people can do that, it will genuinely be an engine for change.
The Donaldson report is also very good on the model of teacher learning communities—the kind of thing that we are seeing much more commonly in Scotland, in which long-term development is focused on groups of professionals. It may well be that, in a more devolved situation, that kind of approach will be more likely to thrive.
Mr Gibson is right to suggest that, if we want to improve things, the first thing that we have to do is to improve the quality of the experience that we offer to young people. That will involve addressing issues in relation to staff development, ensuring that the system is more ambitious, and ensuring that we are consistent in the care that we offer to our young people as they go through the system. I am fond of saying that, if you grow up in some of the poorer parts of Venezuela, you will have the opportunity of learning to play a classical instrument and of participating in a classical orchestra; whereas, in Scotland, there is a good chance that you will learn to play the recorder. I am not sure that that is the kind of statement that we want to make in relation to the ambitions and aspirations that we have for our young people—although we may well understand how the situation arises. The drive towards higher aspirations will come through consideration of ambition, aspiration, technical skill, and a genuine commitment to reflection on improving. In my review, I am considering whether there are things that we can do that will support that aim.
Israel has one tenth of the population of the UK, but it has more people who are classically trained almost to symphony-orchestra level. We can clearly learn from a whole variety of societies.
The issue of best practice was raised last week and it is clearly at the forefront of many people’s minds. If a school, department or class is working exceptionally well, how can you transmit the good learning methodologies to a wider audience? There is no doubt that some fantastic work is being done in Scotland—in a variety of different places, in a variety of different subjects, among people of different social groups, among people of different ages, and in different class sizes. However, there still seems to be a difficulty in ensuring that the maximum number of people can benefit from such good practice.
I absolutely agree with that. I have said on a number of occasions that, if all our young people were having the best experiences that are currently available within the Scottish education system, we would not be talking about systems change. I have argued strongly that the curriculum for excellence is as much about challenging practice as it is about changing practice. The best subject teachers bring the world into their classrooms; they do not exclude it. They do not teach a subject; they teach a child. Those are the ambitions of the curriculum for excellence.
We need to do a number of things to create a climate of sharing, in that sense. We must end the continual quest for the silver bullet. We have often been distracted by the pursuit of one initiative after another, often supported by ring-fenced funding, and teachers have sometimes become disenchanted with change. A lesson that we have learned from the winter is that, if we want to get traction, we need to slow down. Sometimes, when the wheels are spinning fast, all that we get is wheel spin, not forward motion. There is a need to concentrate consistently on the fundamentals and to operate with models of staff development that allow teachers to concentrate on practice and the discussion of practice.
I was in Linlithgow Academy two weeks ago, doing some work directly with the staff there. I had submitted my presentation in advance, saying, “This is what I’m thinking about doing. Is that okay with you?”—the customer is always right. The headteacher got back to me and asked whether I could mention the curriculum for excellence less. I discussed the matter with him, and the point that he was making was that he wanted his staff to feel that they were making change from the inside out. That was Ms Smith’s comment. He wanted them to feel that they were responding to the evidence of what happens when they work with young people in the school, and he wanted them to see the curriculum for excellence as an enabler and a permission rather than a driver.
We want to create that culture and a sense among teachers that we are not questing for another solution but looking for what the committee clearly understands has an impact on outcomes for young people. If we allow our teachers to dwell on that in a collective way, mindful of the wider role that they play in serving society as well as children and young people, we will have a recipe for further progress. It would not necessarily be rapid progress and, on some occasions, it would not generate as much apparent progress as we have sometimes seen through other initiatives, but it would guarantee real, secure progress and achievement in our schools.
How are you engaging parents in that process?
In several ways. The national parent forum is represented on the group. I have been closely associated with the national parent forum since its inception and have encouraged its involvement and engagement in a number of groups, including the curriculum for excellence management board. I am delighted that we have managed to achieve that. I am also currently involved in consultation on the school handbook. I am, in any case, having a series of evening meetings with parents throughout the country and we are taking the opportunity to gather parental views. Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of the parents’ representatives—similar to the responsibility of the other representatives on the groups—to check back with their constituencies.
Lorraine Sanda, the parental involvement officer, has also attended one of the most recent meetings of the national parent forum. The membership of the forum has been in something of a state of flux, and she stood in. That was helpful, as she has a perspective across a range of groups because of the other work that she has been doing. We have been trying to use it in that way.
I have one last question. It was put to us last week that the real demand from parents is for good schools—they are not too worried about management structures. I sympathise with that. Do you get the impression that that is the message that is coming back from the parent body?
To a certain extent. The analogy—I am overdosing on analogies—is with going to a restaurant. I just want a good meal; I do not care how it is cooked, but if it is not cooked properly, I will not get a good meal. The best parents know what outcomes they want and have a significant contribution to make to the discussion about how those outcomes might be achieved. As you know, many of our parents are extremely knowledgeable and bring a great deal to the debate from outwith the context of education. People learn from the environments in which they operate and work, and people learn as parents. They are the prime educators of their children and often understand far more than we give them credit for about the learning and teaching processes. They have a significant contribution to make.
I promised not to be evangelical this morning, but it comes back to the point about what makes a difference. The impact of supportive parental involvement is as great as the impact of many of the other factors that we spend much more time talking about. It makes a real, significant difference. Malcolm Gladwell refers to work that was done in New York, where there was clear evidence that schools closed the gap—not entirely, but significantly—between the most disadvantaged and the most advantaged learners over the period for which they had the children. However, the gap more than reinstated itself over the long summer vacation because of the impact of the parental contributions over that period. Parents are hugely significant in this and it is important that we get their ideas, not only about what we should aspire to, but about how we might translate those aspirations into reality.
That concludes our questions to you, Mr Cameron. Thank you for your attendance at the committee. I am sure that we all look forward to the publication of your report in March.
Thank you for your courtesy and for the hearing that you have given me, which I much appreciate. The discussion has also been informative in terms of the review, and I thank you for that.
Meeting closed at 12:01.