Education Committee, 14 Sep 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Official Report 166KB pdf

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Pupil Motivation Inquiry

We move on to item 3. Members have before them a draft report in the shortened format that we discussed at our last meeting. Members have also had a private paper, which was a more traditional type of report, to look at. Do members have any comments on the shortened report and are there any changes that they wish to make to it?

I appreciate that the style of the report is to help us to identify issues at later meetings. Perhaps the committee should be a bit more pointed and ask challenging questions about what it means. Since many of the issues are already being addressed, we can afford to be a bit more challenging. That might be for the stakeholder session that we are planning. However, we could sharpen up some of the key questions that we ask. We do not need to answer the questions, but we do need to pose them.

If I could say a word about the content—

Can we discuss first whether we are happy with the format? If we are, we can go into the details of content.

I agree with Fiona Hyslop; I like the format but I think it should be supported by questions. At the moment it is too bland and it needs something more stimulating to be added to it. I also think that we are missing the opportunity to make recommendations. I have been thinking about how we could marry the two, but I have not worked it out yet. We should list some of the conclusions and recommendations from the draft report. There were observations and comments on which the committee agreed; although they are not overwhelming and the world will not be shattered by our conclusions, they are still worth making.

For example, it is worth while to comment that good leadership is essential; that the leadership programmes that are being developed are to be encouraged; that teacher motivation is a key factor and therefore that it is essential to continue to improve teacher morale and flexibility in the curriculum to free up time; and that pupil numbers are a key factor so we need to do more to reduce class sizes. There is a little bit of stating the obvious in that, and there are no huge surprises, but it would be worth our while to make those points.

We have seen the move from an emphasis on attainment to an emphasis on achievement. Some people regard that as a subtle policy shift and some people regard it as more fundamental, but it is important that we keep that moving along. Although we might think that the teaching profession recognises the importance of motivation, there is no harm in the Education Committee saying, "We recognise what is happening here and we want to give it our support and push it along, too." It is worth saying that we would welcome an emphasis on motivation in the classroom. We have a target-driven agenda, but we can amend that by including something about motivation and teaching. That would help teachers.

I think that questions might be better than recommendations. Incidentally, the clerks are to be strongly congratulated on their ability to reduce what was lengthy and complex into a straightforward, accurate account. That is not an easy thing to do. The material is not sufficient to justify strong recommendations; we took great trouble over the inquiry, but because the Executive has taken a lot of action I think that the clerk's recommendation is correct and that one way forward is to add some perceptive questions.

Or challenges.

I have one or two suggestions to make when we come to the appropriate moment.

I want clarification on how we are going to take forward the draft report. I take it that it will be put to the stakeholders conference and that when we have feedback from them we will produce a final report. If we are to ask questions, we should do that in a draft report. We should then get some feedback and make our final conclusions and recommendations.

There will certainly have to be some feedback or a report from the stakeholders event. We will have to judge at that time whether it will form part of the committee's report or whether it will just be a report on that event. We should not prejudge how we will respond to the stakeholder event.

We should do as I suggested. As it stands, the report is not adequate. We have to draw some firm conclusions and some recommendations based on those conclusions. We have done a great deal of work on the inquiry; we will not do it justice if we do not make some recommendations.

I tend to agree. The report is a good summary of what people told us, but it does not really take the debate any further forward. We have to have some way of progressing the debate, otherwise the exercise will have been a bit pointless; we could have done it in one session. We need to beef up the report a bit.

I had the same impression as Adam Ingram, in that I thought that this was an interim report and that we would come back after the stakeholders conference and produce a final report. We certainly have to have the flexibility to adapt the report.

I am not suggesting that we cannot do that. If the stakeholders event comes out with nothing of substance, there will be no point in our wasting our time producing a further report. However, if it comes up with some useful additional recommendations, we will want to respond. We should not commit ourselves at this stage, but wait and see what comes out of the conference.

Using the views from the stakeholders event will be a good way of gingering up the report. The event will give us a range of views, some of which will be very thoughtful, because the people we are inviting along are thoughtful, committed people, but some might be quite radical. I hope that we will get a list of suggestions and policy directions, although we do not have to endorse them.

Each chapter or heading in this brief draft report could be accompanied by the recommendations that we already have, or by a variation on them. There is a series of recommendations in our earlier report that are picked out in bold, and they could be beefed up—or not; we would have to decide. We could put our initial draft recommendations and a question or two into the draft report. We could present that to the conference, discuss each of the topics and come out with a range of further suggestions that we could publish. We do not necessarily have to approve those suggestions; indeed we might find it difficult to decide how to approve them. We could then publish the committee's report with our initial findings and recommendations and the additional possibilities that come out of the conference. That approach would more fairly reflect what has gone on, and perhaps it would take things forward, because it would mean including a range of thoughtful contributions.

The document is useful in that it identifies the key stimulators for good pupil motivation, but we are unsure about the extent to which they are being used in Scotland, whether they are being used to the necessary degree and the policy changes, if any, that need to be encouraged. That is where the stakeholders meeting will come in. The stakeholders will be able to say that if the key stimulators work well, they will start to engage properly in pupil motivation and to change a difficult situation. If that is not happening quickly or widely enough, that would lead us to seek something firmer. We might be able to go to the stakeholders and say that we are quite happy that things are moving in the right direction. Alternatively, things might be moving at different paces in different areas. That will be the test.

The draft report recognises the agenda, and we have to test whether that agenda is shared by people throughout Scotland. If it is not, we have a problem. If it is, we can comment on the fact that there is progressive movement.

I will try to marry together members' comments. The draft report refers to the issues paper, which contains the questions that draw on the recommendations in the earlier paper. We need to put those questions together to decide how we take forward the issues involved. We will discuss those issues during the stakeholders meeting.

Members' suggestions do not contradict one another, and the issues come together through the questions and the issues paper. We can draw up the questions and circulate them for comment, if members think that that is a sensible way forward.

As members seem happy with that approach, let us go through the draft report page by page. Members should feel free to shout out their comments as we go through the report. I see that Fiona Hyslop has highlighted some phrases on page 1.

Given that we are the Education Committee, we should not describe 56 per cent as a minority. However, that is perhaps just a detail.

It is a fair point.

The first section of the report deals with the scale of the problem; the introductory paragraphs mention 27 per cent, 56 per cent and 31 per cent of pupils. Apart from the fact that, numerically, 56 per cent does not constitute a minority, the other percentages that are quoted all involve significant numbers.

Sorry, I do not understand. Does the report say that 56 per cent is a minority?

Paragraph 1 refers to the scale of the problem as involving a minority—this is perhaps a pedantic point—but the introductory paragraphs above that already suggest that we could do better for the significant numbers of children in Scotland who feel bored and so on in school.

We should not necessarily confuse pupils who feel bored with pupils who are not motivated. We might exaggerate the problem if we suggest that the 56 per cent of those who say that they sometimes feel bored are not motivated. I sometimes feel bored in Parliament, but that does not mean that I am not motivated. The fact that things could be made more interesting for an individual pupil should not be confused as meaning that the pupil is not motivated.

An important point is that lack of motivation is not necessarily about a lack of discipline and that it can take a variety of forms, such as boredom and disengagement. A significant point that was made to us was that quiet children who do not engage can constitute just as much of a problem as disruptive children. The clerks have probably tried to reflect that by acknowledging the fact that lack of motivation can be exhibited in different forms.

The point is that the 56 per cent figure does not refer to pupils who lack motivation.

Perhaps paragraph 1 should be worded differently. Although the beginning of the report should talk about the problem that faces us, no one's purposes are served by exaggerating the problem. We should say two things. First, for a small minority of pupils, lack of motivation is a serious problem because it affects their life chances. However, a large number of children—perhaps the majority—could be better motivated and more engaged. Those are the two different client groups. The first involves those who are disaffected—although that might be the word that we were told not to use.

The word was "disengaged".

Yes, we were told not to call children "disengaged", because every child can be disengaged. However, we have a serious problem that affects a small number of pupils and we have a big issue that affects virtually every child; they could all could benefit from greater inspiration and motivation.

Perhaps we can get round that issue by omitting "Although" from paragraph 1. The paragraph would then state: "This evidence suggests large numbers of children and young people are not motivated by their school experience, but HMIe have stated: ‘in many schools, behaviour, standards and motivation are very good'". We could repeat both sides of the case without getting involved in whether the problem affects a minority or a majority. Are members happy with that suggestion?

Members indicated agreement.

If members have no further comments on page 1, let us move on to page 2.

I do not necessarily want to get into a debate on this, but I point out that paragraph 3 currently states:

"Scottish pupils, teachers and schools are performing well by international standards."

Given what today's report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says about maths and science, the extent to which Scotland is doing well, or less well, in different subjects is open to debate. I suggest that the paragraph should simply say "are performing well by international standards in some areas."

In addition, we do not know whether Scottish teaching performs well by international standards because the Executive is not engaged in the OECD teaching comparison. Given the underlying issues, the opening statement in paragraph 3 seems rather bold and needs a caveat.

I hesitate to agree. I was concerned that the report starts off on a rather doom-and-gloom note. I would rather that the report started off on a cheerier note by highlighting the fact that we have good schools with good pupils and good teachers but we also have a problem that needs to be addressed. However, I am willing to accept that we should start off with the problem and go on from there.

If we talk down our schools and do not tell the teachers and pupils in our schools that they are doing a great job, we may contribute to the lack of motivation that we are talking about. We have been told about the power of positive praise, and I think that it is important that we set an example by saying in this document that we recognise that our schools are great. There are people throughout the world who would kill to get into a Scottish school, because they are so good. We should not pretend that we are only okay at maths and so-so at English. We have got great schools and we should say so.

There is a way of saying that we think that there is something positive about the pupils, the teachers and the education experience in Scotland, but we have to be careful about what we say about international standards. We cannot say things that are factually incorrect.

Instead of saying "At a macroscale", could we not just start out by saying, "Generally, Scottish pupils are performing well"? Generally, they perform well, but that form of words suggests that there are areas in which they might not.

Yes, I think that that is fair.

I cannot remember exactly when, but I know that, during one of our sessions, concerns were raised about the sentence that mentions media and popular culture role models. We have to be careful in this area. Scotland has always had a strong tradition of recognising the success of people who are not necessarily successful in educational terms—some business leaders spring to mind in that regard. At the session that I am talking about, concerns were expressed about people such as Posh and Becks. However, that phenomenon is not new; in the 1930s, footballers and film stars were the heroes and heroines of young people. I think that we should be a bit cautious about that sentence.

I think that it is important to have as role models people who have turned their lives around and improved their life chances through education. There has to be a counterbalance to Posh and Becks.

I was at the session that Fiona Hyslop is talking about and I understand the point that she is making. However, I think that there is a difference. The problem these days is not so much film stars and so on but all the dunderheads that you get on reality programmes who just go on television for their five minutes of fame. Kids sit and watch them and say, "Why do I need to do anything when someone with synthetic breasts is getting an awful lot of attention?"

I think that you have just gingered up the report.

I just hope that she is not referring to "Holyrood Live".

I agree with the points that have been made. We are saying that the committee and the country should value education for its own sake. The countries that do that have succeeded. Lots of countries value education for its own sake, such as France—

Finland.

I am glad that you mentioned Finland; I was going to mention it if you had not.

People in those countries think that education helps them not only to get on in life but to improve as a person. They value education because it enriches people and helps them to lead a more fulfilling life. That is an important message to send and I think that we should mention it in our report. That message alone is motivational.

There is a tradition in Britain of valuing education for its own sake. The early demands of the trade unions for a shorter working day for adults were made so that people could engage in education. The idea is not alien to Scottish culture in any way; perhaps it simply needs to be rediscovered.

Yes—we are not a nation of book burners at all.

If I may make a suggestion, perhaps the problem is that the sentence that we are discussing is written in a negative way when what is important are the positive aspects.

We will consider redrafting the sentence to put a more positive spin on it. Members have made valid points.

Are there any points on page 3?

My points might be more suited to being dealt with in the issues paper, but I can raise them in the context of pupil-centred learning and vocational options, which are dealt with in paragraphs 8 and 9. I preface my words with an acknowledgement that what I am about to say might not be appropriate for incorporation into this brief report.

On the issue of additional support needs, there might need to be a greater emphasis on the fact that there is a shortage in mainstream schools of professional support for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, which could lead to their becoming demotivated. Some children have been placed in mainstream schools when, arguably, such provision is not the most appropriate for them. That could make it increasingly challenging for teachers in mainstream schools to develop a range of learning resources that are tailored to the needs of individual pupils. I merely flag up the issue at this stage. It may not be appropriate to include it in the report, but it may be one of the challenging questions that will be associated with it.

The issue that Lord James Douglas-Hamilton raises deserves a separate section in the report. We received a great deal of evidence on identifying problems in the early years. Another issue is the transition from primary education to secondary education, but much of the evidence that we received was on the early identification of problems and the provision of continuing support. When we visited Perth Grammar School, concern was expressed about teenage boys with behavioural difficulties, many of which stemmed from their being clumsy because they did not receive support in relation to cognitive learning and physical development when they were very young. We also visited nurture groups for children at early primary level in Cumbernauld. Much of that work is about identifying the connection between special needs and behavioural issues later on and providing support. It would be useful for us to include a short paragraph, similar to those that appear in the other sections of the report, about early identification of needs and the provision of subsequent support. That would provide Lord James with a basis for further exploration of the issues in the issues paper.

I will ask the clerks to draft an appropriate paragraph.

My other point relates to vocational options. Vocational courses should be properly accredited, and those who choose to take advantage of a broader curriculum should be able to access either skills for work or Scottish vocational qualifications, incorporated into the Scottish credit and qualifications framework. I do not know whether the point is appropriate for the report or for the issues paper that will accompany it, but I flag it up as I believe it to be a legitimate point of relevance to many who will opt for further education.

I agree that the point is relevant. It should be made in the report.

We could expand paragraph 11 of the report, which refers to

"parity of esteem with more traditional, academic subjects"

to make the point that the qualifications that should be available through that route must be properly recognised.

On pupil-centred learning, the report refers to the need

"to find ways of maximising opportunities for teachers to develop learning resources".

It sounds to me as if all the emphasis is being placed on teachers' ability to respond to multiple learning styles, but in fact this is an issue for initial teacher education and continuous professional development. Too much emphasis has been placed on individual teachers.

I will ask the clerks to draft paragraph 8 slightly differently to take Elaine Murray's point into account.

We have not yet addressed the issue of pupils' role in pupil-centred learning and its connection with lifelong learning. Surely motivation is not just about people's school days, but about their being able to understand different learning styles and to take ownership of those for the world of life or learning. We may need only to refer to that issue, but it is one that would be worth exploring with the stakeholders.

I am happy with the contents of paragraph 9, but perhaps we could add a reference to the minister's point that reduced bureaucracy would free up teachers' time—time that could be spent with individual pupils. The issue was raised in the document that we considered last week.

It is hinted at in the reference to

"the impact of data-collection activities".

The report mentions "de-cluttering of the curriculum", but cutting down on bureaucracy is also important.

We should mention careers guidance and the like. I do not think that there is anything in the draft report about that area. We found that pupils who have a well-defined idea of what they want to do after school do better in school. In a couple of sessions, we discussed the need to work with children to determine what they are going to do and what the relevance is of their experiences as pupils to the rest of their lives. Can we include something in the report about that?

Do members agree that we should add something on that?

Members indicated agreement.

Okay. We will find the appropriate evidence and add something on that as well.

I would quite like to add to the report all the recommendations in the private paper. Each point would be improved if it was accompanied by a recommendation.

As I suggested earlier, the issues paper that accompanies the report will present the recommendations as questions about the way forward.

I understand. I am being obtuse.

The recommendations will be presented as challenges to the stakeholders, for the stakeholders event.

Do members have any comments on page 4?

On the fifth line from the bottom of page 4, the words "any degree of" slightly weaken the argument. I wonder whether those words could be dropped.

I agree with that. The report should read: "The Committee asks the Executive to consider whether priority should be given to this stage".

Are there any other comments?

Members indicated disagreement.

With those suggested amendments, are members content to approve the draft report?

Members indicated agreement.

The clerks will re-draft the report and will circulate it for comments. We will draw up the issues paper, which will set out the recommendations from the previous report. At our next meeting, we will discuss the documents and how we will handle the stakeholders event.