Good morning. Welcome to this meeting of the Education Committee. We are in public session, so I ask people to ensure that their mobile phones are switched off.
There is patchiness, but to some extent that is to be expected. Different education authorities, sometimes with the Executive's support and sometimes on their own initiative, are trying out a number of projects, so one might expect there to be variation across the country. We must also recognise that problems of lack of motivation and disaffection—which are not quite the same thing—vary across the country. The incidence of disaffection is likely to be higher in some communities than in others.
George MacBride is absolutely correct to say that there is unevenness of approach. However, to some extent that is to be encouraged, because there is no single solution or magic bullet that will work throughout the country. What is happening school by school and authority by authority is appropriate to the school or authority concerned. We should encourage that. Wholly devolved processes are most appropriate in this context.
We had an interesting session with Alan McLean about disaffection. It is clear that lack of motivation is not the same as disengagement and that self-esteem is not the same as motivation—the analysis must be much more complex than that. You have spoken about different patterns of disaffection. There are clearly disaffected young people who are troublesome or undisciplined and who disrupt the learning of others. There are young people who simply do not turn up at school and there are others who turn up but do not participate in the school in any way. Young people in the second group do not cause problems, but they will not achieve what they could achieve if they were engaged and motivated.
The key seems to be to find out the cause of the disaffection, although I know that that might seem an obvious statement. A teacher certainly cannot directly change the socioeconomic environment or the levels of employment or crime. If the pupil's disaffection or disengagement is caused by a non-mainstream learning style, however, a good teacher can adjust their teaching and learning strategies to suit.
Is it easy to adopt such an approach in the current education climate? Do teachers have the space, time and support to do that?
We are comparatively fortunate in Scotland—I stress the word "comparatively"—given the greater flexibility that is now being afforded to teachers, schools and education authorities to work out their own solutions, which is a helpful way forward. A growing number of support assistants are now being employed, although we also want more teachers to be employed and deployed to support youngsters.
Do you think that the styles and patterns of disaffection are different between boys and girls? It is not possible to generalise completely about the two genders, but are there different trends in disaffection among boys and girls?
I think that there are. One should never generalise and apply that generalisation to individual young people—or, indeed, to people of any age—but there is clear evidence that boys take up a lot more time than girls in discipline systems. Far more boys than girls are excluded from school. I am not sure whether there are differences between boys' and girls' patterns of attendance, but I suspect that there are. There is evidence that some girls who are disengaged will turn up at school but will not do anything and will not contribute.
So disaffected girls might be less troublesome and their disaffection will therefore be less obvious, although they will still not be achieving.
Yes.
Disaffection is a difficult thing to measure, but how common is it? How many pupils in secondary school, or at least at the later stages of secondary school—at the ages of 14 to 16, for example—are not engaged with their education?
If I may, I will take a step back from that question and respond to your earlier point. There is no "bag full" indicator for young people as there is on a vacuum cleaner; there is no light that comes on and says "now disaffected". A professional judgment has to be made by the teacher. The more aware teachers are of the issues, the better they will be equipped to deal with them. That is a matter of training, but, by and large, teachers make such judgments effectively.
I want to get a handle on the time that you are talking about—puberty and all that. The traditional view of disaffection is that it happens in secondary schools and that things are fine in primaries, where disaffection is not a problem. However, there have been some hints that either that was never the case or the situation is changing and similar issues are arising in primary schools. Will you comment on when the process starts and what it is all about?
There is evidence of disaffection among some youngsters in primary school. In a small number of cases, there are even examples in primaries 1 and 2 of youngsters who are simply not attending school and whose parents do not find themselves able to encourage their attendance despite considerable support. Interesting work has been done in Glasgow on nurture groups to support such youngsters and to develop practice. At the other end of primary school, there is clear evidence that a number of young people are moving into patterns of behaviour—both inside the school and in their local communities—that are likely to lead them towards disaffection. Whether that is a new or a growing problem, or a problem that has always existed but we have tended to ignore, I am not sure, but there is no doubt that there is a genuine problem.
David Eaglesham made a point about identifying the problem and taking action. Is that done more easily in primary school where one teacher sees the child all the time, as opposed to in secondary, where those relationships are all a bit more fragmented?
The brief answer to that is yes.
Following on from that point, I was interested in what George MacBride said about nurture groups, which I have visited in Glasgow. There seems to be a high incidence of young children with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. During our inquiry, many teachers have said things like, "Wee Johnny there needed some attention way back in nursery school." That refers to the question of early intervention and trying to tackle the problems as early as possible. To what extent does that currently happen? To what extent is there a follow-through from primary into secondary school? To what extent are teachers at secondary school briefed on the individual children who come through from primary? Let us start with that theme and perhaps develop it.
That goes back to my point about the guidance or pastoral system—what you describe is channelled through that and inappropriate information is filtered out by the professionals, who will say, "The teacher does not need to know that bit of information, but they need to know the background and what will affect how the child acts in class." For example, domestic and other personal circumstances might affect how the child acts. Liaison between guidance colleagues in the secondary school and teachers and head teachers in primary school in particular has been effective in that respect.
We have to be careful about separating children of whatever age who have become disaffected because they have particular problems—such as learning difficulties, problems at home or problems in difficult communities—from children who are more mainstream, within the normal bell-shaped distribution, but who simply do not understand their role in society, do not understand their role as a citizen and perhaps do not understand society's importance for them.
You have spoken about people's disaffection after experiencing the system. On the subject of trying to encourage young people in school, the EIS says in its submission:
Individual relationships are important and we argue strongly that smaller classes contribute to such relationships. However, it would be quite possible to have smaller classes but not very much in the way of a change of ethos. One has to consider the ethos of the whole school and to establish what we would call an ethos of respect. By that I mean respect for all members of the school community—respect for the young people, respect for the school staff, respect for the parents and respect for the people in the wider community with whom the school works.
I always go back to Jean Brodie in these situations. The word "education" comes from the Latin words "e ducere", which means "to lead out", not "in trudo", which means "I thrust in". The trouble is that the balance in the system has been altered by the qualifications issue. I am not saying that we should not have qualifications and that we should have free schooling in which people do what they like; it is essential that certain skills are acquired and certain processes are understood. However, we tend to miss out the inspirational and challenging quality of education.
The pressure on the system has been to improve the attainment of qualifications. Although we do not want to compromise pupils' attainment, because that affects their life chances, how do we move from where we are just now to the type of system that you are talking about?
The curriculum review provides us with the opportunity to make sure that the process works and delivers the kind of skills that young people need to acquire in one way or another. If my understanding of how the process is working is correct, it will be possible to achieve a range of things—we do not necessarily have to say that, because something is a mathematical issue, it must be done in mathematics; it is possible to achieve a result in another context as well as in mathematics. We would not have the obligatory view of many of those items in the curriculum. There is no single step; what I am talking about is the starting point on a journey that we will have to take.
One of the interesting features of the curriculum review group's report, which ministers accepted, was the idea that education should be challenging and enjoyable. One would think that that was a given, but sometimes, as youngsters move towards examinations, the experience is less than enjoyable. The curriculum review process and the decluttering of the primary and early secondary years should be helpful and should allow teachers more space in which to pursue their interests in their areas of expertise, as well as young people's interests.
I am struck by how far that view is from the position of the Professional Association of Teachers, whose submission states:
This may not be a complete answer, but we approach the issue perhaps from a slightly more helicoptered view. Tweaking the curriculum and talking about high levels of achievement is fine—it is both laudable and necessary—but, to our mind, providing a curriculum that meets the child's needs without convincing the child that they should avail themselves of it may be efficient but not necessarily effective at the end of the day. Our view remains that the child must be helped to understand why it is necessary to learn and to understand the context in which learning takes place. We would say that we need to operationalise the learning experience.
As Robert Brown mentioned at the beginning, yesterday we had an interesting and worthwhile meeting with a panel of teachers. One theme that emerged strongly from that was praise for the community schools project, although there was concern about its funding and roll-out. How valuable are the interagency working and home links that have been put in place in such schools? Should we continue to push those forward? Will such developments ultimately help to address the social deprivation that is suffered by young people in communities, which I think has been highlighted by you all? Are community schools a road forward to tackle that by promoting interagency and parental involvement?
Yes, community schools are one of the roads forward. Before developing my answer on that, I should point out that education cannot solve all the problems of inequality and social deprivation. Clearly—although this is outwith the powers that are available at the Scottish level—action needs to be taken to lead to less income inequality and less poverty and to give all people a more equal access to resources. Arguably, that is part of having an inclusive society. However, such powers are largely outwith our scope today.
We also heard yesterday that, when funds are available for community involvement, shortages of community workers and social workers sometimes mean that it cannot be provided—such involvement is often not possible even when the funding is available. Have you come across that issue?
That has been an issue in the past but, as a teacher in Glasgow, I have the impression that the situation is improving.
I thank the witnesses for their written evidence, which is, although frank and brutal at times, helpful because it addresses some fundamental points. The best motivation is self-motivation; I want to bring us back to that fundamental context. The SSTA submission states quite boldly:
It is essential that we move away from the league-table approach to everything, which measures things that we are not really trying to find out. There is no league table for achievement in French in Scotland, but people try to make out that we must have a system that identifies a hierarchy of people who can speak French. The ability to speak French is useful and might be a great asset to people in certain aspects of their life, but as long as we focus on such performance measures rather than on what is almost the ability to challenge the system, we are going wrong.
The PAT agrees but—moving on—if we give a child something at which he or she can excel and then recognise that they have excelled, surely that is the greatest motivator. It is true that if we categorise people as being good at mathematics, modern languages, geography or whatever, a number of children will fall between the gaps. The problem is that we live in a free market economy and people who are good, but do not excel, at poetry and art will not make a living from such things. Perhaps we do not sufficiently recognise those talents and allow children to develop self-esteem through such media. I do not know the answer, but we have to move away from the league-table approach and give every child something in relation to which they can feel proud of themselves. That is what leads to self-motivation; people are motivated when what they are good at is recognised as being good or excellent. I do not know how we do that.
What do the witnesses think about the attainment versus achievement agenda? The matter relates to the discussion about league tables and how outcomes are driving our approach. Perhaps "outcome" is the right word in business-speak, but if we are developing an agenda for lifelong learning, surely the process is as important as the outcome. There is no point in having a content-driven approach if people forget what they learned the day after they learned it and are not equipped for the future. What can be done practically to develop the achievement agenda in a way that is not patronising but is useful for young people? Will the drive of the curriculum review make skills, rather than content, the way forward? What will be the pace of change? My concern is that we are losing generations as we speak and analyse.
Several steps that are being taken in the system will allow us to make progress. The first step, which was a useful initiative, was to take on board the idea of formative assessment through the assessment is for learning programme. That has several aspects, one of which is improving content learning—improving attainment by having more control over learning.
If we are individualising learning and we want to give control back to pupils and teachers, much will depend on personal learning plans. Do we have the time for them? Head teachers tell us that they do not have the resources to implement personal learning plans.
I did not mean to imply that the pace of change was too fast. I said that I hoped that we would not lose the impetus for change. Change makes huge demands on teachers, but the pace of change will require to be fairly fast.
Does anyone want to comment on spreading of the good practice that exists?
There are plenty of examples of that. Authorities are keen to say what they are doing and individual schools are eager to display their skills. The question is whether the message is transmitted effectively; it might be put out, but it is not necessarily received. There is a danger that the message might just disappear into the ether. The Executive can play a vital role in ensuring that word goes down the line not about the theoretical model, but about what works in practice.
I have four quick questions. I want to ask Mr Victor Topping about differentiated lessons. In the light of the inclusion agenda, are the demands that are made on teachers to provide relevant differentiated lessons to the pupils in their classes realistic or unrealistic?
Given the number of pupils in a class and the number of different levels of those pupils, it can be difficult to differentiate between them sufficiently. One can certainly differentiate in the work that one does with a class. I do that—I work at two or three different levels with my class, but there are times when it would be desirable to have more differentiation and to work at five, six or seven different levels. I do not have the time or the resources to differentiate fully.
Class sizes have a lot to do with that.
A teacher might prepare separate work for individual pupils, so class size is not as much of an issue as the different levels of the pupils within a class.
Thank you.
I can tell you what I think, but I cannot generalise. Parental attitude must be one of the drivers of a child's motivation, but one can envisage a situation in which a child was positively motivated by parental behaviour that was quite negative and non-supportive. Some children simply succeed in spite of certain factors, whereas some children fail because they are not properly supported. I am sorry if that is an incomplete answer, but I do not think that there is a straight answer to the first part of your question. Will you repeat the second part of your question?
Do you think that more should be done to raise awareness of the importance of home links?
Yes, I do.
I would like to ask Mr David Eaglesham—
Before we leave that issue, can we get a feel for what should be done about parental links? It is easy to say that, in principle, they are important, but how can we re-engage some of the disaffected parents about whom we have talked?
I will give a quote from one of our members—I do not know whether she was quoting someone else—who said, "It takes a whole village to educate a child." I think that she was coming at the issue from the angle that a community influences the individuals within that community. It is difficult to understand why links with schools and community colleges are necessary—I do not know where to start. Perhaps we should consider sections within a community who might be willing to give of their time. The individuals who comprise that section might make individual contributions. It is well worth spending money on that. Other than that, I cannot help you.
How can the improved engagement that is often observed as a result of positive and stimulating experiences outside the classroom, such as outdoor challenges, be used to improve a child's interest in classroom subjects? In other words, how can new-found enthusiasms be transferred into the classroom?
I challenge the first part of your premise—such experiences do not necessarily have to happen outdoors. They might well happen outdoors, but it is not automatic that outdoor education will be reflected in the classroom. The reverse could be true, in that what happens in the classroom could create an interest in what happens outside. It is a two-way street.
I have a question for Mr MacBride on the weight of administrative work. We have heard from David Eaglesham that the level of bureaucracy is ridiculous. Is that your evidence on behalf of your union? Would reducing the time that teachers have to spend on bureaucracy and administrative work be of great help in assisting pupil motivation?
Yes, undoubtedly it would. One of the teaching profession's hopes for the 21st century agreement was that there would be a reduction in the amount of bureaucracy that teachers must deal with. Employment of various forms of support staff in schools across the country has contributed to that, but we still have a long way to go. We also have to be aware that there are always new demands for bureaucracy. Just when you think you have dealt with one issue, another issue demands more paperwork. That causes concern.
I will return to differentiation. Are young people being treated as individuals and are their individual needs being met? I agree that class sizes need to be smaller to do that. How would you deal with different ability levels in the one classroom? Surely primary teachers are experts at working with individuals in a classroom, differentiating between them, doing group work and so on. Given smaller class sizes in secondary schools, bi-level teaching and group and individual teaching would not be impossible. What is Victor Topping's view on that?
I will speak from experience. I am a science teacher with a first-year class in which pupils have reading levels that range from level A to level F. Within that one class I must follow a science syllabus and teach scientific concepts and scientific facts, which is difficult with that range of reading levels. I get some special educational needs help for one period a week with that class, but it can be very hard work trying to deal with all the abilities in the class, given the reading ages and the breadth of concepts that we are trying to teach.
What is George MacBride's view on that?
The evidence from primary schools is that to have flexible groupings in the classroom, including when the whole class is being taught, is useful. I would be loth to label children in a way that would mean that, because they are operating at a certain level, they will always be doing something different from a child who is operating at another level.
The NASUWT submission says:
Many of our members are of an age group that takes a traditional view of qualifications. Many of them feel that the skills that are required to achieve high grades now are not the skills that pertained when they were teaching in the main stream. I would echo that. Continual assessment and the ability to resubmit assessed work to get a higher grade might well take away from pupils the skills that people of my generation developed because, having learned for a year, we were assessed through an A level exam of two or three hours' length.
Which comparison is odious? Do you mean a comparison between the situation today and the situation in the past or the comparison between the PAT's submission and the NASUWT's?
I am entitled to my view as a teacher, although I am a university teacher rather than a school teacher. It could be that children today are leaving school with some skills that my generation lacks and that we have some skills that they lack. I am not willing to say which is better because I do not know.
I am just trying to clarify the point because we are dealing with evidence, whether it is written or oral.
That is the implication of our response, yes.
I must confess that I have some difficulty here. The written evidence that has been given by the PAT seems to be different from the oral evidence that we are hearing today. I do not know whether I am picking that up correctly.
I can toe the party line, in which case there is not a lot of point in my answering your questions. As I said, my response was given as a PAT official rather than as a member. Sometimes, the members and the officials differ.
I am simply trying to clarify the position. Are you saying that, despite our attainment and achievement-based system, some of our children are not being sufficiently challenged?
Some children could achieve what look like respectable grades in, for example, highers, but come out not necessarily well equipped with the analytical skills to apply the techniques to a non-related subject.
I will ask the NASUWT the question that I think everyone has asked its representatives. The NASUWT submission asks:
I refer to the statement in my submission about pupils attempting work that is too difficult for them. I am referring to classes where it is necessary to follow a syllabus. As a science teacher, I know that the entire unit on microbiology in the five-to-14 curriculum consists of level E and level F objectives. The unit is far too difficult for poorer pupils. If there were streaming or broad band setting, we could set up a totally different piece of work for pupils of a lower ability, rather than try to do work with them that is far too difficult because it is at a much higher level.
Would you do that within one classroom? Would there be mixed ability groups within one classroom in your science class? Would you separate the class into different sets and progress the curriculum at different speeds, which would obviously present a lot of challenges for the teacher, or would you separate pupils into different chemistry 1, chemistry 2 and chemistry 3 classes?
This year in my school we will broad band set second-year pupils for the first time. We will have nine second-year sections, which will come to the school as three groups. Within those three groups the pupils will be set broadly; the better pupils will be in larger classes and the less able pupils will be in smaller ones. Within each class the teacher will differentiate slightly. We hope that that will improve the achievement of our S2 pupils in the coming session.
Is there evidence to suggest that that has a motivational effect? Does putting pupils of the same ability into roughly the same area improve their motivation? Does that inspire them?
Some pupils will have the chance to become the top dog in the class who would not have been able to do that before in totally mixed ability sections.
Is the approach accepted broadly or is it still controversial?
I think that quite a few schools take such an approach.
The SSTA submission mentions
There is some overlap when the disaffected become the disruptive. They find that that is the alternative channel for them. We need to be as flexible as we can in looking at individuals or small groups and considering how we can execute plans for them. Otherwise, we are in danger of trying to impose one solution on all and saying, "This is the solution for discipline and therefore it will affect all pupils." Such a solution might turn off those who would feel depressed by heavy-handedness in the classroom. At the same time, if there is a light touch and progress is not being made, that does no service to the pupils either. Differentiating between the pupils is part of the complex task that exists in the classroom. It is necessary to consider all the factors.
Does George MacBride have a different view?
There is a difference between being demotivated and being disaffected. I would include in "the disaffected" those youngsters who are totally turned off school and who simply do not go to school, or who to a large extent truant from school, as well as those who are disruptive within the classroom or within the boundaries of the school. There is a danger that, for powerful reasons, we take action to deal with only those youngsters who are disruptive, because they are in your face and it is not very nice having them in your face; whether it is positive or negative action that is taken, it is nonetheless action. I would be concerned if because, for understandable reasons, dealing with those youngsters is a priority, the needs of youngsters who opt out of the school system and who to a large extent vanish from the school system, especially during the later years of secondary education, were ignored. We have to focus carefully on them. It has long been a major concern of the EIS that some youngsters simply disappear from the education system.
All the teaching unions have flagged up the difficulties that are faced by teachers in the classroom because of disruptive pupils. The Executive has responded—whether it has done so sufficiently may be debated—and a lot of work has gone into tackling discipline issues. Has enough gone into tackling motivational issues? There are some pupils for whom discipline is not a problem but who are just demotivated. Do you get signals from the Executive, or from policy makers generally, that teachers will be supported in working with demotivated or disengaged pupils? Such pupils are not causing teachers a problem but are just not engaging with the education process.
There are a number of means by which that can be addressed. One obvious means—about which we have our concerns—is to undertake a proper analysis of attainment figures. I do not mean the crude league-table approach. In a proper analysis of the figures, people look at how youngsters are doing within their own subject, and at the areas of strength and weakness. Are there demotivated groups? Are boys doing better than girls or vice versa? Are more able pupils doing better comparatively than less able pupils?
You have said several times that we ought to avoid a one-size-fits-all model—no one would disagree with that. The EIS submission identified a number of areas where positive policy initiatives are taking place, such as the loosening of the curriculum and the "reprofessionalisation of teaching"—that is a nice phrase. Later evidence may talk about the importance of leadership and so on. None of those initiatives, which are all supported by the Executive, would be classified as one-size-fits-all initiatives. They are all a variation of policy. Is enough being done either specifically on motivation, or generally across all those Executive policy initiatives, to address motivation in schools and, more than anything else, to reward good teaching? It is clear from all the submissions that good motivation is about motivating teachers. Are we doing enough to reward motivated teachers?
The answer to both questions is probably no, not enough. However, we are at least thinking about those issues. Rather than simply looking at the mechanics of the process, we are taking a more holistic approach. One of the advantages of the system that we have now is that this committee is here to do that. We have an Education Department and a Minister for Education and Young People. There is scope there for considering those issues in more detail and for asking the why questions and not the what questions. As long as we keep doing that, we will be on the right track. These things are never simple, but we are moving in the right direction.
Some of the submissions express despair at modern culture and at certain experiences with youngsters in today's society. Was there a time when teachers did not express any despair?
Yes—it was in 1942, I think.
I am worried that a number of submissions—particularly the NASUWT's submission, some of which I take substantial issue with—express despair about the trends in modern culture. Perhaps Victor Topping could give me a wee sense of how he arrived at his conclusions. Can we get ourselves out of this despair by learning lessons from other countries that might not have the same cultural influences as Scotland?
Those comments in my submission are personal and arise from incidents that I have observed or have been involved in and incidents that fellow members of the association have reported to me. We have seen groups of teenagers going about at night and primary school kids running about with alcopops. When someone tried to break the windows of my house, I went out to them and threatened to call the police. However, I was told that they would not arrive for 45 minutes. Indeed, the police came 45 minutes later, and they warned me that I should not have gone out, because if the people in question had made a complaint, I would have been charged. Perhaps I should not have put such personal experiences in my submission.
Some of us who have benefited from being teachers have taught in what by any standard would be defined as very difficult areas of Scotland. Indeed, the areas that I taught in threw up certain challenges, but my memories—and I must admit that I have been out of teaching for at least six or seven years—are very positive. People worked to ensure that those kids were given the opportunity to develop. I should also point out that many committee members have come from similar backgrounds and have managed to overcome such obvious difficulties in their lives.
I strongly suggest that our written submission does not quite share the sense of despair that you mentioned. We need to address a number of issues, one of which is the media, which do young people no service whatever. Similarly, the remarks of some leading politicians in the United Kingdom do youngsters no service.
I would not want members to be left with the impression that Frank McAveety's description is how teachers see themselves. I started my teaching career in Govan and my experience there is one of the most rewarding experiences that I have ever had. Some of the worst rogues in the land were there, but there were wonderful kids whom I still remember and who still remember me and what we did together when they see me. There is huge potential there, and dealing with such potential is one of the most rewarding things about being a teacher.
I want to look beyond our shores. Do you have much research evidence on international comparisons or areas in the world in which people have addressed such complex questions, which relate to globalisation, media influence and so on? How can people change how they organise what they do in schools to achieve the results that we all hope for?
Finland seems to have the answers to everything and the system there seems to be the best possible system. Teachers are paid moderate wages, but teaching is the big demand profession. Everyone wants to get into teaching, achievement levels are high and there is huge parental backing of the system. Finland is a small, northern European country that was formerly agricultural, but it takes great pride in education and it went comprehensive in the 1970s. Finland seems to be one of the big successes if we accept that studies such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development programme for international student assessment are the absolute measures of such things—that is not necessarily the case, but that is one indicator.
What you said about home telephone number sounds like a sacking matter for you.
In Glasgow, the development of learning communities in which secondary schools and associated primary schools work together is an interesting model that it would be useful to implement. I am not just saying that that in itself is good, which it is; Glasgow City Council has taken a clear policy decision that one of the aims is to allow strategic decisions to be made at an appropriate level and to allow the people on the ground—social workers, the police, health service workers and teachers—to work together with individual pupils. It is intended to remove some of the bureaucracy. A colleague once told me that they had never realised that joint working meant sitting round committee tables all the time, which it has come to mean for many youngsters. The helpful model in Glasgow allows the people with expertise—the practitioners in the classroom and in the social work department—to work together to support youngsters while the management work is done further up the system.
I want to finish by asking about teacher training, which I began with. I refer to motivational techniques, which we have talked about on and off. We heard yesterday about a teacher who had been told about new techniques that totally altered their ability to engage with children. Is good practice being spread effectively throughout Scotland, or is there scope for a significant amount of professional development and additional training for teachers?
There is scope for significantly more of that. The professional review arrangements by which teachers sit down annually and discuss their professional needs has, over the past couple of years, been driven by the school development or improvement planning process. It would be interesting if at least some of it were tied to the standards for registration, which might allow teachers to consider their practices as well as management issues. That would be a useful step to take.
We are going to see a sea change in the profession in the next 10 years. The graph of the age structure of the profession is hugely distended to the top end. Within 10 years up to 60 per cent of people in the profession will no longer be serving in it. This is an opportunity to ensure that the techniques that teachers are shown in initial teacher training and subsequent training are appropriate to the demands that we are talking about making. Given the age structure of the profession, we have an opportunity to ensure that such training is endemic. We have moved away firmly from any suggestion of a rote learning process, of which there was an element in my training. Teachers have done that, but there is now the opportunity to enshrine that sort of training in the next five to 10 years.
We will draw this evidence session to an end on that note. Thank you for your time, which was helpful to the committee. We will take a brief two or three-minute break and will resume as quickly as we can.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—
Right, we will kick off again. I am conscious that time is moving on. I welcome our second panel of witnesses. Victoria Aldridge is a teaching fellow at the Moray House school of education; Dr Judith McClure is the head teacher of St George's School for Girls in Edinburgh; Bryan McLachlan is a principal teacher at Netherlee Primary School in East Renfrewshire; and Don Ledingham is the head teacher of Dunbar Grammar School. Welcome to you all. It might be helpful to the committee if you could say a couple of words—I mean almost literally that—about your individual background, without giving us a life story.
This year I was seconded from Roseburn Primary School to work as a development officer. I am developing work in environmental studies for part of the curriculum and am taking the work that I have produced out to 11 schools throughout Edinburgh, so I work in 11 schools.
I started off in teaching as a pupil-teacher in 1964 when I was 18—it was round about the reign of Queen Victoria—and I have been involved in teaching in schools and universities ever since. I have been a head teacher for 18 years and am in my second headship.
When I meet people, I introduce myself as a teacher. I am proud to be a teacher. I have taught for 25 years and I have been the head teacher at Dunbar Grammar School for four and a half years. I have had experience in seven different schools, in three of which I have been on the senior management team.
I recall that you have a professional background in physical education.
I have, yes.
I am one of five principal teachers at Netherlee Primary School in East Renfrewshire. I have been teaching for eight years, seven of which have been spent at that school. My main remit involves teaching a primary 7 class. In addition, I teach religious and moral education, equality and information and communications technology, which is an area of particular interest to me.
The focus of our questions might be a bit different, as it will be on such issues as educational leadership and teacher motivation. I ask Frank McAveety to kick off.
As we go around Scotland, every one of us has the opportunity to visit schools. When we go into schools, we sense the leadership—or leaderships, because the totality of what makes a school work is the staff, and non-teaching staff can be as critically important as the head teacher. What kind of shifts can be made by good leaderships? That seems to be the subject of some emerging educational theory. For example, what are the common measures that would be put in place by the leadership if the people involved inherited a school that was in difficulties or which exhibited weaknesses? They do some common things, and I have my views about what those three or four things are. I would like your views on how leadership can be used effectively to make effective schools and effective learning environments for kids to feel motivated in.
It is crucial, first of all, to get the teachers together and to have common aims and a strategy. The first aim has to be to do the best possible for every pupil, and the leadership must work with the teachers and the support staff: it is our school. As soon as those people are brought together with a common purpose, the next step is to make the pupils feel very much part of that and that the school exists to serve them. That message is the same, whatever the size of the school and wherever it is.
I totally agree with Judith McClure. If there is a keyword for head teachers or management teams, it is trust. They have to deliver. If we are to say, "This is what our school is going to be and this is how we are going to behave", staff have to trust staff, and students have to trust staff. That means consistency, although that is sometimes incredibly difficult to achieve under extreme circumstances when staff are pressurised to move away from their principles.
Bryan McLachlan may have a different perspective on the issue.
I agree totally with what has been said. As I prepared this morning, I realised that motivation largely comes down to the ethos in a school, which comes from the school's leadership. There must be a huge element of trust and respect, not only among the staff, but among the children. The school exists for the benefit of the children. I am fortunate to work in a school in which there is a positive, hard-working ethos, which rubs off not only on the staff, but on the children.
As a development officer, I have visited 11 schools throughout Edinburgh this year and therefore have an insight into how different schools are managed and formed. I have found from visiting classrooms that, in schools in which the staff have a sense of belonging and togetherness and a welcoming ethos, the children tend to be more motivated.
Those were all helpful comments. Victoria Aldridge said that she sensed a difference in perspective in the 11 schools that she visits. I do not ask her to identify the schools, but what barriers exist in the schools that are not as successful?
The barriers often stem from the schools' social surroundings. That is an initial problem in motivating pupils, which was talked about earlier. If the staff do not feel part of a team and if there are aggravation and emotional upsets among the staff, that can have an effect on the overall feel of the school and on the pupils. It is hard to say what the barriers are, as I simply visited the schools, but the social status of a school's area can be a barrier.
A problem that I have encountered both as a teacher and as an MSP is that people always find reasons why they cannot do things—they say that they cannot change a situation because that is just the way that it is, perhaps because of the social composition of the neighbourhood or the nature of the families in the locality. How do we overcome that barrier? Surely, as teachers or educationists, we must believe that we can shift at least some of that.
The biggest issue that faces schools is that of challenging the critical mass—that is often a problem with staff in the first instance, but it is also a problem with students. Every school has a critical mass, which is where it is in relation to the line of optimism or pessimism. All too often, the critical mass is negative. At that point, one must consider which individuals are influencing the situation and why they have learned that negative behaviour. That can often be tracked down to how management have treated those people in the past. Head teachers come in, introduce new initiatives then—bang, bang—they move on and the teacher is still standing there saying, "I knew it wouldn't work." People learn certain behaviours.
I agree entirely with that. When a negative culture exists, time is the barrier. We have to be able to spend time with individuals—colleagues and pupils. We have to confront difficulties, because we cannot brush them under the carpet. If a teacher is not performing, we have to find out what is going on, provide the right support and understand their family background and the difficulties that they are having, but that takes time.
I have a fairly obvious question on leadership by head teachers and senior teaching staff. It does not necessarily come with being a teacher, does it? There is an intangible extra element that good head teachers bring. How can we expand that? Frank McAveety is right to say that you can go into schools and smell the difference between successful ones and ones that are not so successful; the same applies to businesses. That does not happen by accident. I appreciate that a lot of people contribute, but the view and expertise of the head teacher in making that happen must be important. Are we doing enough to provide support and training and to identify talent, so that the people whom we want are in place in as many schools as possible?
I introduced myself as a teacher. There is a tremendous correlation between being a good teacher and being a good manager in a school. Far too often, a mystique develops that successful school management is in some way different. Some people in school management characterise themselves as being different, but that is a serious mistake. The characteristics of an outstanding classroom teacher should be almost exactly the same as those of an outstanding head teacher, because you care about people, you set high standards, you challenge people and you try to create an ethos of belonging in the classroom. It is no different; you are just going from a microcosm to a macrocosm.
It is interesting that you all talked about values in school, trust, respect, ethos, fairness and optimism. My question is for Don Ledingham. Do you think that inspections by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education and the document "How good is our school?" do enough to promote those attitudes? From a head's point of view, do the policy initiatives that you have to work to reflect the values that you want to see in school?
There are a couple of points. The approach in "How good is our school?" and that taken by HMIE is liberating schools—when they are prepared to take the opportunity. We were inspected in April, so I can speak from experience. We put systems in place to challenge ourselves in terms of exploring how well we are doing. The job of HMIE is to validate our systems.
In our previous session, the trade unions referred to an overemphasis on attainment. There was an implied criticism that some of the targets that were set for schools corrupted the goals and did not encourage learning. Do you agree with that?
No. I can give you a simple example. We try to develop our attainment targets, not by pulling them out of thin air or asking, "What does the local authority want?" but by asking what each individual student is capable of and what they think they are capable of. When you look at targets from that point of view, you set the most optimistic targets that you can possibly imagine. They are far in excess of anything that any head teacher or local authority, or the Executive, would suggest placing on a school. Our job is to close the gap between a youngster's potential and their current level of attainment, which is a liberating exercise. However, if you feel that an attainment target has simply been handed down to you and that neither you nor the students have any ownership of it, that is negative. It is all about perception and interpretation.
I agree. Targets exist in individual schools and changes will take place in individual schools. We will need confidence because we are embarking on a period of really quite exciting change. We are trying to meet the needs of pupils in a new way and we have a very good toolkit to allow us to do that, but we will need confidence because we will need to take calculated risks.
Before we continue, is someone's mobile phone switched on? Something is interfering with the sound system. If someone has not switched their phone off, would they do so now?
Yes, the catchment area is a whole different issue.
In making recommendations, this committee will inevitably look for generic solutions for all of Scotland, in the hope of adding to what has already been achieved. Much emphasis has been put on leadership, but that is new: it is not something that we would have been talking about 20 years ago, 10 years ago or even five years ago.
It is critical that we back the process of building leadership capacity throughout the system. After young teachers have come through their training, it is possible to see their leadership capacity very early on, when they are still in their twenties. Those teachers need lots of support. We have to offer support to anyone who has any position of responsibility in a school. The point of leadership is to enable other people to lead, so we have to provide young teachers with as many opportunities as possible.
I will risk an anecdote. My next-door neighbour works for IBM and is responsible for identifying talent across Europe. IBM tracks people from when they join the organisation after leaving university and ensures that they receive the correct preparation to enable them to become leaders in the next 10 or 20 years. We should consider doing that.
That is a crucial point.
It troubles me that the individuals who have such talent end up in certain schools by chance. If we are serious about shifting some of the big problems of underachieving schools, including schools that have good catchment areas and should achieve more, how can we ensure that the talented individuals get into those schools? Some schools are underachieving because they have been affected by the social transformation of the area in which they are located. If an area's population decreases, the school might not have the staffing complement or be able to offer the financial rewards that would encourage the head teacher or senior staff to remain in post. Senior staff might leave a school that has only 500 pupils to work in a school that has 1,000 or 1,500 pupils. A perverse disincentive seems to operate.
I am not sure that I agree that there is a disincentive. We can find ways of liberating potential. The opportunities to take part in transfers and exchanges with countries such as Canada or Australia are well known, but we should let people take part in exchanges within Scotland. In East Lothian, we are developing a teacher exchange programme to enable people to do that. For example, in the next school session I will spend a week as a head teacher of a primary school in Musselburgh—I am terrified about it.
Are you terrified because you will be dealing with primary school children or because you will be in Musselburgh?
I am terrified because I will be exchanging places with an outstanding head teacher and I will be found out when she takes my job in Dunbar.
There is a flurry of requests from members to ask supplementary questions. I am conscious of time, so I ask people to come in if they have key points on the matter that we are considering.
I want to ask the other witnesses whether the approach to career development and the identification of potential that Don Ledingham described is replicated in authorities throughout Scotland. Is there a more strategic approach in other parts of Scotland?
It is difficult to comment when one's experience is limited to the education authority in which one works. Don Ledingham said that sometimes it is only by chance that people who have potential are identified and I agree with him. I am in my 20s and I am in a promoted position in a primary school; I suspect that it would be difficult to prove that that did not happen by chance. However, in East Renfrewshire, where I work, many people who are in principal teacher positions are also in their 20s, which bodes well for the authority. Young people with potential are identified and I hope that their potential is encouraged and realised. We are given strong networks of help and support to bring us on as future leaders of schools. It would be unfair for me, however, to comment on other education authorities.
Of course. I was asking you for an overview, because I thought that you might be in a more protected position.
Progress is patchy. Wonderful progress is being made by some authorities, which are doing great things by young teachers and young principal teachers. We have some wonderful documentation at our disposal, including continuing professional development for educational leaders and good material from HMIE on improving leadership in schools. As Don Ledingham said, if people are going to be leaders, they need to gain experience on the ground. There, they will see how problems are tackled and how people are inspired.
You have a certain perspective on this subject wearing your other hat as chair of the Scottish Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society, or SELMAS. I am aware that you meet some of the top leaders through that organisation.
Yes.
I agree with Judith McClure. In the city of Edinburgh, we have a good, established programme for supporting teachers who are embarking on a leadership role through CPD, supportive management and so on. There is space for that to be applied across the board throughout Scotland and to become a unified strategy.
Let us return to Ken Macintosh, whose questions began all this. He has some other questions.
The convener made some comments regarding East Renfrewshire, the status of Netherlee Primary School, where Bryan McLachlan teaches, the significance of having a good catchment area and so on. Netherlee is indeed in a very good area. East Renfrewshire is a small authority. There is good ethos, not just at schools such as Netherlee but throughout the authority, and that is very important.
That is recognised in HMIE's recent report.
Absolutely. That is well recognised. It is an important factor.
As Don Ledingham says, it is a question of critical mass. When a lot of pupils really want to learn, life is a lot easier. However, we still get challenging behaviour, and lots of pupils have problems with their family background. Everyone has additional support needs at some stage in their life. The key is to realise from the start that, if we think we can do something, we will be able to do it. However, an awful lot of individual attention is needed to get to that point. That is particularly the case with women. In a girls' school, the pupils can be rather diffident and can lack the concept of self-efficacy.
How do you reward those who are not top of the class in a school in which being top of the class is everything?
In fact, being top of the class is not everything. The big thing is not to compare people one with another; people's targets must be their own targets. Everyone in the community needs to feel valued and everything that they achieve ought to be supported. If everyone feels that, the issue is not simply whether someone is good academically but what they contribute to the community. If you have an ethos that says that that is what matters in the end, you can make a huge difference to people.
I had the pleasure of visiting St George's on a couple of occasions, when we were trying to copy its tremendous action research programme. As a head teacher of a state school, my visits to St George's, with all its obvious privileges, were an interesting experience. However, the similarities between our two schools are much greater than the dissimilarities. We should aim at ensuring that we are ambitious—a word that might be overused now in the Scottish Executive—for our schools. Such ambitions can be common and can cut across the different backgrounds that operate within a school.
I am interested in exploring further what Judith McClure said about spending time with a pupil to provide individual attention to help the pupil's development. In their evidence, the EIS and SSTA representatives said that smaller class sizes would not solve the problem of pupil motivation, but they would go a long way towards helping pupils, because the teacher would be able to consider pupils' individual learning styles and work on qualities such as emotional intelligence. What are the panel's views on that aspect? The key is to engage with young people and to keep that engagement going no matter what kind of background they come from.
The first thing is not the size of the class but the commitment of the teacher and whether the teacher has a burning desire to get to know every person in the class and to do all that can be done for them. There are loads of teachers like that throughout Scotland. If they can be given smaller class sizes, that will be much better. It really makes a difference if the teacher has time, because children need time, including time on their own outside the classroom. In practice, teachers are asked to do far more than they are contracted to do, but they are prepared to do that in the right sort of community because they want what everyone else wants. Obviously, it depends on what is affordable, but lower class sizes help teachers considerably.
On guidance and management structures, as a school we wrote a paper last year for The Times Educational Supplement on the type of management structure that we wanted to develop. We said that we want to make best use of the expertise that we have and that we do not want to disrupt the culture that we are creating. We have a strong commitment to the idea that the main leaders and drivers of attainment in a school are the principal teachers and subject principal teachers. We argued against going down the curriculum leader and faculty route and we argued that we should retain our principal teacher of guidance. In that area, we are doing something interesting that parallels what happens in Europe. We have four principal teachers who are on the same level and pay and they rotate responsibility as the main leader of the department, with exceptionally positive results.
That is interesting.
That is like the system in France.
France, Germany and Denmark all have that system.
I understand that local authorities have different approaches to such systems. We are hearing from the likes of David Eaglesham that there are problems in some areas. Perhaps we need to re-examine the area from the Executive's point of view, to ensure that we have the correct number of people to work with young people in guidance, which is a key area, and that we have not lost sight of the need for that.
What is your question, Rosemary?
Does the panel think that we should have a national policy rather than each local authority making its own decision?
I am a great one for saying that we should have an authority basis if it suits my purposes. It depends what you come up with. One of the advantages of the McCrone settlement is that it has afforded some flexibility in devolved school management, enabling schools to develop systems that suit their context. Something that suits us would not necessarily be suitable in another context. However, there are some key principles that need reinforcement and if people choose not to go down that route, they need to have a clear justification for why they have adopted a separate model.
That is absolutely right. It is flexibility that we want. We should enunciate the core principles—which are that the welfare of students matters and that students deserve individual attention—but schools should be able to find the pattern that suits them best.
My question is particularly for Bryan McLachlan and Victoria Aldridge. If you did not have good heads and good leadership at your schools, are the systems in place to support and reward you as teachers, in particular in relation to the policy initiatives and Executive guidelines under which you operate?
In a sense, it is difficult to answer the question because in my experience the leadership of my school has always been supportive. It is difficult to say whether the systems are in place.
Are systems in place to pick up on demotivated teachers? Systems are there to reward good teaching, but are they also there to pick up on teachers who are not helping their pupils?
My initial answer to that is, "Possibly not," although perhaps I should not say that. In preparing to come here and in thinking about motivation in education, my first thought, which seems simplistic, was that we must have effective teachers. The most motivating or demotivating influence in any classroom is the teacher. They are the best resource that the children have. However, I am not sure whether support is available for those who are demotivated or whether that support is as evident as it should be.
The fact that a teacher is demotivated is likely to be picked up in their annual review, but it is a touchy subject. I agree with Bryan McLachlan that support mechanisms are not in place. Training is needed for management to help them to deal with teachers who are not motivated. How do we encourage them? How do we increase their ability to become good teachers?
There can also be a prevailing staffroom ethos in a particular school, just as there can be a peer-group background for the children.
I was about to mention that very point. Sometimes, demotivation can spread rapidly. I suspect that that is a huge obstacle for the head teachers who are present. Of all the issues that head teachers have to embrace, that is perhaps the most delicate and difficult one. I am not the best person to answer the question, but I suspect that that is the case.
Changes have been put in place and chartered teachers have been introduced to improve what the EIS calls the reprofessionalisation of teaching, which is quite a good way of describing what we are engaged in doing. However, I worry that there are many methods to penalise and punish bad teaching and perhaps not enough to support or turn around demotivated teachers. Is that your experience or is that an inaccurate observation?
Strategies need to be more or less highlighted so that leaders can identify how they go about motivating a demotivated teacher. At the moment, it is hard to comment because I am in a similar position to Bryan McLachlan, in that there has always been a good management structure at the school from which I have been seconded. I have had only this past year to give me a brief view of what is happening.
I will pursue that point a bit more because it is a difficult area to talk about. Clearly, we are trying to boost overall teacher numbers and we are worried about the aging profile of the teaching cohort and the number of teachers who might leave. However, a large number of existing teachers will be there for a long time, so the challenge of how to motivate them is central to achieving system-wide objectives such as ensuring that there are more motivated teachers teaching more motivated children.
Money is not so much the incentive; it is more a case of valuing the teacher and considering them as an individual, their situation in life and their professional development, then giving them opportunities to develop. We are beginning to see that happen now.
I am sure that many of the committee members admire your willingness to take ownership of the challenge of motivating the staff in your school. That must be a large part of the answer. There is little that the Education Committee or the Scottish Executive can do to help, because we are simply not part of the annual appraisal discussion. However, we want to be sure that, in the report that we write and the contribution that we make, we do not make the mistake of trying to overprescribe, but ensure that the full armoury of weapons and choices is available.
What is your question, Wendy?
Have we given the witnesses enough opportunity to tell us what they do not have but wish they had at their disposal to ensure that their staff are motivated? I do not want an answer now; it is probably something for them to write to us on.
To get down to the quick, financial bonuses are not appropriate in this arena, as measurement becomes arbitrary and teachers start to work only towards a bonus. As I was coming in this morning, I was listening to a discussion about the bonus system and commission in the selling of financial services, which was interesting. I agree that the head teacher needs to take responsibility. We need to understand why people are lacking in motivation. If the committee is looking for ideas to explore, an interesting one would be the possibility of giving head teachers short-term contracts but paying them a lot more. If I had a five-year contract, at the end of which you could get rid of me, you might need to tell me what has to happen. That is a bit radical, perhaps, but it is a suggestion.
We will leave it floating in the air for the moment.
I was struck by the comment that teaching can be an isolated, lonely and intense job. Judith McClure talked about time for self-development and allowing teachers to build up experience throughout Scotland and Europe. That all requires time. I want to get a feel for the practicalities at the chalkface. What barriers are there to implementing the McCrone time and CPD opportunities? Our problem is that we tend to see the successful witnesses and hear about their successes, but we are trying to push beyond that to discover what could be extended elsewhere. We are not always looking for negatives; we are simply trying to get a perspective. How can individual teachers be supported and given development time? I find the idea of an annual review worrying if nothing happens for a year. Do teachers have sufficient continuous professional development time or do we need to take a hard look at how much time is spent on CPD, particularly if a new cohort is coming in? Is there a challenge with the generation that has not benefited as much from McCrone and the new management structures—the late 20s to early 30s age group—or are those concerns simply anecdotal?
At the beginning of your question, you mentioned the fact that teaching can be a lonely job and Judith McClure mentioned failing. I fail every day; that is the reality of teaching. You mentioned that you get the successful people to give evidence; in that case, I do not know how you got me. Teachers fail every day and the classroom can be a very lonely place for somebody who knows that they are failing as a teacher or who cannot get a grip on a particular child or class.
How do you find the time to help to identify the issues?
We really need to be out there, talking to people before they come knocking on the door saying, "I have lost my motivation." The issue is complex. It is important that we spend a lot of time walking round the school, but it is also important that people share their problems. Our senior management team tries to look out for things. It is also important to have social events with colleagues.
It is important to have staffrooms: I want to make the case for staffrooms.
Absolutely. We have just gone through a public-private partnership process in which we were offered a choice between staff bases and a staffroom. We said that we would take both. The situation in some schools that now operate without a staffroom terrifies me; those schools can become remarkably isolated places.
If I may, I will put three brief questions to the panel, the first of which is for Victoria Aldridge. Is there an argument for including in teacher training and in postgraduate certificate in education courses strategies for dealing with children who are not intrinsically motivated?
That is a good point. There is room for that to be addressed, but the PGCE curriculum is tight as it is and it would be difficult to add something else to it. When a teacher has qualified, there are CPD courses. I am running a CPD course in Edinburgh that is about enhancing classroom practice, giving classroom teachers strategies to develop a number of aspects of classroom practice, such as supporting pupils, learning styles and multiple intelligences.
That is an area that could be usefully considered.
Yes.
Judith McClure has largely answered this question, but will she summarise the best ways in which head teachers can be supported in their actions to create a positive ethos in their school? Creating a common purpose, leadership and flexibility have been mentioned, but will she summarise that in her own words?
It is important that head teachers have a chance to see other schools and to work together. The opportunity to see another school, shadow another head teacher and see different ways of doing things is priceless in considering one's own practice to see how it can be improved. If a head teacher is not improving their practice every day, they are wrong.
Does Don Ledingham have anything to say about that?
It is a tough job. It is crucial to have the opportunity to speak with colleagues about the nuts and bolts, not about the administration of the school. It is also crucial that head teachers, other senior managers and staff get the opportunity to visit other schools, because it is so easy to become lost in our own wee world.
Do you feel that disengagement or disaffection affects boys more than girls?
I worry about generalisations. I worry about labelling a child as disaffected or disengaged. We have youngsters in our school who go into a maths class and come alive and who will go into another subject and cause mayhem. They might be labelled as disaffected because they cause mayhem in more classes than they come alive in, but we must find the opportunities to reinforce those areas where they are captivated and where they demonstrate some mastery.
I have questions about relationships with other agencies. I acknowledge what you say about not wanting to stick labels on children and create expectations of failure. From having visited your school, I know that you do some interesting work with children who have had problems, whereby you bring in people from outside and work on other skills such as emotional intelligence.
We have been an integrated new community school for six years, and the first three years were perhaps the most painful period that I have ever experienced as a professional. Bringing together two disparate groups with different perceptions is a real challenge. One of the things that helped us was the fact that new community schools were just trying to replicate what was already happening in a good school. Inevitably, that would lead to clashes. The key for us has been in focusing on the needs of vulnerable children and identifying those children as early as possible, using a variety of agencies, in order to support them.
Some of those pupils are not expected to take many of the conventional exams, but will develop other skills. You have also done some work on that.
Yes. We have developed what we call an enhanced curriculum, as opposed to an alternative curriculum. Points were made earlier about avoiding streaming. When we establish a stream, we immediately establish a group of youngsters who are labelled as failures from the start. That may not have an impact on the school at the time, but when those youngsters get into the third and fourth year, they have become a group who are—I will go back on myself—disengaged and who have been labelled. They are a powerful group, and if we allow that to happen it creates a critical mass that grows almost exponentially.
There is some notion of parity of esteem lurking behind that, is there not, in terms of different career and school options?
Yes, absolutely.
Do you think that the roll-out of the integrated community school model has been patchy throughout Scotland? That seems to have been the experience. Is that because people have expected community schools to do too much? Has there not been sufficient support?
The problem is that people look down the road and say, "Oh, the new community school people." That is the wrong perception. The school is us; we are the school. We are the new integrated community school. It is about the way in which we think about and approach how we work with youngsters, as opposed to saying, "Well, who are these people? Not a lot has changed" and blaming a group. It takes a long time to bring people together to make a change.
Victoria Aldridge's submission lists various factors that have an impact on pupil motivation. When I read it, I separated those factors into environmental factors and factors that relate to the running of the school. Bearing in mind those environmental factors and the comments that have been made about community schools, we should level the playing field to ensure that children who are affected by deprivation at home can, for example, come to school and have a good breakfast at breakfast clubs. You also say that having a sense of achievement affects pupil motivation. I realise that we will never be able to do enough to remedy the situation, but are we doing enough to bring those children up to a certain level and ensure that they come into school ready to learn and able to work in the classroom?
A recognised feature in education, especially in deprived areas, is that children have all sorts of backgrounds and deprived circumstances. Many schools are already introducing breakfast clubs and giving children the warmth, love, respect and sense of belonging that they need. In response to your question, I think that enough is being done, but it is important that we keep doing such things and not let matters slip.
Bryan McLachlan talks in his submission about the importance of involvement in youth organisations outside the school. However, I am not sure whether you mean uniformed organisations in that respect. Do schools make the most of such organisations? I rather suspect that sometimes they do not.
Schools should never be afraid to recognise that children can learn skills in other places. For example, our school has something called the achievement wall, where we display the name of anyone who achieves anything inside or outside the school setting. We find that that is very good for children.
No matter whether we are talking about performing arts or sport, we must reinforce the connections between such activity and the school. After all, some students might say, "I hate school, but I love playing football for the school team" or "I love swimming at school, but I hate school itself." It is up to teachers and senior managers to reinforce the message that football, swimming and so on are part of the school experience and that football is just as important as maths. Doing that makes it difficult for youngsters to say "I hate school", because it immediately raises a dichotomy. As a result, it is important to acknowledge that such aspects are valuable. Similarly, we want to make as much use as we can of community organisations and establish links between school and community activity, whether it be sport or the performing arts.
Does that happen as much as it should? I sometimes think that such matters exist in parallel universes, and that they do not connect as much as they should.
The situation varies a lot from place to place, because it often comes down to individuals. We need to consider sustainable models and the opportunities that are emerging from the schools for ambition programme and the introduction of active secondary school co-ordinators. We need to look at ways in which we integrate with community activities, whether they are sports or other events.
That is right. Everything that we have said is about the school being part of the community. The exciting thing about partnership working is that not only teachers are doing it. We are all working together and bringing our strengths to the process. We must make schools part of the community all year round, not only during term time. That is another huge challenge.
Nobody has mentioned enterprise education this morning. As I prepared to come here, I thought about what motivates children and when I see children in my school at their most motivated. That tends to happen through enterprise. Enterprise projects can link with communities and other organisations. We have talked about children being more motivated when they believe that they are involved in the decision-making process and have ownership over their learning. They gain that most obviously in enterprise education, which I think is a tremendous aspect to be involved with. Often, enterprise projects in schools can involve only a small number of children from a particular class, year group or school, which is a great shame. I believe that that emerging area of our curriculum is valuable and motivates children highly.
That is a useful point on which to finish a fascinating evidence session. I am extremely grateful—I am sure that committee members are, as well—for the input that we have had from our witnesses. As always, if you think of anything afterwards that you feel it is crucial to let us know about, we are keen to receive such input. Thank you for your attendance and we will be in further touch with you.
I was taken by the idea of management or self-management of a teacher's career. Teachers tend to end up somewhere because they apply for a certain job rather than because a strategic view has been taken as part of either a wider local authority or Scotland-wide approach. It would be interesting to explore that issue. Perhaps we could ask HMIE whether it can assist by providing us with information about whether there are moves or developments in that regard. I know that, within local authorities, head teachers can be headhunted to go into specific schools where there is a challenge, but I am not sure to what extent that happens.
There is a talent-spotting issue across the educational system. Although the witnesses were modest in the way that they expressed their views, it is clear that educational leadership by head teachers and other teaching staff is hugely important and not that easy to provide—not every school has such leadership. If every school had the inspirational leadership that we have heard about from some people, that would make a huge difference.
We need to have drivers and models for such change. The first panel was not particularly inspiring—those are the best words that I can use to describe it—but the second panel was very good at focusing on such issues; the witnesses faced up to the difficult issue of what can be done when someone is not fit to teach, either because they have fallen through the net and may have found that teaching is not for them or because they are tired when it comes to dealing with what is happening in their school. There was genuine enthusiasm to try to work that out. We heard very positive evidence about the role that head teachers have in addressing that issue.
I had the interesting privilege of going to an event that was organised by the Scottish Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society, which Judith McClure chairs. Don Ledingham was also at the event. Some of the techniques that were used and the people who were at the event were very strong drivers for inculcating this sort of approach across the board and spreading good practice. As I understand it, SELMAS is a voluntary organisation.
There was a divergence of views on the first panel, despite the fact that the witnesses all represented parts of the teaching profession. In a sense, it was difficult to reach a conclusion because some of their contributions were in conflict.
Without doubt, optimism is the key.
The one point that I took from the first panel was David Eaglesham's question about how we manage the plug-in world. The challenge that teachers face in motivating pupils is more substantial because of the opportunities that are available to young people. That was an interesting thought, which we should not lose in the voluminous submissions that we have received. Do we say that the existence of the plug-in world makes life for teachers more difficult? What are its implications for the classroom experience?
There is an interesting conflict between how much we give schools autonomy, so that they can develop their own styles, and how much is imposed from above by local authorities or the Scottish Executive.
It would be helpful if we could get a copy of Don Ledingham's article—I am sure that I have read it—in The Times Educational Supplement about the alternative management structure that he described.
First, the weight of administrative work and whether that could be simplified, to give teachers more time, was a theme for all the witnesses. Secondly, from the evidence I do not have a totally clear view on how we should deal with a range of abilities in the classroom. It appeared that that can be more of a problem in some subjects than it is in others. Different schools seem to have different practices when dealing with the issue. More guidance on that matter would be helpful. The third point, which is very obvious, is that family support for young people is enormously helpful.
We did not develop as much as we should have the issue of how to bring about family support in a challenging situation. We should pursue that point.
Other than the issues that have been mentioned, I am interested in exploring further what was said about community schools and interagency working. Points were made about the funding of community schools and the key role that they play. As has been said, that role is not new, but there is a lot of room for identifying good practice.
To some extent, your point is related to what James Douglas-Hamilton said about bureaucracy, red tape and whether time can be freed up. The curriculum review is important. There are a number of ways of getting at the same issue.
The issues that you highlight are different from that of smaller class sizes, which is a key aspect of the learning and teaching of young people today. There is overlap, but there are also differences.
I want to pick up on Wendy Alexander's point about the plug-in world, which is interesting. That can be a disadvantage, but for children with particular learning styles it is an opportunity.
The teachers to whom we spoke yesterday said that the focus needs to be on skills, rather than content. They were grateful for the existence of the internet, which enables people to find things out straight away, instead of having to remember them through rote learning. That interconnection provides huge opportunities, but there is not the space and time to develop them. We have not really touched on the role of ICT in pupil motivation, although it seems to be one of the solutions to which people continually refer.
Bryan McLachlan specialises in ICT.
I should have asked him about that.
His submission mentions the benefits of ICT, but it returns to the point that ICT is just a tool and that, in the end, it is far less important than good teaching.
We did not press the second panel on that issue.
No. I am not sure where we could go on the issue, although good parental support is clearly essential, or at least beneficial. However, the first panel suggested that teachers have to work with pupils despite what is happening to them at home. I got the impression that parents were seen as a problem; the witnesses were thinking not about working with parents to benefit the child, but that the parents' attitudes were a problem that had to be surmounted or got round.
Underlying the evidence, there was the one-to-one issue. There is a slight difference between primary schools, where there is a single teacher who knows the class, and secondary, where the teaching splits up a bit. Issues might arise out of that, as we have heard in other contexts.
Is there not a fundamental issue that the value of education, as society and parents see it, may be deteriorating? The learning community is essential and motivation is implicit in a successful learning community. That means that if society does not value education, a school—however strong its ethos—might be swimming against the tide, because the motivation for education will be lacking. Historically, Scotland has always valued education but I wonder whether that has changed in the past few generations.
There has been a change in relation to the fact that people are asking about the relevance of education to them.
That is totally wrong. I could not disagree more with the suggestion that we no longer value education. It is true that there is a little bit more selfishness in our society than there used to be, which we might all decry, but, more than ever, the value of education is recognised enormously by individuals and society.
That is not what we heard in the evidence that we were given. I am not saying that a large number of people do not value education—I accept that 50 per cent of people go into higher education—but there are significant numbers of families and children who do not live in communities in which education's value is recognised.
That was one person's opinion.
Two people said that.
In that case, it was two people's opinion, which was unsubstantiated and came across as reactionary.
The quality of some of the evidence that we heard was a little questionable. However, if that is the view of a significant section of the teaching population, that is relevant.
The issue was raised in relation to Kenneth Macintosh's point about home links. If the parents do not value education, how can the children value it? It would be wrong of us to ignore that issue.
We are not trying to solve the problems at the moment; we are simply trying to note issues for the benefit of the clerks.
We must recognise that the traditional form of education ended up not educating a considerable number of people because they were not considered to be worth educating. It is not as if that system represented the halcyon days of Scottish education when everyone got the education that they deserved.
That is the argument that people have any time that they discuss education.
It is a debate that has gone on within the Executive.
People have different views on the why of education. Has that changed?
I keep going back to this point but, in each of our areas, there are schools that have developed a good ethos from a position of not having a good ethos. We all know that that transforms the school, the pupil's experience of the school and the perception of the school in the community. A school's ethos is linked to things such as home links, extra-curricular activities and doing things in the community.
Underlying what we are saying is the fact that, for an enormous number of children, school is an opportunity-giving experience that can enable them to transcend the difficulties that they might face because of their family background.
The message that came across strongly is that we must support the teachers to enable them to support the pupils. That issue relates to good leadership as well. If that can be done, we will be well on the way towards creating the ethos that we want to create.
With that, I close this meeting of the Education Committee.
Meeting closed at 13:00.