We will kick off this meeting of the Education Committee. Now that we are in public session, people should make sure that their mobile phones are turned off. I have turned mine off to set an example by leadership.
The more major aspect of the item is to discuss and agree the key issues that are to be included in the draft report on the inquiry, which is to be drawn up by the clerks over the recess and will be the subject of discussion at a meeting soon after the recess. The intention is that we will have a discussion on the draft report with a selection of teachers and other interested people, as we discussed and agreed before. A draft issues paper has been prepared. We are interested in any additional issues that members may want to raise and in any draft recommendations and things that members might be interested in.
One of the key issues that has been omitted from the report, but which should be included, is class sizes. There are references to class sizes throughout the reports and some of the witnesses raised the issue of class sizes. The note on the round-table discussion clearly mentions class sizes and I would like to add that to the key issues.
It is fair to say that the approach taken to class sizes was rather more nuanced, as it talked about the support mechanisms and the different sorts of specialist provision and not just about class sizes per se. We did not receive any evidence on the precise effects of class sizes. It is generally accepted that class sizes are relevant, so I am a bit concerned about how far we should pursue that issue in the context of this report.
It would be wrong to ignore it, as it came through in evidence. It could be included at one of the bullet points—it would be quite helpful if we numbered the bullet points, by the way.
I think that what is in the paper is just a summary. I do not think that we should be too bothered about that at this stage.
The bullet point that is second from the bottom of the page suggests as an issue
That is absolutely right. That is what I was trying to get at. I think that Elaine Murray wants to add something.
It is on a different point.
Sorry. Let us finish this point, first.
One of the starkest things for me at the round-table discussion was the talk about running commentary and engagement with young people and the impact that class sizes have on that. We have highlighted the different learning and teaching styles for young people as a key issue. Class sizes will be significant in relation to those different learning and teaching styles, and I think that that came out in the discussion. We also heard about personal learning planning—which is a key issue—and the engagement with young people on that. Altogether, it is about engagement, but it is about learning and teaching as well. I see that going right through this paper, in a number of references.
Members may have different views, but my view is that we must address issues such as class sizes in the context of this report. Far more significant themes emerged, such as educational leadership in schools and the motivation of teachers. Although the committee would be perfectly happy to have an indication of the importance of class sizes in the report, that must be kept in context and against the background of the way in which it was presented by different people.
We also took quite a lot of evidence about the importance of external factors, the involvement of parents and the need for effective working with other agencies, whether using home-link workers or educational psychologists and other professionals. That was also an issue.
A number of witnesses talked of the positive effects of school on a chaotic home background. Although school does not solve all the problems, that was one of the major positive issues that arose and became quite an encouraging theme. That should perhaps be taken strongly on board.
I have a large number of minor points of emphasis. It might be more appropriate for me to send them to the clerks in the form of a letter, which can be circulated, rather than detain the committee with minor points. I also have five recommendations to make.
We are not really dealing with the emphasis yet, but I am sure that it would be helpful if you did that. Thanks.
I will run quickly through my five recommendations.
We heard a lot of evidence about home-school links and so on, which we could use to develop that point.
My third recommendation is that vocational courses should be properly accredited and that those who choose to take advantage of a broader curriculum should be able to access either skills for work or Scottish vocational qualifications that are incorporated into the Scottish credit and qualifications framework.
Is that not happening already, through work placements and so on?
I think that it may be.
I do not think that that is happening. I recall our visit to Glasgow. Pupils are more involved with the major training schemes that are run by the council and there is not so much of a link with local businesses. That is a relevant point.
It might help if we focused a little bit on that.
There was a linked issue about the relative success of the links that different schools have with business, which came out in some of our visits. Some schools are very enthusiastic about those links and have a committed person establishing them. That works well and the whole ethos is affected by it. In other schools, however, that is the 57th task of a senior teacher and it is not done as well as it might be. A number of themes come out of that.
I just ask that that be considered.
There is a wider point about the way in which such schemes are funded. When we were in Perth, we heard about the scheme that the YMCA is involved in.
That is right. The funding streams come from different Executive sources.
There should be continuity of funding over a period of time, as well.
That links in with the information that we got in Glasgow about the reduction in the contribution from European structural funds post-2006, which is a worry that I have raised with the minister.
We have to be careful in our approach, because we took a snapshot; we did not go to every school in every part of Scotland. Although I agree with the points that Lord James Douglas-Hamilton has highlighted, we cannot be absolute. In some parts of the country things are already happening and are working well and it is a case of considering how we promote them. I do not want us to suggest that in initial teacher training there is no teaching of different learning styles, because I do not believe that that is the case. It would be foolish for us to suggest that we need to do something that is already happening. With all the points that have been raised it will be a question of degree and emphasis in ensuring that the best practice that we have seen is maximised throughout the country.
That is a useful point. The other thing that we have to bear in mind is that we are considering a draft report. I want to keep open the possibility of exploring some angles further if we think that we have not dwelled on them fully. We might not do that, but the possibility is there. We heard about the teacher training issue by way of a by-blow from other issues. Although it is relevant, I am not sure to what extent we should make firm recommendations on it.
To echo what Fiona Hyslop said, I think that it will be difficult for us to be prescriptive in our recommendations, because it has not been that sort of inquiry. We have picked up on examples of good teaching and motivated teachers and pupils and have identified broad areas where work needs to be done. However, I have been left with an awful lot more questions at the end of the inquiry.
Learning and Teaching Scotland suggested in its written evidence that the committee might think it worth while to commission a review of the effectiveness of education, motivation and disaffection research. That might or might not be the right thing to research, but there are a number of angles that we might want to cover. Perhaps we should say, "These good things appear to be happening. These are areas where there are difficulties of one sort of another. These are areas where work is not spread throughout the country." We might want to take on board some of the angles either as another part of this inquiry or as a different inquiry at a later date.
I agree entirely. I thought that the recommendation from Learning and Teaching Scotland was excellent, because it gets to the heart of what the committee is about. We are clearly not here to micromanage Scotland's education system or become experts. Some colleagues are teachers, but most of us are not, so we are not experts in pedagogical styles.
Differences in achievement between boys and girls were also mentioned.
I do not think that it is right just to say that girls mature earlier. What does that say? It does not say anything about why, if girls mature earlier, we do not motivate mature girls.
It is also a turnaround from the previous position.
Absolutely. We have flagged up an issue, but we have not made much progress on it. In our recommendations, we can highlight issues such as the importance of good leadership in schools. I do not wish to exaggerate, but I think that the minister's evidence was some of the best evidence that we received on the range of measures that are being taken to develop leadership. However, I am still slightly concerned that the structure in schools does not incentivise—to use a horrible word—what we want to promote. It does not reward motivated teachers but rewards attainment. It is fixated on targets, rather than on inspiring and motivating pupils.
We did not go much into the issues of music, drama and sport. However, the interesting point was made that a really good teacher can make French or maths inspiring. The content of a subject is a different issue from the techniques that are used to bring about what one is seeking.
I agree with Ken Macintosh about the role of parents and home-school links. It would be interesting to know how many local authorities have employed home-link teachers in schools and have provided long-term rather than short-term funding for them.
On inclusion, one aspect that emerged was that there are several categories of kids. There are the ones who sit at the back of the class and keep their heads down but learn nothing and do not benefit, and there are others who are more disruptive and noisy. Different issues are involved.
I thought Ken Macintosh's points were well made. On mentoring, I spoke to West Lothian Council, which is doing a pilot—the first of its kind in Scotland—to provide a link with businesses. I asked the council to send information to the clerks, which might be helpful as a background.
Could we ask the Scottish Parliament information centre what can be done for us on that issue?
We do not want "War and Peace", but it would be helpful to have some information on that issue, particularly now that we know which areas interest us.
One background factor that has come out of the evidence, which I think the minister mentioned, was that teachers can give tremendous encouragement and inspiration to pupils if those teachers are not overloaded with work. Any attempt to prevent them from being overloaded with work and bureaucracy or to simplify their workload would be helpful.
When I visited Perth Grammar School and schools in Lanarkshire, I was struck by issues to do with motor skills, which are touched on in the paper. It is about aspects of physical activity—everyone has seen the Shelter report about buggy babies. When we visited the Lanarkshire schools, we saw the brain gym and the nurture groups.
It was also suggested that for some reason there is rather more of an issue in that regard than there was in the past, particularly with boys. It is not entirely within our remit, but why is that?
When we were in Perth, we were made aware of older boys who had never developed those skills. There might be some desk research to be done on that. It is a part of the debate that is starting to emerge, but it is an area in which we might be able to make a useful contribution.
We have quite rightly focused on external factors affecting children's motivation at school, such as home background. However, internal issues also need to be considered; for example, career goals give a focus for learning and affect how relevant the curriculum is—or appears to be—to pupils.
In the context of their daily lives.
Yes. And in the context of the kind of work that pupils are likely to seek when they leave school. It struck me that careers advice needs to be embedded right through secondary school, rather than focusing on the last year or two at school. Children should be given the opportunity to talk about what they would like to do and about their future beyond school. That is an important motivational factor.
A general point that came out quite strongly latterly—or perhaps I was just focusing on it—is that strong leadership and a motivational school can lead to a considerable difference between schools in similar catchment areas. There also seems to be a considerable difference in school discipline and the general state of law and order in the area surrounding the school, which I also thought was interesting. That might be anecdotal, as opposed to established fact but, if it is broadly the position that youth crime and similar wider issues can be dealt with in that way, it has considerable implications.
I will probably echo most of what has already been said. From a combination of our visits and our awareness as elected members, I am struck by schools where a series of folk are committed to the leaderships. We should always try to talk about the leadership in the plural rather than the singular because, although schools have been led by individual head teachers in some cases, in many, there is a team approach from the senior management at secondary level or from core staff members in primary schools.
I have a couple of points on that. The underlying issue of parity of esteem was mentioned in connection with exams. I was quite impressed by the school—I cannot remember which one it was—that offered a variety of choices and where vocational education courses were not necessarily for those who had the most difficulty but were equally valid choices to more traditional academic streams. The normalisation of parity of esteem between different options is important. Vocational education can be regarded as empowering young people who, whatever the theory of the matter, would otherwise drop off the bottom. Therefore, it should be considered as something that helps people to fulfil their potential rather than something that categorises them.
I am not sure that we have evidence for that. Some young people clearly benefited from being removed from school and being engaged with in smaller settings. What came across to me as being important was the time that is taken to engage with such people. I do not know whether we have any real evidence that the successful schools had more such time than the less successful schools, or whether we need to consider catchment areas, levels of deprivation, employment and unemployment figures, sizes of schools and classes. There are so many imponderable issues around the subject. It is difficult for the committee to work out why some schools can maintain and motivate the more difficult young people while others cannot. To find that out would take full-scale research into the size of schools and classes, the areas that they are in and so on. We do not have that evidence.
Much of the evidence that we took was anecdotal, so we are probably not in a position to provide conclusions or views on that.
There are certain circumstances in which children with emotional and behavioural difficulties need special support. It is oversimplistic to accept the premise that all teachers should be able to deal with that however big the class. We need to take a pragmatic approach.
We took evidence from Dunbar, for example, that some schools are dealing with such pupils in a small setting within the school rather than outwith it. We could take a variety of different approaches. I am not sure that we will find definitive answers on those issues, however; it is more about making recommendations.
Some of the issues that we are wrestling with are complex and are in some ways at the frontier of work in education, so we will not necessarily reach conclusions and the people who read our reports will not necessarily agree with all the conclusions that we do reach. I would like anyone who reads our report to know the following facts, which can perhaps be found through desk research.
You are absolutely right; we should have a handle on that matter. The mention of good practice also raises a question about whether there is established agreed practice or whether we are at an experimental stage at which different authorities are trying out different things. I recollect that someone said that what works in one area does not necessarily work in another. I do not think that I believe that; after all, one would have thought that common lessons would emerge, although whether those common lessons would point us in one direction is another matter. We must take account of the mix of different aspects.
As we heard in an earlier evidence session and as Wendy Alexander has just pointed out, there is a need for comparative data for areas in Scotland. I also believe that we need data on whether schools or providers that are slightly outside the mainstream have been successful in addressing the problem, and on when they are utilised.
If I recall correctly, HMIE has produced a number of reports on some such matters.
It gave us a list of them, did it not?
Yes, that is right. We received some evidence about that. That is relevant. There is importance in having champions of school-college links—teachers or not—who would have a particular mandate to push such matters. That would be more effective than leaving things to chance.
Like Ken Macintosh, I think that the report could recommend that more data be collected. Research is important. Following up on what Wendy Alexander was saying, I am not sure that statistics on the various categories of disaffection are available. Certainly, unauthorised absence is recorded for each school, but that could relate to many matters, such as parents taking their children on holiday, so those figures will not necessarily provide insight into disaffection. We might want to recommend that the Executive undertake the relevant research.
I suppose that the overriding theme is the importance of this stuff. That is the general, high-level point. Motivation makes a big difference to the quality of life and the potential opportunities for young people. Motivation of children and young people relies very much on the motivation of teachers and the organisation, leadership and so on across the school.
One of the broad issues is that of control, or the lack of it. Successful schools are those in which pupils feel involved in their education and teachers feel that they have control. That comes back to some of the work that we did with Alan McLean at the start of our inquiry, about autonomy, empowerment and control issues. Successful techniques tend to be liberating in that sense. I would like that to be one of our overall themes.
That links in to what someone said earlier about ownership of projects by children in terms of democracy, school councils and various other more sophisticated methods.
That is where mentoring came in, along with a load of other things. Certainly in Perth, we saw that pupils were taking control not only of their education but of the school and its management.
With social and behavioural problems, there might be a problem with a lack of highly qualified professional staff. For example, I went to a school in Livingston that had a team of professional advisers because it had one child whose father was in prison and whose mother was an alcoholic and a drug addict. That child had particular problems which meant that dealing with the child on the same basis as all of the other children did not work. I fear that there might be a shortage of professional advisers who have expertise in specific difficulties.
We know from evidence that there is a shortage.
Availability of such advisers is key. The issue comes down to additional support for learning and implementation of provisions, because advisers have a big part to play in relation to social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. The shortage of clinical psychologists, educational psychologists and specialists in child and family mental health teams is a problem that we can only mention—we are not in a position to solve it. We have to bear it in mind, however. It is important.
That is right. I made the point that although the school cannot solve all the problems that have wider causes, it can provide a point of stability and an environment in which some attempt can be made to tackle problems.
That is enough to be getting on with.
We could perhaps also make a formal request to HMIE by sending a fairly open-ended letter in which we might ask whether HMIE is aware of the number of pupils in each of the cohorts and how much variation there is across the country. As others have said, that might provide the justification for saying that further research is necessary. It would be interesting to see what response such a letter from the convener would generate.
It is fair to observe that, from the beginning, one of the difficulties with the inquiry has been to contain it within bounds. In a sense, it is easy to be enthusiastic about trying to solve the problems of the world with the inquiry. The process will be that Mark Roberts will be confined—with an icepack on his head—to prepare the draft report over the recess, and we will have another crack at matters after the recess.