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Item 2 is consideration of our pupil motivation inquiry. There are one or two aspects to this—we have a summary of evidence and an approach paper on visits and we will take oral evidence. I welcome Scottish Executive officials Ruth Campbell, policy manager of the pupil support and inclusion division—that is a bit of a mouthful—of the Scottish Executive Education Department, and Lynn Hendry, the project director of determined to succeed, of the Scottish Executive Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department. We are being holistic and straddling departments. I welcome you both. Lynn Hendry will kick off by giving us an introduction.
I am project director for determined to succeed, which is the Executive's strategy for enterprise in education. I am on secondment to the Executive from Young Enterprise Scotland, where I was chief executive. I was a member of the original review group that made the 20 recommendations that were presented to ministers, and I lead a team of secondees from a variety of backgrounds in the private and public sectors, which is responsible to the Executive for supporting the implementation of the determined to succeed programme. It might be helpful if I give a quick overview of how we are implementing the programme locally.
I work in the pupil support and inclusion division and I have specific responsibility for a number of areas, including how pupils and parents are supported by schools—especially pupils in circumstances that challenge their ability to engage fully with education. I am responsible for addressing behaviour and attendance in schools—which some might consider to be features of disaffection—and for promoting and increasing the level and quality of pupils' participation in schools. A large part of our work focuses on the promotion of a positive school ethos and the creation of a positive learning and teaching environment that motivates pupils. Our work also focuses on relationships between pupils, between staff and pupils and between schools and parents.
Thank you. I am conscious of the fact that although the school is a major influence, it is not the only influence on young people's character development, educational development and the like. The informal sector—including the uniformed organisations and youth clubs—exists in a parallel universe to some extent. Its big advantage is that it is not compulsory for children to attend such organisations, whereas it is compulsory for them to go to school. Therefore, I presume that there are lessons to be learned from their success in attracting children. To what extent is the experience of the youth organisations brought into the work that you do?
Good practice is emerging in relation to integrated community schools and authorities have encouraged youth workers and schools to work closely together. An example of that is the active breaks project in South Lanarkshire, in which youth workers reach out to young people who would not ordinarily be involved in youth work activities outside school. The skills and experience that the youth workers bring to the school setting mean that young people can be involved in alternative curriculum opportunities. On Monday, we will visit a school where active breaks workers have involved young people who are disaffected with school in setting up a school radio and DJ-ing project. There are some good examples of crossovers between youth workers' style and approach and the school setting. It would be good to share that good practice more effectively.
The problem is that such worthwhile examples still tend to be the exception rather than the rule.
Yes. The challenge is to find good practice and to ensure that it is shared and that other practitioners follow it. Another issue is the ability of young people to access youth work provision. Especially in rural areas, transport is an issue. If more such activities were centred on schools, to which transport is available, that might be a good thing for young people in those areas.
I also wanted to ask about the evaluation of projects. You touch on that in your research evidence, in which you mention the Prince's Trust. It seems to be a tricky area, because there are, arguably, no set guidelines. It is not quite like what is done by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education, with its long-standing expertise in certain areas. How do you approach evaluation to ensure that it is not just box ticking but genuinely identifies good practice that works and is reasonably rigorously assessed?
We have just commissioned the beginning of our evaluation framework, which we are addressing in two main ways. First, we are examining processes in local authorities to try to understand those that add value to local delivery. We are also examining in a more qualitative sense local authorities' relationships with schools, parents and the wider community.
The briefing paper has been well received; it is good to be informed about what is going on. I am aware that many of the immediate questions that it poses are questions for the minister. I will try to avoid asking such questions, but the officials should tell me if they cannot answer.
When one commissions an evaluation, it is sometimes difficult to ask it to consider both the impact and the perverse effects. That is an issue that we need to examine. We are very focused on attainment in Scotland and that is what hits the headlines, but we are starting to learn more and more about how we can take a broader view of achievement in schools and about the impact of the overall school environment on pupils.
Some of the written submissions that we have received on the existing networks and structures for communicating examples of best practice were a bit critical of the Executive for having a large number of different but related projects. For example, Skill Force Scotland welcomed the pupil inclusion network but thought that the sheer number of initiatives that had emerged from the Executive in recent years had provided local authorities with both opportunities and challenges. The Church of Scotland also thought that the way in which the myriad different but related projects that are undertaken by Learning and Teaching Scotland, at the request of the Executive, are funded and organised made it difficult to co-ordinate them. Are we doing too many small projects without people understanding their cross-cutting nature and the overall strategy that underpins them? How do you respond to various organisations' criticism that the Executive is doing too many small things and not enough big things?
There are two issues there. The document "ambitious, excellent schools: our agenda for action" is about streamlining a direction and framework for education and schools while allowing local innovation and development to suit local need. As you will see from our paper, which outlines some of the things that we support at a local level through the future learning and teaching programme—the FLaT programme—we are supporting local creativity, through which schools and education authorities can develop some really good ideas. Rather than trying to drive a top-down approach, we are taking a bottom-up approach. As Lynn Hendry has said, we are trying to find out what the themes are in making that approach work and to help others to learn from that, rather than taking something and making everybody do the same thing. By increasing flexibility, we can have a wider range of things going on in Scotland. If we learn lessons by drawing out the themes of what works, people can take that on board and bring it into their own practices effectively.
How best can such good practice be disseminated to other people?
That is a real challenge. Matthew MacIver was talking about the difficulty of communicating directly with teachers at the grass roots, rather than through education authorities. In policy terms, many of us do work through education authorities. I have developed a number of different approaches, including round-table seminars involving small groups, and have asked head teachers to share practices with other head teachers. We have produced a magazine, which is sent directly to teachers, so that every teacher in Scotland can get one. Those things are working.
In determined to succeed, the Executive strategy for enterprise in education, we have, like Ruth Campbell, developed newsletters and direct correspondence with teachers. We have used Sky television and we have done some work on the community information channel for teachers. One of the most effective ways of sharing good practice among educational practitioners is through peer-to-peer endorsement. We are currently seeking to develop the concept of subject champions for enterprise and education, through which there will be leaders across the various subject areas in secondary education. They will be people who have shown tremendous good practice in bringing together subject specialisms in the enterprise and education agenda. That peer-to-peer influence is a tremendously powerful way of bringing about change and sharing good practice in education.
I note that the determined to succeed strategy is about providing "pupil-centred, active approaches", among other things. The evidence that we have heard suggests that learning and teaching styles are crucial in motivating young people. When we approach teaching from that angle, however, there is a need for smaller settings. There are some wonderful projects going on. I speak to teachers often; they tell me that they have some very imaginative projects, ranging from digital photography projects to outdoor education, which can lead to the superb ASDAN award or to other awards.
We commissioned research on the schools enterprise programme, with which you may be familiar. That programme was funded by the Executive and private sector partners and concerned enterprise in primary education. The evaluation highlighted the critical role of classroom assistants and their support in schools to enable teachers to undertake the initiatives that you described.
Matthew MacIver talked about some of the challenges of enabling the profession to meet the demands of a wide range of learning needs and styles in huge institutions. Some schools have 1,000-plus pupils; management of such schools needs considerable organisation. As Matthew said, we must think about the issue. Some schools are developing flexible programmes in partnership with youth workers, further education colleges and practitioners from other services in their local authority. By and large, they are managing to use flexible and creative approaches without compromising the quality of pupils' experience. We encourage such practices. We recently provided an additional £35 million over the next three years for support staff in schools to help provide the flexibility that Lynn Hendry talked about. As time passes, the question will arise whether a registration system that restricts people to a specific subject is flexible enough for the education that we want for our children.
The issue is not just GTC-registered teachers, but staffing when schools try to furnish a more flexible curriculum and to take on projects that will motivate young people more. That is a major issue. Teachers' feedback to me suggests that if a pupil support teacher is taken out of the pupil support base to support an outdoor education activity or whatever, a teacher in a classroom will not have the expected pupil support teacher to support her in teaching her class. My impression and my experience are that we are robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Please ask your question.
Can we do research? Is research being done? How much are you doing to evaluate projects on which much money is being spent, and how much are you doing to feed back problems as well as successes?
We have a range of evidence and sources to pull together to make sense of the situation that Ms Byrne describes. We will certainly consider that.
We would be happy to receive any research that you have done.
In some circumstances, might giving teachers a slightly lighter timetable allow them more time to implement a variety of more stimulating approaches in their teaching practice?
Yes. The programmes need to be developed in the long term. When schools do their timetabling each year they consider a range of factors such as space, the number of pupils and the variety of learning that they want to take place. Effective leaders and head teachers provide a range of stimulation for their pupils through staffing and partnership working.
We are exploring pupil motivation. We are talking not about cognitive skills per se or about IQ, but about non-cognitive skills—the "I can" skills. It surprises me slightly that in the entire submission on motivation and the growth of non-cognitive skills there is no mention of early years education or home-school links and workers. Non-cognitive learning is done mainly in the early years and at home. Of the plethora of projects—I counted 17—none that you highlighted relates to either early years education or home-school links and the role of home-school support. Does that fall within the remit of your work on pupil motivation?
I did not include early years education—that was a lack of information gathering on my part—but I can provide more information on it. Home-school networking is an interesting area and we are trying to boost the profile of the achievement of home-school link workers this year. We are planning a national conference for those staff later in the year. I hope that, through that, we will hear about good practice from practitioners and that we will be able to make more of their achievements.
It would be helpful if you could reflect on and write to us about the evaluation evidence on home-school links and the scale of home-school working in Scotland. The Scottish Executive is probably the only body that, at the centre, is in a position to assess the scale of availability of home-school working. I say that because we know from work in our social work remit that one in 20 children in Scotland is growing up in a home with a drug-abusing parent. We know from separate evidence—it is not all from the same cohort—that one in 20 children is referred to the children's panel.
I think that we had better let the witnesses reply before you elaborate too much.
Of course. Basically, my question is about dissemination of information and the scalability of projects vis-à-vis the proliferation of experimentation.
That is difficult to answer. Some of the best ideas start on a small scale in local schools. Some of the mental health work that is going on in primary schools started from a particular professional's keenness to develop such work. Projects grow and we can support that growth.
Is there a single source that allows any head teacher, teacher or director of education to study the menu that exists? Is there a single entry point?
Yes—the national grid for learning gives access to all that stuff. People in education receive communication in very different ways. Although they all work in the same profession, they have different approaches to how they pick up on and screen information, so we have a responsibility to try to disseminate information through television or direct magazines, for example.
How do we avoid there being a split between the work of policy makers in the Education Department in sponsoring an interesting plethora of activity and taking a view—presumably through policy evaluation—on what works and what does not work, and the separate stream of measuring activity by inspectors? What linkage is there between those two realms? Do inspectors play a part in evaluation? Would they have a handle on which programmes have the greatest potential?
We have on-going dialogue with inspectors, but when inspectors go into schools and authorities, they consider a broad range of learning outcomes. People can achieve those outcomes in a range of ways. We are finding out what different ways there might be to help them to achieve the outcomes on which the inspectorate examines them. It is important that the system works on a number of levels.
It is tricky to get a handle on what is happening throughout the country and on the extent to which there are drivers of public policy to take forward themes rather than projects that have been shown to be successful. In the past, there has been no hesitation in imposing schemes—for example, primary schools were encouraged to adopt phonetic spelling. Such projects have been rolled out across the country. On such important issues, is there a need to ensure that—through the work of HMIE, for example—at least some of the themes are embedded in schools' practice throughout the country? There are no two ways about it: the overall picture looks very bitty.
I will respond on behalf of the determined to succeed programme. We commissioned the production of a series of quality indicators specifically on enterprise and education, which schools would be able to use to assess their performance against a range of standards that were set by HMIE. We launched the series last November.
That shows that such an approach can be taken. The Executive has a drive to get enterprise education into all schools. I am not saying that enterprise is less important than pupil motivation, but pupil motivation needs to be tackled effectively throughout Scotland, so is there potential to do more thematic work on that, too?
I take the point that it is important to ensure coherency. For a head teacher who was charged with development of an organisation, the first point in trying to decide where to go next would be to examine the characteristics of the pupil population, the teaching staff and the school's community. The head teacher would then need to work out what was particularly required in the school.
That is a valid point.
We want to get to the heart of how to have well-motivated young people in early years education and right through the school system. The conundrum for the committee is that all of us know of different schools in our constituencies or regions that have virtually identical social and economic characteristics, but some are brilliant and some are not so brilliant, which is the best euphemism I can find. What should we do to encourage more schools to be brilliant at what they do?
I am not going to answer the second question. On the first question, both of us have identified that the quality of leadership in schools in crucial.
Everywhere?
Yes—absolutely.
Obviously, the Executive takes the issue seriously. If one had to identify one thing that makes a difference, one would start with the quality of leadership. If they are good leaders, instead of being confused by the range of initiatives, head teachers can be selective; they can work out what they need for their schools and get on with it. Many head teachers do just that.
My worry when I was teaching in the 1980s and 1990s—this is a slight reference to yesterday's comments—and what dispirited me most was that, if the school was in an area that by any definition was significantly disadvantaged, the mindset among some people led them to say, "What do you expect? This is the reality of the economics and social characteristics of the neighbourhood." As a secondary school teacher, I was frustrated by that because I believed that there was genuine potential to turn round schools and the life experiences of the youngsters in them.
I will respond to that with reference to a specific case study. Last year, 90 inspiring head teachers went through a leadership programme at the Columba 1400 initiative, one of whom was Ian White from Govan High School. Two other members of his senior management team also went. They are now taking a systemic approach towards developing leadership capacity in the whole school. That will be an interesting case study as the school progresses its leadership development, because that school faces the challenges that Mr McAveety outlined—social disadvantage, high levels of disengaged parents and disaffected young people. It is a fantastic example of how a school can, when there is a strong focus on leadership within the school, re-energise the staff, re-energise the pupils and re-engage the parents.
Leadership is clearly important. However, like Frank McAveety, when we saw the recent report about the performance of Glasgow schools, I was struck by the differences between schools. The differences were not only one or two percentage points, but were substantial across the indicators, not least in respect of the number of young people who are unemployed after a certain period. In some schools, the figure was as low as 2 per cent, but for other catchment areas that are—as far as one can judge—similar, the figure was more like 20 per cent.
I will speak on behalf of a colleague of mine who is responsible for Beattie implementation. A literature review on the characteristics of good practice on student destination in the United Kingdom is being concluded. Student destination is an incredibly complex matter, and many factors influence the outcome; leadership is certainly not the only one. I am not in a position to comment on that, but I would be happy to provide the committee with a more supported evidential base on student destination.
It is the sort of matter that is worth examining systemically. I appreciate the multiplexity of factors, which obviously makes research much more difficult, but it might be worth while sponsoring research into it.
Is there any hidden research about the role that janitors play in schools' quality?
There is lots of anecdotal evidence on that.
We will leave it at that.
I thank the witnesses. That was an interesting evidence-taking session. We are grateful for your input and I hope that the meeting was not too arduous for you.
On reading the summary, I was somewhat dissatisfied with the written evidence that we are getting. It seems to be a bit thin and anecdotal compared to the paper that we got from the Scottish Parliament information centre, which was excellent. Perhaps we need to target better our requests for evidence. For example, I do not see any submissions from educational psychologists, who I would have thought would be among the principal sources of information on pupil motivation.
If committee members have particular ideas such as that, which is a good one, there is nothing to stop us from formally seeking evidence from relevant organisations.
I agree that the SPICe paper was more useful than the summary of written evidence, but that is because we have to deal with the evidence that we receive rather than going out to seek it. I particularly liked the reference in the SPICe briefing to RHINOs—pupils who are "really here in name only". Although it is bitty, the written evidence is about the importance of teacher motivation; we cannot discuss pupil motivation without looking at that. It will be a crucial part of the inquiry.
It is clear that the subject area is wide. It is a difficult area to get to grips with, so I think that the inquiry will be more substantial than we first thought. We will talk about that when we consider the inquiry approach paper.
Many of the submissions try constantly to draw the agenda back to cognitive rather than non-cognitive skills. Motivation is non-cognitive; it is not about what people achieve at the end of the day. We need to find a way to build that into the inquiry.
That is right. That approach would emphasise process. I am more interested in what happens mainstreamly—if there is such a word—in schools, than I am in odds and ends and little projects outwith the mainstream. Before we start excluding children by placing them in special projects or sending them on courses, our first port of call is to decide what we do with the other 90 per cent of schoolchildren with whom we deal. The better we can handle the majority, the better will be the situation for all. On the other hand, there are restrictions to consider, given the extent to which young people who have problems can disrupt other children. There are a number of themes to consider.
To come back to the practical aspects, I am interested in what is happening at Springburn Academy. It would be worth while, even if we do not visit the school, at least to get someone in from the pastoral care department to give us an overview of what is happening there.
The person from SPICe, who is sitting in the corner, will pat herself on her back.
I was off when the committee decided that it wanted a pupil motivation inquiry and I am still a bit confused about what members want to achieve from it. I was under the impression that we wanted to consider motivation for all pupils and what the core issues are around motivation across the mainstream curriculum in particular. This might be the outside perception of what we want to consider, but the summary seems to show that the inquiry has been distilled—either by those who have contributed to it or by other means—into being about those who are disaffected and are coping with disaffection. Perhaps that is a misunderstanding as a result of my not being party to early discussions, but—
I do not think that that is right. As I have tried to say, I—and I think other committee members—want to consider the mainstream experience. Obviously, light is cast on that by projects through which people have succeeded in motivating kids who have been turned off by the mainstream experience, so things are a bit chicken and eggish.
We spoke to Matthew MacIver about teacher empowerment and involvement. We must work out how to maximise teachers' involvement in the classroom, how they tap into resources and so on. We should also bear it in mind that there is constant assessment, an overcrowded curriculum and so on. How do all those issues sit? How will we find time for them? Are such issues seen as peripheral or integral? I know that we are reluctant to consider the processes, but we should address some key processes that involve time and resources because, at the end of the day, the issue is about how time and resources are allocated, what makes the maximum impact on pupils and at what stage that happens. Much of what we are discussing relates to secondary level and very little to primary level. Unless we tackle issues relating to pupil motivation at primary level, we could miss a whole range of things.
In thinking about school visits and so on, it might be helpful to think about a structured way in which to ask questions. Some themes that have been mentioned are important. They may not all be central to what we are seeking, but we cannot understand the issue without trying to address and get views on some of those themes.
If we get the impression that teacher motivation is as important as pupil motivation and—although I do not want to prejudge it—the reaction is, "Oh yes, there's another Scottish Executive initiative. There were 17 of them in three pages in its submission", there will be an obvious point there. However, I suppose that we will not know about that until we find out.
There is an almost off-putting, bureaucratic feel about the summary of things that happen. One says to oneself, "Oh dear, I must make a real effort to read through this stuff and get something out of it."
We must be careful how we proceed on the basis of the evidence that we have received so far. We need to try not to reinforce the sense that we are doing what we are doing in the absence of considering the role of teachers. We must get the balance right.
That connects with the Springburn Academy visit that Rosemary Byrne suggested.
I agree with many of the previous comments. I am not against any of the Executive projects. In fact, I was quite encouraged by Ruth Campbell saying that there is no point in rolling out a project across Scotland, because that implies that that is the one system that will work for everybody. She said that we must allow people to choose what works for them and then support that choice. What is difficult—and I think that this is what Wendy Alexander was saying—is that there are no tools for evaluating what does and does not work. It is unclear whether motivation—of either teachers or pupils—is measured or evaluated in any way. The GTC says that it does not measure teacher morale. Teacher morale is a difficult issue anyway, and it is used in different circumstances for different reasons. However, I cannot help feeling that there should be some sort of measurement, even if only small scale, local surveys, in order to find out what works. Ultimately, we want to put in place a system that rewards good practice and effective teaching and—as Fiona Hyslop was saying—that tells head teachers and teachers how they should balance their time. In theory, McCrone is all about giving teachers more time, but if it does not give them enough time to do the things that motivate pupils, it is slightly pointless.
That focuses the evidence to some extent.
Ultimately, we cannot make teachers good teachers, but we can guide the policy that incentivises them in the right way. If we are providing the wrong incentives we can change them. We need to reward good practice. At the moment, we are working in the dark.
I want to suggest one possible way to drill down into this. It is probably something that the clerks or the convener would want to consider. The danger in this is that we hear what people want to tell us. We are left slightly frustrated about the extent to which a classroom teacher can acknowledge that motivating young people has in some respects changed because the expectations of young people have changed.
I want to look at where we are going on this matter, but I believe that Elaine Murray has a comment.
I thought that Alan McLean's presentation and workshop were interesting. Obviously, his work with teachers on pupil motivation is important. However, although teacher motivation also seems to be important, I have no handle on it. I do not know whether we can hear from HMIE, individual inspirational teachers or whoever else with such expertise.
Let me make one general observation. This inquiry does not have a particular time constraint per se; after all, we do not have to hit any legislative targets. As a result, we can be flexible if we need to be. Indeed, given the paper's suggestions, I think that we are heading in that direction. However, there are some imposed flexibilities. For example, our scheduling will have to take some account of the likelihood of a general election on 5 May or thereabouts, even though it is not a Scottish Parliament election.
The avoidance of stress is desirable if teachers are to encourage maximum pupil motivation. A teacher under stress is like a piece of elastic which, if pulled too far for too long, loses its elasticity. That has a negative impact on pupils. As a general principle of good practice, teachers should not be put under excessive pressure.
Several suggestions have been made about how we move forward on this matter. I certainly do not think that we should be constrained to produce a report before the summer recess, which was the original plan. I think that that will prove impossible. Equally, I think that, at this stage, having meetings and visits in the one week would prove too much of a commitment. We need to spread things a little bit.
The early years inquiry is linked to this subject. Indeed, one inquiry will inform the other and as a result we should try to dovetail our work on both.
That approach would certainly be relevant when we carry out our visits. Perhaps we should keep an eye over our shoulder in that respect.
Convener, the committee will receive written evidence on the early years inquiry before it finishes taking oral evidence on the pupil motivation inquiry. As a result, there will be an opportunity for a read-across.
As far as the timetable is concerned, three sessions have been scheduled for stage 2 consideration of the Gaelic Language (Scotland) Bill. It is reasonably clear that we will need only one session—or perhaps one and a bit. There is therefore a bit of room for manoeuvre in that third session, which is scheduled for 16 March, because we will clearly not need to consider any amendments. We could perhaps schedule a visit or something else on that date.
Not everybody needs to go on all the visits. In the past, we have divided visits up. A number of visits, each by one or two people, rather than everybody going on one visit, might be a way to get a wider spectrum of views. Although I agree that it is desirable to make visits on a Wednesday morning, that limits us to the central belt. If we were to go to Perth, it would not be terribly sensible to go on a Wednesday morning.
Perth might be all right, but if we were to go any further than that we would have problems.
I would like to meet not the teaching unions, or people who speak on behalf of teachers, but teachers themselves. I am quite happy to go into a school, but if we go on a school day it is difficult to get teachers together and have enough time to think about the matter in a rational way. It would be good to have a formal or informal meeting with a group of teachers to discuss the matter at length, rather than taking up their lunch hour. I do not know how easy it would be to arrange that.
Presumably such a meeting would take place after 4 o'clock.
Yes, perhaps. I do not know how it would be arranged, to be honest.
Our experience from the school visits that we have made is that we can usually get a certain number of teachers—perhaps the head teacher and one or two others—despite the constraints.
Yes, but I have been to a number of such meetings and what happens is that some people are clued up on what the visit is about while others are not. They might or might not be knowledgeable about the issue. I do not mind going to a school, but if the teachers can be invited to a meeting away from the school to unburden themselves and talk about what motivates them and their pupils, that would be better. I am quite happy with a staffroom-type meeting, but I would like it to be informal and non-hierarchical. It should not be done through the teaching unions.
I accept that.
Another possibility is to visit one of Glasgow's learning communities, each of which comprises primary schools, pre-five establishments and a secondary school. In planning such a visit, it might be worth while to identify that we would like to meet a cross-section of staff on the front line. We all know of learning communities, but perhaps we should pick one in an area that faces massive challenges. Obviously, I am familiar with the one in the east end of Glasgow, which would be convenient for me but is within a reasonable travelling distance for most of us. We might learn a lot from such a visit.
That is what we are heading towards in paragraph 11 of the paper.
Paragraphs 11 and 12 contain a number of suggestions about the type of visit that the committee could make and the type of witnesses it could invite. We suggest that if the committee is broadly happy with the thrust of the paper the clerks will come back with specific proposals for approval. If the committee wants to adopt a different angle from that which is suggested in paragraphs 11 and 12, we can arrange that too.
It is a particular hobby horse of mine, but a really great example is the secondary school in Carntyne. If anyone had said 15 years ago that merging the three denominational secondary schools in the east end of Glasgow would result in the ethos that has developed in that school under a variety of staff—not just the head teacher, who is very good, but a number of other key staff—we might not have believed them. It is a good example; it works in an area where there are massive social challenges and it has had to cope with a new-build development. It has been able to cope with those factors and sustain progress and improvement.
I think that we need to have specific school visits as well as the specific cross-cutting approach.
Bruce Malone from St Andrew's new learning community and Jim Dalziel from Eastbank new learning community could organise what I am suggesting. I can support that if you want me to.
Obviously, we cannot finalise all this today. There is probably a degree of urgency in relation to fixing something in the slots for 16 and 23 March, which are the most obvious ones. I take it that people do not want to use Mondays during that early stage, because of diary commitments and so on, but we might be able to use a Monday instead of a Wednesday later on. We can clear up such issues by e-mail.
It has been quite long since the teaching unions have been invited to give oral evidence to the committee.
There would be one area in relation to which it would be appropriate to talk to them. Let us think about your suggestion further because we do not want to speak only to the usual suspects—that is a derogatory phrase that we use for organisations that we see a reasonable amount of. There might be scope for talking to the teaching unions, but I am not sure that we want them to become the main part of this piece of work.
The unions will have an overview. There is a lack of research evidence about the morale of teachers and so on and I imagine that the unions would be the people with the best handle on that aspect of pupil motivation and so on. I would not dismiss the idea of bringing the teachers unions back in.
I am not dismissing the idea, but I do not want the inquiry to be dominated by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, the Headteachers Association of Scotland and so on, as that will constrain our time. We might want to hear from some of those organisations, but I do not think that we should spend all or most of our time listening to them. We have limited time and we need to use it well.
One solution might be to ask all the organisations for written evidence first and make decisions based on that.
We should check to see what evidence we have already received from the professional organisations and see who we are missing.
I agree with the idea of having a workshop. I am relaxed about the membership of it at this stage.
It would be a useful way of winding things up. We will have picked up on a number of themes by that point and we might want to explore them in more depth with a reasonably knowledgeable group.
I was involved in a similar workshop with the Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee in the previous session of Parliament. It was very successful.
We had some workshops during the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Bill as well.
Yes. They are a good idea.
We will leave it to the clerks to make progress and will let people have details of the suggested programme as soon as possible.
Meeting closed at 12:28.