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Chamber and committees

Education Committee, 23 Feb 2005

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 23, 2005


Contents


Pupil Motivation Inquiry

The Convener:

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.

Lynn Hendry (Scottish Executive Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department):

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.

Local authorities have been very much empowered in the process. All local authorities are required to submit a plan stating how they will implement the recommendations that are laid out in the strategy paper and they have been resourced financially to undertake delivery. Within the local executive, we have a monitoring team of staff who work hand in hand with the local authorities to ensure that delivery is to time, on budget and in line with the objectives of the determined to succeed programme. That delivery is supported by a national strategy in five key areas, which is led by the Executive. We seek to add value to local delivery, and the impact of our strategy is measured through a national evaluation framework that we are commissioning at the moment.

Ruth Campbell (Scottish Executive Education Department):

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.

The Convener:

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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.

Ruth Campbell:

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.

The Convener:

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?

Lynn Hendry:

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.

Specifically, we are examining how the Executive strategy for enterprise in education can be more closely aligned with its strategy for young people who are not in education, employment or training—NEET. Part of the evaluation framework involves consideration not only of output measures but of characteristics of good practice. That follows on from Ruth Campbell's comment about how we share best practice in such a way that it effects change within schools. Although we are interested in short-term and long-term impacts, we are also interested in what makes practice good practice and in finding ways of disseminating that through our school network.

Mr Macintosh:

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.

There is an idea that our obsession with exams and the emphasis on achievement and attainment can be damaging for many pupils' motivation, because they are working towards an exam rather than motivating themselves to learn. By themselves, exams and attainment are not a bad thing, and accreditation is important, but does the Executive commission research on or examine those issues? What information do you have at your disposal to assess the impact of Executive policies on pupil motivation? When the Executive has set a target and put in place indicators, do you assess the effect, which can sometimes be perverse?

Ruth Campbell:

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.

We have talked quite a bit about considering accreditation more broadly, for example through the Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network and the Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme. However, getting wider recognition—among employers, for example—of accreditation for other activities in schools that show that pupils are motivated and involved in school life is difficult. It is also difficult to support schools so that they consider that broader range of achievement and do not focus only on attainment at standard grade and higher level. We need to examine the issue. Currently, we do not have any evidence in relation to such matters, but in most of our evaluations we try to consider the broad impact, not only hard outcomes.

Dr Murray:

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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.

It is a question of doing what we can when we can. The big Scottish education, teaching and technology conference—the SETT conference—takes place in September every year. The conference is huge, and it profiles much best practice, but it is possible that it does not reach the teacher at the grass roots very effectively. We need to work on a number of levels and try different things all the time.

Lynn Hendry:

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.

Ms Byrne:

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.

The biggest problem that schools face is staffing. The outdoor education tutor will not be GTC registered, so there needs to be a qualified teacher with that person. The young person support team worker will not be GTC registered, so the project that they cover also needs to have a GTC-registered teacher on it. I could go on to mention other similar situations in which the teacher is taken away from the classroom. Smaller settings are required for such projects, which puts pressure on the schools to supply staff. Has that been highlighted to you, and is anything being done about it? Are you considering the issue in detail, and has there been feedback from teachers and others about how to deal with it?

Lynn Hendry:

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.

In the determined to succeed programme, we strongly advocate such project-based activities, underpinned by enterprising teaching and learning in the classroom. A strong focus is placed on the pedagogical approaches that teachers take in the classroom to make the learning experience enriching in every interaction with every child. The intention is to support delivery in the classroom of enterprising approaches that add value to the projects that you described. I am not in a position to comment on structural barriers to that, but Ruth Campbell might be able to do so.

Ruth Campbell:

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.

Ms Byrne:

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.

The projects are fantastic and we all want to undertake them, but not enough is provided to support them in schools, so we need a complete review. Perhaps some of the research that we talked about with the GTC needs to be conducted to find out what standard is needed to move forward with the processes. Perhaps the people who need to do that research are the teachers who are involved in the projects. Often, projects die because of staffing shortages.

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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.

Ms Alexander:

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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.

Parental contribution to children's learning and motivation is a challenging area. We set up a working group on how schools can best reach out to what we might describe as hard-to-reach parents, or parents in difficult circumstances. There is good practice, but much of it is aimed at supporting families through chaotic circumstances—it is really firefighting. We could do something now on examining positive parenting skills in order to invest more effectively in young people, who will be the parents of the future.

Ms Alexander:

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.

It is no wonder that teachers feel overloaded. I accept that most programmes are specific to geographical areas, but there are 17 of them. The Executive briefing states:

"The XL programme has been shown to improve attendance and increase pupil's motivation in other aspects of school life, as well as providing pupils with accreditation of their achievement".

Have we struck the right balance in proliferating more and more projects under the future learning and teaching programme and other schemes, given that we know that the XL programme works?

The paper states that good practice is

"disseminated through a range of websites and publications targeted at the education community".

The Executive is exploring holding conferences and seminars. To maximise the impact of such work, instead of proliferating more and more projects, would it be better to have a sense of which two or three projects we want to be replicated in other parts of Scotland? What discussions take place with local authorities on that? I presume that, ultimately, decisions on whether to implement a project fall within their jurisdiction.

I also want to know about the role of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education. If there are 17, 25 or however many projects going on and one is pretty convinced that three of those work, what discussion—beyond the websites and the publications—is there with HMIE about its role in disseminating knowledge and good practice? Such information would enable education authorities to choose whether to opt into or out of projects. Is there a system of scaling rather than just a proliferation of new initiatives that leaves us—perhaps wrongly—with the impression that if we wanted to know which of the 17 schemes worked, we would need to go to 17 different websites in our spare time to find that out, which might be a bit hard? How do we know which of the 17 projects works? How are they being scaled? Is HMIE involved in that process? Do directors of education have a handle on which three or four of the menu of 17 projects they might want to opt into?

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.

Ruth Campbell:

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.

Education professionals do not want to be stifled—they do not want to be told which initiative they should follow. They want us to be able to tell them about the range of activities that are going on, to explain how they work and to invite them to do what best suits their school. We must give them some credit for making their own choices; we do not want to nanny them into doing things.

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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.

Ms Alexander:

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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.

The Convener:

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.

Lynn Hendry:

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.

In 2006, HMIE will undertake a thematic inspection in local authority areas; it will specifically examine enterprise in education. As Ms Alexander said, the inspectors will consider much more holistically how enterprise in education is delivered not just in terms of the projects and initiatives that happen in the classroom but in terms of the ethos and leadership that has been established in schools to empower teachers to be more enterprising in the approaches that they take in the classroom. We do not know what that inspection will tell us, but it is an attempt to take a more thematic approach.

The Convener:

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?

Ruth Campbell:

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.

A head teacher working in an area where there is third-generation unemployment, a spate of recent deaths or whatever would start by considering aspects such as mental and emotional health. Those are key areas in which head teachers would want to ensure that their staff felt that they were supported, and that staff welfare was in the necessary condition. They would then move on to consideration of the kind of programmes that needed to be implemented to address the needs of pupils and parents. Communities have different histories and recent experiences, and schools have different staff teams and so on, so experiences differ greatly. In giving head teachers the tools to do the job, we need to give them the full toolkit, not just two spanners.

That is a valid point.

Mr McAveety:

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 experienced at least two secondary schools in the 1980s—a time that was, by any definition, meant to be the non-golden age of Scottish education. I might ask you about that in a moment. Those schools have now been turned around. First, what is it about current practice that has made a difference? Although I have a perspective on the subject, I am interested in your views about how we can make such improved experience more widespread and how we can encourage that to happen. Secondly, did we do anything right in the 1980s?

Ruth Campbell:

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?

Lynn Hendry:

Yes—absolutely.

Ruth Campbell:

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.

Mr McAveety:

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.

How do we create the space for that in Scotland? If we read through the GTCS submission and the magazines that it provided, we can see the terrible counsel of despair in the letters pages. People feel that they are under pressure because of restructuring and indiscipline and the pressures that inclusion creates. Whether they are right or wrong, all we can see is that that is their perception and experience. How do we change that? I know that more resources than ever are going into education, and that Scotland has a more stable economic framework in terms of its employment base. Although the wage base is much better for teachers than it was in the 1980s and the 1990s, we still have some persistent problems. For example, we have the problem of motivating teachers and the problem of how to shift the aspirations of youngsters on to more positive things. That is particularly true in areas of significant disadvantage.

Lynn Hendry:

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.

The Convener:

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.

There are major lessons to be learned about differences in performance. Ken Macintosh might refer to East Renfrewshire Council, which has been in the papers recently. It has a different catchment, which we all recognise, but it seems to have come out well in its coterie. There are problems with such comparisons, so I wonder what research or studies have been done into the factors beyond leadership that influence performance.

Lynn Hendry:

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?

Ruth Campbell:

There is lots of anecdotal evidence on that.

We will leave it at that.

The Convener:

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.

Apart from the evidence that we have heard this morning, we have a couple of additional papers: the summary of written evidence on which Elaine Murray touched earlier, and the paper on the direction of our inquiry, which is perhaps more relevant to decision making. We do not want to have a detailed discussion on the summary of written evidence, but I ask committee members to home in on any points from it that they think are worthy of illustration at the moment.

Mr Ingram:

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.

Dr Murray:

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.

Ms Alexander:

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.

We are among the only people who can take an overall view. Lots of good things are going on, but that is not the issue. The challenge for us is how we ensure that the maximum number of children in Scotland are exposed to the best pedagogical practice and classroom experience.

We have already said that there are lots of good wee examples, but the peculiarities of the structure of delivery of education in Scotland and our ways of interacting with the teaching profession and carrying out continuous professional development for teachers are huge impediments to assessing what we know. I am less interested in spending time on examining the very best practice because I am convinced that it exists. I am more interested in what we say to the Executive about how we can help to give more pupils access to good classroom experience without tearing up our education delivery mechanism, and about how we work within the realities of the teacher contract as McCrone designed it.

We will never better what Alan McLean did in his project, but he is incapable of ensuring that his recommendations are taken up in all Glasgow schools and he has not a snowball's chance of spreading them to other education authorities.

As regards structuring our time during the inquiry, the problem that confronts us is not how we reinvent the wheel, but how we disseminate the best of what we know given the respective roles of the Executive, HMIE and local education authorities, and given the pressures on individual classroom teachers and the structuring of their time.

The Convener:

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.

I will qualify what Wendy Alexander said. We are lay people, so it is important for us to make one or two visits to schools to get a flavour of what is going on, even if we then go on to look at the processes and public policy drivers that will make the changes that we want to achieve across the board.

Ms Byrne:

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.

Linked to the project at Springburn Academy, I would like to look at guidance in particular and at how "Better Behaviour—Better Learning" is developing in schools. I do not think that we have had a recent report back on that. We should probe what impact the McCrone agreement has had on moving forward with "Better Behaviour—Better Learning", in particular given that there are principal teachers of guidance but no assistant principal teachers of guidance. Those are key pastoral areas for the well-being of young people, which is a factor in whether they will be motivated. We should also consider socioeconomic aspects because social factors are an issue in areas in which there are huge problems and we should not omit consideration of those factors. The SPICe briefing is excellent—there is much in it that we can consider and expand on. It could move us forward well if we select the areas that we want to probe.

We are at only the start of the exercise, which will be huge and more complex than any of us thought to begin with. I would certainly like to see evidence, so it would be good if we could decide on the key areas that we want to consider.

The person from SPICe, who is sitting in the corner, will pat herself on her back.

Fiona Hyslop:

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—

The Convener:

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.

Fiona Hyslop:

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.

The Convener:

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.

Fiona Hyslop:

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."

Mr McAveety:

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.

My second point is of particular interest to me because of the profile of my constituency. I am amazed at the marked differences in primary schools and in some secondary schools. There are two secondary schools in the north and east of the city that would have been considered impossible to deal with 10 or 15 years ago but, as a result of a combination of leadership, engagement and a sense of community involvement over the past seven or eight years, an amazing number of parents now say that they are really good schools. That would not have happened 10 years ago, and it is happening because children are going home and telling their parents that they feel good at the school, that they are doing better there, or that they feel that the school really cares about them. If that can happen in those schools, it can happen anywhere in Scotland. We need to get to the heart of that, to give that faith back and to motivate both staff and pupils.

That connects with the Springburn Academy visit that Rosemary Byrne suggested.

Mr Macintosh:

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.

The Executive is doing great things that are exactly what we should be hearing about, for example in its support for music, art, drama and recreation-based activities. It is also linking schools and colleges to support vocational education and pupils who do better in a college than in a school environment. The Executive is considering all the right things, but it does not seem to focus on motivation. That is a sort of tangential effect. I wonder whether the committee can work out how to measure motivation. I do not want to introduce another target; in fact, I would like to assess the current targets to ascertain what effect they have on motivation. Exams are one example. The point is raised constantly that exams are a disincentive rather than an incentive, yet accreditation is important. We have to work out why one thing works and another does not. Perhaps we can work in that direction. That is process, and we will get there through our visits.

That focuses the evidence to some extent.

Mr Macintosh:

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.

Ms Alexander:

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.

Glasgow, which is the largest education authority in Scotland, was inspected by HMIE in September 2002. There were seven issues that HMIE wanted to go back to the education authority on, a fair number of which impinge on this agenda. After a follow-up inspection last September, HMIE still felt that not all the issues that had been identified in 2002 had been addressed. It is now going back for a third time, which is almost unprecedented—indeed, I think that that has happened only once before in Scotland—and will report again by June.

I simply leave that for members to reflect on, especially if some of our evidence-taking sessions will take place after the summer. If we are trying to get a handle on the matter, here are two—indeed, almost three—examples of HMIE inspecting an authority and finding a number of areas where it wants changes to be made. My question is how we can reconcile such comments by HMIE on what it wants to be changed with what we have been hearing and what we apparently already know.

I want to look at where we are going on this matter, but I believe that Elaine Murray has a comment.

Dr Murray:

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.

The Convener:

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.

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton:

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.

The Convener:

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.

Under the current plans, we could conceivably hear all the evidence and carry out all the visits before the summer recess and then, after the recess, come back to the report at our leisure or indeed go further if we want to.

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.

Martin Verity (Clerk):

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.

The Convener:

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.

I think that we should have another discussion about who we want to visit. Although we can come back to this matter to a certain extent, we need to get some early arrangements in place for those two dates, which precede the Easter recess. One suggestion that has been made is a visit to a project in Perth. Are members happy with that? Details of the project are given in annex 1 to the proposal paper.

Dr Murray:

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.

Mr Macintosh:

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.

Mr Macintosh:

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.

Mr McAveety:

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.

Martin Verity:

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.

Mr McAveety:

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.

The Convener:

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.

We will ask the clerks to work up a detailed programme of visits and evidence-taking sessions based on the comments that we have heard today. Members might want to give me authority to clear the early ones but we will clear the others by e-mail.

It has been quite long since the teaching unions have been invited to give oral evidence to the committee.

The Convener:

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.

Ms Byrne:

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.

The Convener:

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.

The Convener:

We should check to see what evidence we have already received from the professional organisations and see who we are missing.

I would like to get semi-agreement on the second-last bullet point on page 3, which suggests that we have a final workshop involving the Scottish Youth Parliament. That would be a reasonable and participative way to wrap things up. Would people be happy with that?

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.