Chamber and committees

I am very conscious that it is a significant change. The work has been under way for some time. In 2021, the OECD confirmed that curriculum for excellence was the right approach for Scotland but said that it would benefit from routine strategic overview, and this is the first instance of that. The main changes that we are seeking to implement are to clarify the role of knowledge in the curriculum and to make clearer a young person’s progression through the curriculum—that is, what they ought to know at certain levels—without taking away the autonomy of those in the teaching workforce to decide on what to teach in their classrooms. I think and hope that that will have a significant impact on attainment.

One of the very early bits of curricular content that was worked on was maths. That was in response to PISA 2022, in which we were above average in all four areas apart from maths, which is exactly the same as the situation today.

Implementation is also really important, and that is being developed by Education Scotland, working with the profession and unions. As far as I am concerned, implementation is just as important as the development of the curriculum, so it is my intention that there will be structured support for it. The finer details of that have still to be confirmed, but I would like it to be peer to peer, so that the workforce has leaders who can go out and support the implementation of the new curriculum in schools. The provision of non-contact days will be confirmed as part of that work, to ensure that we implement the lessons that we have learned from the roll-out of curriculum for excellence in the first instance.

I will try to address all those points, but come back to me if I do not manage to cover them all.

The childcare commitment is really significant. Everybody here will know and appreciate how much work and funding went into the delivery of 1,140 hours of funded childcare. We have always been clear—it was set out in our manifesto, and it is in our programme for government—that the transformation of childcare is a five-year project, over this session of Parliament.

Our PFG takes us forward a bit by clarifying some of the staging posts to delivery, with breakfast clubs in every primary school by next August and after-school and holiday provision to have been rolled out by August 2029. That was a very deliberate attempt on our part to give the committee and others those staging posts, but this is a five-year piece of work.

What I and the children’s minister, Siobhian Brown, will be doing, along with Andrew Watson and colleagues, is publishing and consulting on a blueprint. We are still in the process of deciding exactly what we want to put out to consultation and ask people about, but we will be doing that next year, I think—

By this coming April, the blueprint will be available and will be consulted on, and at that point more detail will be made available.

As for free at three and cross-boundary provision, I said during the debate—which I thought was excellent—that we will take free at three into account in transforming the 1,140 hours of provision. Of, course, I hope that the expansion of provision from nine months to primary 7 will negate the problems that we have seen with regard to free at three.

I must again put on the record that one of the things that some providers have put to me is that having new children starting every Monday, for example, could be logistically challenging for teaching staff et cetera in managing induction, and bringing cohorts in at certain points will be easier. However, we have to try to overcome this issue, because we want parents, carers and, indeed, young people to benefit.

My view is that cross-boundary provision should already be provided. As you can imagine, I meet COSLA regularly to discuss a suite of issues, and I am raising that matter with it. In many instances, it is being provided, but again it is an issue to be solved when we expand childcare.

I suppose that this is another issue for the committee to consider with regard to public service reform. How local authorities co-operate or otherwise, how boundaries work in our system and what such matters actually mean for parents and carers are things that we can try to overcome through public service reform.

I take that on board entirely. Although it is early days and the blueprint that will be consulted on next year will clarify matters, our mindset is not of tagging something on top of what is already there. It is about looking across the board, expanding significantly and addressing some of the outstanding concerns with the 1,140 hours. I should say, and I hope that the committee agrees that, on the whole, the 1,140 hours has been a successful and fulsome provision for young people in Scotland, which is evidenced by the almost universal uptake for three and four-year-olds.

You mentioned workload pressures. Once it has been developed and implemented with support, I hope that the curriculum improvement cycle will alleviate workload pressures because of clarification and more structure in and information on what teachers will be dealing with. I hope that that will come of it, but I appreciate that it will depend on good implementation.

I do not consider anti-racism to be political ideology. That implies that racism is an appropriate political ideology, which I would hope that, in 2026, we all agree is not the case. Racism is fabricated; it is based on nothing at all but prejudice; and it is the education system’s responsibility to point out when something is false, divisive and dangerous. You talked about anti-racism teaching having to include aspects of racism, which I think you are suggesting could drive racism. I disagree. Part of education is about presenting both aspects and helping our young people to understand why one is total nonsense and one is a way in which we should all seek to understand and be kind to one another.

That is absolutely fine, because it reflects the breadth of the challenge and what we still have to do.

The Promise is a very early challenge of public service reform that we have grappled with for years. Although this year we are focused on the proposed changes to local government structures, on which we are now engaged in intensive dialogue, we have been wrestling with the core PSR challenges that are associated with the Promise for many years.

You talked about the lack of an implementation strategy. There have been different implementation strategies in place for what different levels of government have to do, but as I come into this role and take responsibility for the Promise for the first time, alongside Siobhian Brown, I am very keen that we now put a stake in the ground and say what has been achieved to date—you and I have discussed some of what we think are the most important parts of that—and set out explicitly and clearly what the Scottish Government now has to do and what local partners have to do, bearing in mind the PSR opportunities that are coming.

We could rehearse what we think some of the critical changes that have to be made are: reforming foster care, kinship care and adoption, and providing greater support for those who undertake such responsibilities; increasing uptake; implementing the legislation and everything that it entails, including the national roll-out of bairns’ hoose, which we discussed earlier; and giving the highest priority to tackling child sexual abuse.

As well as the advice that I take from The Promise Scotland and from the Parliament, I am guided by looking at the percentage breakdown of the reasons why children are placed on the child protection register. I can see that, of those registered, the reasons related to domestic abuse for 44 per cent, neglect for 43 per cent, parental substance use for 38 per cent, parental mental ill health for 38 per cent and emotional abuse for 32 per cent. That is a clear illustration of the need to direct whole family support to families intensively and early.

Siobhian Brown and I will set out the implementation plan as soon as we can.

I understand that completely. I have a meeting scheduled very soon to discuss the matter with experts in the field, because I am keen to see it progressed. The dyslexia passport will be an important way to support educational transitions and lifelong learning.

I do not have the exact figures that you asked for. They are probably in my briefing pack, but in the interest of time, I will write to the committee with that information.

Different things will appeal to certain individuals or drive their decision making about specialising, and I am not in the business of compelling anybody to do it. The Government’s responsibility is to ensure that there is sufficient funding for the provision of additional support, noting what I said about the extent to which that need has grown and the fact that every country is trying to match funding with what we want to achieve.

Developing continuing professional development is a good example of what we can do. As I said, we spent £1 million on that, and it has been really popular. Lots of individuals from right across the profession have come forward to engage in the training in order to upskill. The staged intervention model is another way of supporting teachers. I also come back to the point about making it as straightforward as possible to transfer from one part of the profession to another, for those who want to do that.

There are headline ways in which we gauge attainment, and I am always interested in how learners with additional support needs are doing. For example, on results day this year, I was interested to understand how children registered as having an additional support need had done in their exams. Likewise, I always look behind the data to see how children who are care experienced have done. We can use those big annual statistical outputs.

Equally, I have been looking really closely at the prominent reasons why young people are being registered as having additional support needs. Scotland has a very broad system that captures everything from lifelong requirements to bereavement, having English as a second language or having emotional, social or behavioural issues. It is a very broad system, and we are watching carefully to see where patterns emerge. For example, the biggest registration category just now is emotional, social and behavioural concerns or needs, while the fastest growing is having English as a second language.

As we develop the staged intervention model, we are also carrying out a data improvement exercise, which involves looking at how additional support needs are observed and registered in different schools and different classrooms, and at what that means for young people. I would like to get to a position where children who do not need to be registered are not registered. If a child who has bereavement is supported and moves on, they need not still be registered as having an ASN. However, I want the children who are registered to have excellent support: ultimately, that is my goal.

There is an underlying commitment to extend the number of apprenticeships to 150,000. As with the significant changes to childcare, we are conscious of the need to review the picture. To achieve growth on that scale, we need to look at rates, at how relationships are managed and at how things are worked through. We have also committed to the apprenticeship accelerator grant. I am conscious that it must be attractive to industry and that it must be competitive so that companies will do the important job of taking on apprentices.

Equally, we need to ensure that the rates are proportionate, as you said, and that they are in the right place to allow us to achieve the growth that we want. This afternoon, Alyn Smith will be sworn in as the new minister with responsibility for tertiary education. This will be top of what he and I will work together on. We will consider the review of rates and the expansion, in particular.

Adam Reid, do you want to add anything?

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