Chamber and committees

Just so you know, Liam, Pauline Walker and Graham Hutton have both caught my eye and want to come in.

Greg Dempster would also like to comment.

Good morning, and welcome to the 29th meeting in 2023 of the Education, Children and Young People Committee. We have received apologies from Ruth Maguire and Willie Rennie.

The first agenda item is an evidence session with a panel of school leaders and representative organisations to understand how the curriculum is being delivered within the current framework and policy landscape. We will also look at the impact on the ground of recent reports and announcements.

I welcome, in no particular order, Peter Bain, executive headteacher of Oban high school, Tiree high school, Tiree primary school and Lismore primary school, and president-elect of School Leaders Scotland; Greg Dempster, general secretary of the Association of Head Teachers and Deputes in Scotland; Barry Graham, headteacher of Wallace Hall academy in Dumfries and Galloway; Graham Hutton, general secretary of School Leaders Scotland and former headteacher of Grove academy in Dundee; and Pauline Walker, headteacher of the Royal high school in Edinburgh.

We will move straight to questions, and the first questions will come from me. We are interested in learning a little more about the freedoms and support that you have right now to make decisions about your own schools, and we would like to gauge whether there is a consistent picture across the country and in all sectors of education. That is an opening question to get you talking and sharing your experiences. I will start with Graham Hutton.

You will have an opportunity to go into more detail on that when answering some of the later questions—I know that some of this is a bit prescribed. We are just digging down into whether you feel that you have the freedom and support right now to make decisions about your schools. It is great to hear that you are making those decisions about your learners.

Thank you for those responses. I suppose that this is a bit more of a specific question and you may not all wish to answer it. How do you determine the knowledge content of the curriculum that you are presenting? How could national documentation support better integration of different types of the knowledge that you have spoken about in that curriculum for excellence?

Who would like to go first on that? Peter, you caught my eye. I always do that.

Mr Withers, at the outset of the session you mentioned how, at the beginning of your review process, people were not really talking about AI but that, now, it is all that they are talking about. As your review is sitting there, I am curious to know how adaptable it is to the pace of change that we see happening externally.

You have lots of opportunity to make lots of points, Mr Withers. You are okay. Carry on.

Thank you very much. I call Ben Macpherson.

In the interests of time, I have to move on to the next theme.

It is timely to have the chance to speak in the debate, given the shocking behaviour that took place across our capital city over the weekend. On Sunday, riot police in Edinburgh spent bonfire night battling fireworks and petrol bombs—I stress the use of petrol bombs. Police Scotland said that its officers experienced an unprecedented level of violence as they tried to tackle the disorder. They were called to the Niddrie area of Edinburgh on Sunday evening, following reports of antisocial use of fireworks against residents. The riot police, which were part of operation Moonbeam, were then sent in to assist local officers. It is believed that around 50 people were involved in clashes with the police, who came under attack from

“fireworks, petrol bombs and other projectiles.”

The level of disturbance in Niddrie was unacceptable and, frankly, disgusting.

Only four weeks ago, in my column in the local paper, I wrote about the impact of the SNP’s budget cuts and how repeated cost cutting had slashed the number of front-line officers and was contributing to a rise in antisocial behaviour. The events of bonfire night demonstrate, once again, that a hardcore element is determined not only to challenge authority but to positively revel in making ordinary people feel uncomfortable in their own homes and communities. The riot in Niddrie was only the most visible and shocking flashpoint, but outbreaks of antisocial behaviour across the city have meant that police and fire services resources have been stretched to their limits, and they have come under attack across the wider region. With our police stretched to breaking point, the criminals knew that they could get away with it, frankly.

Earlier this week, my constituent Ian, who is a retired police officer, wrote to me to express his concern following the weekend’s events. He said:

“As I predicted, the new legislation is utterly toothless. Pushing down decision making (and blame) to local authorities to create exclusion zones is now proven not to work, especially when there is a greatly reduced police service. The 5th?of November is now seen as an opportunity to indulge in anarchy and the problem, in my opinion, will only get worse if left unchallenged or unchanged.”