Chamber and committees

My understanding is that the committee needs to take a decision on that before we can process the assessment.

Yes, but SAC cannot do all that on its own. We need to be mindful that the attainment challenge in itself is also about responding to the societal challenges that we have spoken about, and that there are other elements of support that families need in order to help us to close that gap.

Miles Briggs has raised the subject of attendance, which has been a real challenge in our schools after the pandemic in particular, although members will welcome the fact that there was a slight improvement in the most recent dataset, particularly on persistent absence levels. I agreed with officials to introduce that measurement the year before last, I think, because, until it was introduced, we did not measure persistent absences from school over a long period—of 20 days, I think—at the national level. We need that granularity in the data.

That dataset demonstrates the point that has been made on variance across the country: there is variance by year group. The thing that struck me most when I was first appointed to my role was the existence of challenges in relation to attendance at certain transition periods. Whether in primary 7 or S3, there seemed to be a drop-off in attendance. We have been considering that. Education Scotland undertook a deep dive on attendance, about which David Gregory may want to say more; however, more broadly, PEF is being used to respond to some of the challenges of attendance across the country. In the school in which I last taught, in Edinburgh, PEF is being used creatively to support families.

Legislation requires parents and carers to send their children and young people to school, and that is for good reason, but a cohort of young people are struggling with the formality of going back to formal education. For many, that is really challenging. We therefore have to put in place the necessary supports. To take Keith Brown’s point on nuance, that will depend on the pupil, the school and the teacher. I have sat in primary schools and listened to headteachers talk about the individual work that they do to support a young person to come back into school, which can take many months. PEF is supporting some of those interventions. More broadly, there has also been support through the virtual school headteachers network, which has helped to keep young people engaged in school if they are not physically able to attend.

However, I accept that the issue is a challenge. I announced in the Parliament very recently that we would have a national marketing campaign to encourage an improvement in attendance. I hope to say more on that in the coming weeks. We cannot make progress on closing the poverty-related attainment gap if we have challenges in attendance.

All those things are interlinked. Across the country, PEF is being used to improve attendance. Every local authority has a stretch aim, which is linked to the SEF and is focused on attendance. They are all signed up to driving improvement on that.

David Gregory may want to say more on the deep dive that Education Scotland undertook.

She is relatively new to the organisation, convener.

That is correct. She has been leading on a number of changes, which the committee has been broadly supportive of, in relation to getting the organisation ready for the change to qualifications Scotland. Although there will be some continuity in the move across to qualifications Scotland, there are still some relatively fresh appointments. I spoke to the members who joined the board just before Christmas—five appointments were made at that time.

Although there is continuity, the body needs to operate, and the order is needed to give it the powers to do so and to fulfil functions in relation to the 2026 exam diet.

The alternative would be for the Government to sit still, which I am not sure is acceptable to Scotland’s parents, teachers and young people. We must reflect on the real urgency for reform of our qualifications body, which has been expressed by stakeholders and by the committee. The committee backed the general principles of the bill at stage 1, which is important.

Absolutely, convener.

I am somewhat confused by your line of questioning.

I have not been presented with clear-cut examples of the health service not meeting that need. On CAMHS in particular, data was published last week that showed that the Government has met the required timescale on CAMHS referral waiting times, which I think is 12 weeks. That is welcome news. Therefore, children and young people should not be waiting in excess of a year for that support. That improvement has been driven by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care with the aim of supporting some of our most vulnerable young people.

Of course, CAMHS is the extreme end of the system. From an educational perspective, we always want to try to help support health and wellbeing in schools. It is one of the curriculum areas in the curriculum for excellence, but we also provide funding that is separate to PEF of £15 million for school counsellors. Money from that goes to every secondary school in Scotland, so there should be that provision in every secondary school.

In the post-pandemic period, society has many challenges in relation to mental health. The issue is not limited to children and young people, and many parents are struggling. Some of the interventions that we see, such as the one that I gave the example of at the primary school in Kirkcaldy, are about supporting the mental health of mums. In supporting better mental health for the mums and the carers of young people, the initiatives support better educational outcomes.

More broadly, there are challenges with mental health. I have not been presented with examples of where the health service is not making that intervention and the need is being mopped up by education, but if Mr Briggs or others have such examples, I would be keen to look at them, because we want to ensure that there has not been an erosion of the PEF and that it is being used to support the people that it is intended to support.

Of course, PEF money may well be used to, for example, support nurture in schools. I have seen examples of that in a primary school in Glasgow, where the third sector was brought in to get primary 6 pupils to talk about their emotions. That is not something that, as a secondary teacher, I would have countenanced teaching my young people to do, but teachers are now having to instil in their young people things such as the ability to cope with emotions and talk about their feelings, perhaps because of pupils’ frustrations in relation to having to deal with other challenges.

To reflect the real ask here—to give you that reassurance—the appointments process will have to take account of any amendments that are agreed to at stages 2 and 3.