Education and Skills Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Official Report 634KB pdf

---

Coronavirus and Education

Agenda item 2 is our first of two evidence sessions today with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills in the Scottish Government. The first item is about coronavirus and education. I welcome the cabinet secretary, John Swinney MSP. Mr Swinney will make an opening statement.

I welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee to provide an update on school education and in particular on the announcement of the return to in-person provision for some children and young people.

Yesterday, the Cabinet discussed the latest review of education. As always, that review was informed by a broad range of evidence and advice, including from the Covid-19 advisory sub-group on education and children’s issues, the education recovery group and other partners. We considered the state of the pandemic, including case numbers, community transmission levels and test positivity rates. Consideration of the four harms, with which members will be familiar, was fundamental to that discussion.

The cabinet strongly agreed that any relaxation of measures should be undertaken in a progressive and sustainable way, enabling time for the system to plan for each change and for us to monitor its impacts. Relaxing restrictions too soon, or at too great a scale, would be likely to lead to a surge in community transmission.

However, the evidence indicates that children and young people do not transmit the new variant of Covid at higher rates than adults. In fact, the youngest children, who will return to education on 22 February, represent a lower transmission risk. There is also currently no evidence that the new variant has a more severe impact on children and young people. We also know that time out of nurseries and school causes harm to children’s development. We must not take that lightly.

The Cabinet’s decision, which was confirmed in the First Minister’s statement yesterday, is that children in early learning and childcare and in primaries 1 to 3 will make a full return to nurseries and school settings from 22 February. Very limited numbers of senior phase pupils will also be able to return to school part time from the same date in order to complete in-school practical work that is essential to the completion of national qualifications.

Some children and young people with significant additional support needs will also be prioritised for a return to in-person provision. That is in line with the current practice for vulnerable children and young people. All other pupils, with the exception of vulnerable children and those of key workers, will continue with remote learning. We will take an additional opportunity to confirm the continued decrease in levels of community transmission and the prevalence of the virus before 22 February. That means that our decisions will be reviewed again on 16 February.

At this stage of the pandemic, it is too soon to make any commitments about all other in-person learning, including that in colleges and universities. That does not mean that pupils have been left behind. Remote learning will continue and we will continue to work on adapting and improving that support. The safety and wellbeing of children and young people and of the staff who support their education remain critically important. It will also be important for partners to have time to undertake appropriate planning. We will therefore publish updated guidance relating to the changes as soon as that is practicable.

I remain fully committed to collaborating with partners to deliver the best learning experiences for our children and young people. I am grateful to the committee for its continued involvement in how we achieve that, and I look forward to answering members’ questions.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. We will move straight to questions.

Remote learning will be the norm for the majority of pupils for the foreseeable future while the staggered return to school continues. Does the cabinet secretary have an overview of rates of participation in remote learning across the country? Anecdotal evidence suggests that the levels of participation and the quality of remote learning vary from council to council and even from school to school within councils. I appreciate that distribution of digital devices is a matter for local authorities. However, many parents are contacting members with concerns about their children’s engagement with education while they are at home.

I acknowledge the importance of the issues that Mr Greene raises. Both before and during the pandemic, we have seen variation in how education is delivered around Scotland. We deliver education in 2,500 schools through the leadership, direction and statutory functions of 32 local authorities.

There will be variation. School inspection reports from before the pandemic showed that school effectiveness varies around the country. Where it is not satisfactory, the education system challenges schools to improve. I accept that there will inevitably be variation in remote learning during the pandemic, because there is already that variation in the education system. It is a wide and diverse system.

I assure the committee that there is a clear focus on ensuring that we do all that we can as a system to overcome that variability. We do so through a number of approaches. We have put in place guidance on how the education system should operate in the current context. That is supplemented by guidance from Education Scotland about the approaches that should be taken to implement the curriculum in this context. There has been a significant change of emphasis in that curricular guidance, which now emphasises that the wellbeing of children and young people must be properly supported by remote learning.

Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education is undertaking weekly reviews, which are now being published, on the effectiveness of remote learning and the challenges that affect its delivery. All of that activity is assessed and discussed by the education recovery group. We have open and honest discussions about effectiveness so that those issues can be addressed.

I hope that that gives Mr Greene and the committee a flavour of the steps that are being taken to ensure that we take the broadest possible account of the experiences of children, young people and families during what we recognise is a period of significant disruption.

Everyone accepts that the extraordinary events of the past year have meant that teachers have had to teach in very different ways. Teaching remotely is far from ideal, and face-to-face teaching is best for teachers and for pupils. For many pupils, the majority of teaching in the past year has been remote.

We first decided to close schools 11 months ago. How can there still be such diversity of quality and such a range of remote learning experiences? Cabinet secretary, do you know how many children or households—whichever statistic is available—still do not have adequate access to digital devices or to broadband to allow them to meaningfully participate in remote learning? I am looking for a number or percentage.

There are two elements to Mr Greene’s question. The first is about the current performance and delivery of remote learning. It has been widely acknowledged across the education system that the remote learning that is being delivered now is a significant enhancement on what was delivered in spring last year, when we were in an emergency situation. That shows that schools took the opportunity, after that period of emergency, to prepare for the possibility of remote learning. We did not have to deal significantly with that between August and December, when it was possible to deliver full-time face-to-face learning, but schools prepared for a period of remote learning and are now in a far stronger position.

I have seen a lot of feedback from stakeholders, including parents groups, and I listen carefully to parental opinion. In general, the situation is much improved and is far stronger. I accept that it is not perfect, but it is far better than it was last spring. That is down to the efforts that teachers have made in preparing for the situation. There is a contrast between our situation in February 2021 and that in April 2020.

There has been significant progress. We can be assured of that through the work of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education, which has explored and examined the arrangements that local authorities have put in place. Local authorities are the statutory providers of education. Her Majesty’s inspectorate reviews their plans and has confirmed that those plans are providing the necessary assurance about the delivery of remote learning. We are also sharing best practice to try to strengthen that performance. Any education system must learn continually if it is to deliver improvement.

Mr Greene asked about digital access. I recognise how important that is, although I have one caveat to that. We are not trying to operate a system in which young people sit in front of a computer all day. Educational advice tells us that that is not the ideal way to educate a young person. The Education Scotland guidance advises a blend of digital learning along with independent tasks, outdoor activities and exercise. That is all designed to provide a rounded educational opportunity for children and young people.

The latest data that I have comes from work that we did with local authorities last summer to identify the extent of—[Interruption.]

Apologies, cabinet secretary, but can you pause for a moment? The fire alarm is being tested? [Interruption.]

I am not sure whether it has finished. We are probably going to have another statement shortly.

08:45  

I do not hear a noise, convener, so we will go on. It might be a silent fire alarm, although I am not sure that I understand the point of that. That would not appeal to your interests in safety, convener.

Please continue.

The data collection exercise that we undertook with local authorities last summer identified that about 77,000 young people did not have sufficient and appropriate digital access. We worked with local authorities last summer. The Government procured about 25,000 devices and distributed them to local authorities. Authorities asked us for financial flexibility, because there are different approaches. Some authorities have extensive digital provision programmes in place and others less so. We worked with local authorities to provide the resources to address the digital deficit. The data that I have available indicates that 77,000 young people’s needs have been met through a combination of devices and connectivity packages.

We have put in place additional financial resources to enable local authorities to meet any further challenges that they face, whether with staffing or digital access. Local authorities are working closely with schools to ensure that they address any issues.

I cannot give Mr Greene an update on the position other than to state the fact that we have met the—[Interruption.]

We have met the—[Interruption.]

We have met the digital deficit that was identified in our data collection exercise and we are working with local authorities, and local authorities are working with schools, to enable any further issues to be addressed.

Mr Greene, a lot of members want to ask questions. Do you want to come back in or are you content?

I appreciate that there is a lot of interest in this morning’s session. To be fair, that was a relatively long answer, and I want to follow it up. I think that the cabinet secretary said that 77,000 children had insufficient access to devices or connectivity to participate in remote learning and that that need has now been met. That implies that no children are still out there struggling to access online learning, and I am afraid to say that I simply do not believe that.

Education Scotland’s report “National overview of practice in remote learning”, which was published only last week, said that all local authorities are experiencing challenges relating to the supply of computing technology devices and wi-fi access for learners and staff. Many children and young people have access to only a single shared device at home, even though we are nearly a year into the pandemic. Given the casework that MSPs are receiving, I simply do not accept that all children’s needs are being met.

If the cabinet secretary thinks that the demand has been met, I implore him to review the figures and do a further piece of work to ensure that no child is left behind. That relates especially to issues of attainment, which I am sure we will come on to. I hope that I can ask more questions on that later.

My answer to Mr Greene was in two parts. The first was about the issues that we found in the data collection exercise in the summer of last year, which we addressed. The second part was that, in January, I allocated a further £45 million to local authorities, with flexibility, so that they can address any further issues. That flexibility, which local authorities have welcomed, will enable them to meet any particular challenges that they have in the delivery of remote learning. We have reporting streams in place with local authorities to identify how the money is being used and what further steps we need to take.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I will wrap my two questions into one. First, is there on-going professional learning for teachers and staff in local authorities on the pedagogy of remote learning? Secondly, how could the barriers to schools providing live learning be overcome?

On the first point, an active professional learning programme is in place. It is a combination of resources and approaches that have been put in place by Education Scotland, alongside programmes that have been set up by local authorities, some of which are delivered jointly.

On digital learning, there have been very high levels of participation by members of staff in the Education Scotland programmes that have been put in place. I do not have the number in front of me, but thousands of staff have been involved in various webinars and training courses to increase their digital activity and confidence. That work has been important in ensuring that staff do not feel that there are obstacles in the way of their ability to participate properly.

Individual local authorities will be running tailored programmes, working with school staff. Yesterday, I took part in a professional learning session with St Andrew’s and St Bride’s high school in East Kilbride, which was focused on how to adapt pedagogy for a remote learning environment. It was invigorating to hear about some of the ways in which professional practice has been adapted by that school to address the issues that Ms Mackay put to me.

The second part of the question has slipped my mind—could you give me a reminder, please?

It was about how the barriers to live learning could be overcome.

On live learning, there are some procedural and policy points that individual local authorities must consider because of their statutory responsibilities for data protection and because of privacy considerations. Those issues have been addressed and resolved in most local authority areas, and there are no impediments to live learning.

As part of that, work is being done at LNCT level—under the local negotiating committee for teachers—to ensure that there is agreement between professional associations and local authorities on the approaches to the delivery of live learning. According to the information to which I have been privy, those discussions have been perfectly satisfactory and have resolved the issues so as to remove any such obstacles. There is a mixture of live learning, which is offered as part of the delivery of remote learning.

Thank you.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. Yesterday, the First Minister said that the asymptomatic testing offer will be in place as soon as possible to support the return of schools. About 10 per cent of primary school children are in school at the moment, so what asymptomatic testing can be provided for schools and teachers now? Given that the Scottish Government accepted the case that we made for students, is there not a case for testing teachers and pupils in the run-up to returning on 22 February? As well as routine testing once pupils are back, would asymptomatic testing not be the way to avoid people turning up on day 1 who have the virus but do not know it?

The routine asymptomatic testing is being rolled out at the earliest possible opportunity, and I think that a large measure of that will be in place and available in advance of 22 February. We will do our level best to ensure that it is as comprehensive as possible.

Turning to the comparison with students, I understand the point that Beatrice Wishart makes, but the student population were substantially moving around the country and changing households, so there was a particular requirement for us to mitigate risk in that respect.

I am confident that the asymptomatic testing arrangements will be in place for 22 February, and I think that a large measure of them will be in place before then. I hope that those measures, along with the wider availability of PCR—polymerase chain reaction—testing for members of staff who are concerned about their situation, which has been in place for a considerable time, will be viewed as beneficial and will build the confidence of staff regarding the return of some pupils to face-to-face learning.

My second question is about the thresholds. Yesterday, the First Minister said that schools would begin to return on 22 February if we all stick with it, and subject to progress continuing to be made in suppressing the virus. If the return to schools on 22 February is dependent on what happens in the next couple of weeks, what is it that the Government wants to see? We need transparency about the thresholds. What specific indicators will you be considering to guide the decision? What numbers do you need to see to give the green light? How will local circumstances be taken into account? As one constituent put it to me, “Will the decision about Shetland’s schools returning be dependent on the virus’s prevalence on the mainland?”

There are several important issues in that question. Essentially, the decision has been taken that schools will return on 22 February unless we see a move in the opposite direction. We have taken a decision because we are moving in the right direction. If we do not see a continuation of that direction of travel over the next three weeks, that would be a cause for concern. We have not set particular thresholds or levels.

We found ourselves in a situation in which positive cases in Scotland reached a peak of 302 per 100,000. The rate is now down to about 136 per 100,000—that was yesterday’s figure, if my memory serves me right. There has been a reduction of more than 50 per cent in the level in just a couple of weeks. We have made important progress. The key indicator is whether community transmission is reducing and being suppressed. On the basis of the data available to me, it appears that the movement is fairly visible. We must see a continuation of that direction of travel. If people maintain their compliance with the regulations—there is evidence of very high compliance—that should be the case.

Beatrice Wishart raises an important, distinct issue about locality and whether we should proceed on a national basis or take decisions on individual communities. At this stage in the pandemic, we are on safer ground if we proceed with a national approach, simply because of the importance of ensuring that we have a clear understanding across the country of the importance of absolute compliance in every part of the country. Over the duration of the pandemic, although the impacts of Covid on some of our island communities have been comparatively lower than those in the mainland, there have been some quite significant threats. As we speak, we are facing an acute challenge in the Western Isles, around the Western Isles hospital and in other communities.

We need to take a national approach to make important progress in tackling the pandemic. However, I would not rule out the possibility of taking distinct decisions in individual communities as levels of community transmission in the country as a whole come down.

I had a discussion with political and administrative leaders from the island local authorities and Highland Council last week, including the leader of Shetland Islands Council, to air the issues that I have just mentioned. I said that I would give consideration to whether there could be variation on that basis. That would follow the suppression of community transmission that we are currently undertaking.

09:00  

I have a question about remote learning, but first I have a follow-up to Beatrice Wishart’s question. Yesterday, the Government announced the very limited return of senior-phase pupils to secondary schools. Cabinet secretary, you said that you would not expect that to involve more than 8 to 10 per cent of the school roll being present.

Some secondary school pupils—the children of key workers, and vulnerable children—are currently attending school. Would the figure of 8 to 10 per cent include those who are already there? How will you control that? It seems as though it would be difficult to do so.

The proportion of secondary school pupils who have, in general, been in school as members of the vulnerable category or as children of key workers has averaged out pretty consistently at around 3 per cent since the commencement of the current arrangements in January. The number that we gave yesterday related to the possibility of between 5 and 8 per cent of the senior-phase group returning, so that would be in addition to the 3 per cent.

I will express that to the committee as follows. I would not want it to be considered as a quota—it is definitely a ceiling, but it is not a quota; it does not all have to be used. The judgment that must be applied will centre on what critical practical work is necessary to ensure that a young person’s learning opportunities are not disadvantaged by the absence of face-to-face learning and their inability to undertake practical tasks that cannot be undertaken through remote learning. That should drive a school’s decision making on which pupils should be invited back in to do those particular tasks. It is about task-specific work that needs to be undertaken to satisfy the learning and teaching requirements of the curriculum and thereby enable certification. The figure is not a quota but a ceiling.

I hope that that provides a bit of shape to my answer to Mr Gray. The decision making will rest very much with schools. For example, some schools may have undertaken some of that practical work already when they had pupils in, so it may not be necessary for them to bring in young people for those purposes. Other schools may not have approached the curriculum in that fashion. The situation will vary from school to school. We are trying to limit the numbers, while giving young people the opportunity not to be disadvantaged by not being invited in to complete those tasks.

My other question, as I said, is about remote learning, which Jamie Greene and other members have already asked about. Most senior school pupils will have to continue with remote learning for the foreseeable future. It is pretty widely accepted—the cabinet secretary has accepted it in the past—that that will, almost inevitably, increase the poverty-related attainment gap.

What can be done to mitigate that impact? The cabinet secretary will know that, yesterday, I posed a question to the First Minister on a tutoring initiative in East Lothian. As part of that initiative, 300 pupils, who have been identified by the school, will be assigned a tutor to work with them, one to one, over a period of time in order to help them to catch up on some of their lost learning.

In her response, the First Minister said that such an initiative was in fact available nationally through e-Sgoil, the national e-learning offer. I want to be clear on that. Was the First Minister saying that, if I am a teacher and I identify a pupil in my school who could do with additional catch-up work, I could arrange interactive one-to-one tutor support for that pupil over a period of time?

That facility is available to all pupils around the country and has been advertised and promoted by e-Sgoil. Those sessions take place daily during the working week to provide such opportunities for young people. However, I would not want it to be considered to be an either/or offer. I very much welcome the initiative that Iain Gray talks about that has been taken forward in East Lothian, and I know that other local authorities and other schools do a great deal to provide opportunities of that type. That is exactly what should be happening. We should be maximising the opportunities to engage young people in their learning in whatever approaches and fashions work.

Specifically on the issue that Iain Gray has raised about young people who are or may be experiencing disadvantage, the whole theory behind closing the poverty-related attainment gap and the strategy that the Government has adopted has been to recognise that some pupils require additional assistance and intervention to overcome the barriers to learning that they experience because of their background of poverty. Schools will take differential approaches to reach young people, and I applaud them for that.

As for additional measures that might be taken at local authority level, we have provided additional resources to local authorities and have said to them that they have flexibility with regard to how best to use those resources—I have not prescribed how they should be used—to make sure that the needs of young people can be met in that context.

I appreciate that you might not have this number to hand, but maybe you could write to tell me how many interactive one-to-one tutoring partnerships have been set up with pupils through the national scheme.

[Inaudible.]—data on the volume of engagement—[Inaudible.]—e-Sgoil initiatives.

Part of the role of the weekly reviews that are being undertaken by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education is not only to provide assurance about the delivery of remote learning, which I think that they are increasingly doing, but to be a platform for the sharing of best practice. The type of initiative that Mr Gray has talked about in East Lothian strikes me as something that is worthy of being understood and shared around the country as illustrative of how we can go the extra mile to make sure that we do not resign ourselves to the entrenchment of disadvantage by the pandemic.

I understand exactly the foundation of Mr Gray’s question. He suggested that it might be inevitable that educational disadvantage will come out of the pandemic. That does not need to be the case if we act accordingly and appropriately to tackle those issues, and I know that Mr Gray will be supportive of that.

Thank you.

Good morning, cabinet secretary. Let us return, for a moment, to the purpose of the phased return of senior-phase secondary pupils. You mentioned that that was for completion of unavoidable practical work. I seek clarity about exactly what you mean by that. Is the purpose literally to complete practical work such as science experiments or projects in woodwork, or is it to produce written work—for example, under exam conditions—for the purpose of evidencing, so that the requirements of the Scottish Qualifications Authority can be met?

[Inaudible.]—put to me, so it is about work that is necessary to fulfil the curriculum, because we have to make sure that young people are able to fulfil the curriculum, and to undertake the learning and teaching that is involved in that, to enable them then to be certificated. It is about trying to make sure that the practical work that needs to be undertaken for learning and teaching purposes, which cannot be undertaken remotely, can be carried out physically in school so that there is no disadvantage to young people in that context.

I am sorry, cabinet secretary; your microphone was not on at the start of your answer, which, if my guess is any good, was quite important.

It was the most important part of my answer—which is not to say that the rest of it was not superbly enlightening.

I said that the purpose of the return is that in examples such as Mr Greer put to me, including practical woodwork, pupils can use specialist equipment—to solder things together, for example.

Thank you. I am glad that I checked that.

My second question follows from a question that I asked the cabinet secretary two weeks ago after a statement that he gave in Parliament. The question was about whether special school staff should be prioritised for vaccination, given that the role that many undertake is similar to the role of social care staff. The cabinet secretary indicated that that was under consideration. I believe that the Scottish Government might have asked the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation for guidance on that or, at least, that the JCVI was considering it. Can the cabinet secretary give an update on considerations that have been made and the timescale on which a decision around such prioritisation will be made?

I am very happy to do so. We have written to directors of education to ask them to identify the staff who support young people with complex needs, including through tasks that are equivalent to health and social care types of activity, so that they can be included in the group of staff who, under JCVI criteria, are already eligible for vaccination. That does not change the JCVI approach; it simply adds staff who undertake such tasks in an educational setting to the groups that are being vaccinated. I am happy to confirm that we have written to directors of education asking them to identify the relevant staff and saying that they will be vaccinated.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. That answers a question that I put to you in writing earlier this morning, so that answer is much appreciated.

I think that, as we move through this school year, there will be increasing attention on assessment for qualifications. I have had a look through what has been published by the SQA so far, and I want some clarification. So far, it looks like only guidance for national 5s has been published and that none has been published for highers. Digging into that, it looks as though the evidence that the SQA has asked for takes the form of class tests under examination conditions. I am interested to know whether that is the cabinet secretary’s understanding. There will clearly be issues and complexities in delivering class tests like that until schools return full time, at least for the senior phase. Does the cabinet secretary have concerns along those lines?

Mr Johnson is correct that the guidance has been set out in detail on the approach to national 5s, but material has also been circulated to schools with examples of work or assessments that individual pupils should be judged against as part of the higher and advanced higher qualifications. That material is already in the hands of schools.

09:15  

Mr Johnson is correct in saying that operating in a remote learning context has an impact on the delivery of that approach. The national qualifications group is led by the SQA, but it includes professional associations, directors of education and colleges, which is a deliberate effort to get system-wide buy-in to the approach that we take. We are working to have in place an appropriate model and mechanism to ensure that that is the case. Early work is being done on that, principally around ensuring that standards are widely understood across the teaching profession. We have examples of assessment activity that could be undertaken by schools. That is all being fed into the education system.

We also decided to delay collection of estimated grades from schools until the last possible moment, on 18 June, in order to say to the education system—it is explicit in the guidance that we have issued—that it should concentrate on learning and teaching just now, and we will support the various assessment and estimating processes later. In that way, we maximise the opportunities for young people to learn in order to enable them to be certificated. If they have not done the learning, the challenges of certification become greater.

I have a further question on that point. First, I am concerned that we are discussing the matter at the beginning of February, given that—on the basis of what I can see on the SQA website—we still do not have guidelines for highers and advanced highers. You said that the deadline for submitting evidence has been pushed to June, which I understand—that probably makes sense. I think that that is the third deadline that we have been given. Initially, when the guidelines were issued in December, the deadline was the end of April. When will we have a complete and locked-down set of assessment standards and timeframes?

On the cabinet secretary’s last point, the current period of remote learning, which will be a minimum of two months, in addition to the disruptions that occurred in the autumn, will mean that it will not have been possible to cover substantial elements of the curriculum. That is a simple fact. Therefore, given that we are assessing only what has been taught—not what has not been taught and without conjecture about how a pupil might otherwise have performed—what will be done to catch up, either in the next school year or over the summer holidays for those young people who will be—[Inaudible.]—this year?

Obviously, we are dealing with a moveable feast. It was not part of my plan to move to remote learning for January 2021—that was not what I wanted. I worked with the education system to get schools back up and running with full-time face-to-face learning in August, which we sustained for the overwhelming majority of pupils without interruption until December. Most pupils had an uninterrupted education for the autumn period, so I do not accept Mr Johnson’s characterisation of the autumn period as having been one of significant disruption. I accept that that was the case for some pupils, but it was not the case for the majority. A great deal of learning and teaching were done in the autumn.

The national qualifications group, to which I referred a moment ago, is meeting constantly to identify how best we can work pragmatically in the situation in which we find ourselves. To be fair to the national qualifications group, I cannot tell it that it will have every pupil back in school on date X. I do not know the answer to that question yet, because we are dealing with a pandemic.

As I set out in my earlier answers, I am confident about the huge amount of work that has been done to sustain learning and teaching through remote learning. There is, however, a weakness in remote learning in relation to some practical work, so I took a step yesterday to address it by enabling schools to bring senior-phase pupils back in to do that essential work, which is necessary to satisfy the curriculum and, thereby, to create a platform for certification.

The combination of what remote learning is delivering, what we can do by bringing in a limited number of senior-phase pupils and what we can get the system to concentrate on by delaying the gathering of estimated grades until the last possible moment, maximises the opportunity for learning and teaching.

Most normal school years would involve an end to formal learning and teaching at the start of the Easter holidays, when young people would go off on holiday and generally be on study leave before the start of their exam diet in late April. All being well, we will have the opportunity to continue learning and teaching for a much longer period before we have to make judgments. The national qualifications group is considering how to do that pragmatically in a constantly changing environment. We work closely with the education system to ensure that the opportunities for learning and teaching are maximised.

Mr Johnson asked me when we would have “locked-down” arrangements. That is a difficult question for me to answer because I do not know what the arrangements for restoration of face-to-face learning will be. I will do the best that I can in the short term to open up opportunities for some senior-phase pupils. The best guidance that we can give to the system is that which we have already given, which is to concentrate on learning and teaching and to ensure that young people are anchored in that process. Assessments and certifications can follow from that.

I accept, to some extent, that you cannot produce a fully locked-down set of guidelines, but surely the best guidance and support that we can give would be to provide, at the very least, specific and updated guidance for highers, advanced highers and national 5s on what the evidence could be. Does the cabinet secretary know when that guidance will come out?

Finally, I will make a brief point, I know that work is on-going with the national qualifications group. The group, however, does not produce published minutes and papers—just updates. It would surely be better if the full minutes and published papers were provided publicly, so that we had full transparency with regard to that work.

First, I take issue with Mr Johnson about the available material. A clear explanation of standards, which has been communicated to the education system, is available about all national qualifications. However, we have not finally nailed down the ways in which we can set out clearly, reliably and with certainty what the final assessment mechanisms will be, because we try to be as pragmatic as possible in order to ensure that the current environment does not undermine the life chances of young people in Scotland in any way. A lot of work has been done about understanding standards to ensure that the teaching profession is aware of what is expected in a particular qualification and that it is able to apply those standards in its final judgments. That work is under way.

The national qualifications group is designed to provide clear and authoritative guidance to the education system; publication of weekly minutes would not serve that purpose. The group wrestles with different evolving factors on an on-going basis, so meaningful guidance being shared promptly with the education system is a better way to operate than speculation, based on minutes, about whether guidance might go in this or that direction. It is better to give the guidance when it is ready and agreed across the education system.

John, you will have seen the important scientific report that came out yesterday showing that transmission is reduced by about two thirds when people have been vaccinated. In the light of that evidence, and given what has been said previously about vaccination of teachers being a priority, will you update the committee on where you are in relation to the general principle of vaccination of teachers? I know that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is leading that work. Especially given yesterday’s report, do we need to put our foot down on the accelerator?

Members of the teaching profession will obviously be included in a number of the JCVI criteria as we work through them. We have followed the JCVI criteria faithfully to make sure that we get the maximum impact from use of the vaccine, in addressing the risk of mortality. Many members of the teaching profession, in a variety of age and clinical groupings, will be vaccinated. There is on-going discussion with the JCVI about other prioritisation relating to workforce groupings. We will continue to engage with the JCVI on that important matter, but the foundation of the advice that we have had from it obliges us to follow the risk of mortality, so that is the approach that the Government is taking. We have set out a programme of general vaccination roll-out. That is going according to timetable and I am confident that the various benchmarks that we have set will be reached.

Mortality is clearly based largely, although not exclusively, on age. Once the first two waves of vaccination have been completed, the issue will not rear its head so much. Given that the Scottish Government’s policy is that the priority is to get schools back full time, should we be getting the JCVI to be looking at that, beyond mortality? I understand why the priorities that exist have been set. Clearly, the threat to the health service is the overriding concern, and that threat is driven by hospitalisation and mortality rates. However, once the first groups of people are dealt with, surely there is a bit of flexibility, so we need a bit of thinking. If the priority—quite rightly—is to get the schools back, there is a strong case for putting pressure on the JCVI to look at that from a wider perspective, especially given the age profile of teachers. Proportionally, there are now many more teachers under the age of 50 than used to be the case, because of recruitment and so on.

I understand the rationale of Mr Neil’s question, and I contend that the matter is being actively explored with the JCVI. Mr Neil is correct in saying that, through priority groups being identified and vaccinated, the majority—in excess of 90 per cent—of the mortality risk will have been addressed. That opens up the question of what prioritisation should be thereafter, and that is being explored. I am not in a position today to say more about how that is progressing.

Clearly, the announcement yesterday about expansion of asymptomatic testing among school staff is also an important element of further reassurance. That is in addition to the existing arrangements that we have in place through which members of staff are able—if they wish—to pursue polymerase chain reaction testing to reassure them if they are anxious about risk or about conditions from which they might suffer.

09:30  

[Inaudible.]—have the testing policy until you get the vaccination done. However, it is good if we are going to put some pressure on the joint committee to take a wider perspective, because it seems that that is absolutely essential.

The focus so far has been on secondary education. I will focus a wee bit on primary education. As the cabinet secretary rightly said, the level of transmission among younger pupils is very low, and it is certainly much lower than the community average. I have two questions about primary education. First, subject to all the conditions that the cabinet secretary outlined, what is the rationale for bringing back only primaries 1 to 3 on 22 February and not also P4 to P7?

My second question is about P7 pupils, in particular. We know that the most difficult time for pupils, and the time when they tend to face major problems, is the transition from primary to secondary education. Many parents and teachers have a lot of concerns about primary education, but they are particularly concerned about P7 pupils, because they have to prepare for going to secondary and, even with the best will in the world, they are not getting the quality or amount of educational support that they would be getting at school.

I know that the cabinet secretary cannot be prescriptive, but it seems to me that getting P4 to P7 pupils back full time is very important and that it is particularly important for P7 pupils, who have a lot of catching up to do in order to get to secondary with the best chance of success there.

Frankly, there is no easy way through some of these dilemmas—and they are dilemmas. Part of what we have to do is to take decisions based on the strategic context of where we are and the state of the pandemic. We have obviously been in a critical position from boxing day onwards, and the level of concern within Government, based on the evidence in front of us, merited the actions that we took on 4 January in the application of severe restrictions.

Since then, we have reduced from a peak of 302 cases per 100,000 to about 136, which I think was the number yesterday. Significant progress has therefore been made in reducing the prevalence, but we are still not yet in an entirely comfortable position. We have to take decisions that are proportionate to the scale of the pandemic in the country. That is one element of why we have not been able to bring back early learning and childcare and the whole of the primary sector.

My second observation is that the educational advice that I have is that children in early learning and primaries 1 to 3 find it more challenging to engage in remote learning than primary 4 to 7 pupils do. If we accept that, because of the state of the pandemic, we cannot have the whole of the primary sector back, we make a judgment about which part of it to have back on the basis of the rationale of educational engagement. The advice that I have is that it is more appropriate to bring back P1 to P3 children, who find remote learning more challenging than face-to-face learning.

Those are the two elements to my answer. First, we have to be careful and proportionate, so only one part can come back. Secondly, we have to make sure that we make the maximum educational impact as a consequence.

I will raise a final point in relation to Mr Neil’s very legitimate point about primary 7, as that transition is an important milestone. Last year, during a period of extraordinary disruption, schools invested a significant amount of time in child-focused and child-centred activities to ensure that children and young people could manage that transition. I felt that that was done successfully. The feedback that I have had from schools is that transition has been well managed despite the difficulties and challenges.

A priority for us as we focus on how we return other cohorts will be how we support young people and avoid any long-term damage to their learning as a consequence of the disruption.

I hear what you say. As well as the impact on their education, young people’s mental health is important. Has the mental health impact of young people staying off school been considered as well as the criteria that you have outlined? The stresses and strains of the current lockdown mean that mental health may be the major issue for some families. Has that been part of the consideration? We know that the mental health impacts of children being off school—both for them and, in some cases, for the wider family—can be pretty be serious.

Those are fundamental questions, and they have been considered as part of the exercise. I would love to be in a position to secure the return of more children to face-to-face learning. I am having to tread cautiously and take an approach that the education recovery group and I believe is sustainable within the wider constraints of the pandemic, and the Cabinet has come to that conclusion.

I acknowledge the significance of mental health. We have put in place a lot of approaches through Parent Club and the additional parenting support resources that have been available through the local authority funding distribution that I have made to address these issues. I assure Mr Neil and the committee that those questions have been significantly addressed as part of the prioritisation that we have put in place.

I fully accept that capacity and room for manoeuvre are limited. Senior phase pupils will return to school to complete essential practical work, but has the cabinet secretary considered senior phase pupils who do not have access to the internet at home? Is there space, or will there be soon, to allow the very small group of young people who have no internet access at home to go into schools to complete essential coursework? That might not be practical work, but it is essential work that they cannot do at home.

I acknowledge Mr Mundell’s point. My response will probably be in much the same vein as my answer to Beatrice Wishart’s question about some of the island issues. We must have scope in our considerations to address some of the legitimate practical challenges that might exist to young people engaging in their learning.

If a young person was struggling in relation to digital access, perhaps through connectivity challenges in a particular locality, schools have been resourced and supported to enable them to address that in other ways. Digital connectivity is desirable, but it is not the only means by which learning can be undertaken. I see a lot of examples around the country of schools making materials and educational resources available through collection from the school or local shops. In my constituency, materials for secondary schools that cover a number of towns and villages are available in convenience stores in different parts of the community. Schools are really thinking through how they can reach young people and engage them in learning.

However, I would certainly not rule out the possibility that Mr Mundell put forward. It is a reasonable proposition.

I recognise all those things, and I see schools coming up with lots of innovative ideas. It is just that a very small group of pupils in the senior phase who are likely to be undergoing assessment have limited communication with teachers and will struggle to complete certain bits of work if they do not have the ability to research things and look at things online at home. That is all that I was talking about.

I will come back in on a further point. One of the points that I was explaining to colleagues earlier is that the absolute priority must be to ensure that young people are able to undertake the necessary learning and teaching. A school should be able to satisfy itself that that is being undertaken—that is the critical issue. There should be dialogue with pupils and understanding of their circumstances. I would be very concerned if a school was not hearing from pupils or was not in touch with them. I would also be very surprised by that, to be honest, because schools are going the extra mile to reach pupils.

The type of problem that Mr Mundell has put to me strikes me as something that schools should be aware of and should be designing mechanisms to address. We have put the resources in place to enable that to be the case and to make sure that the learning and teaching can be accomplished, because that is the platform for certification at a later stage.

That is helpful. My second question is not directly related to schools but is about something that impacts on the early years. The cabinet secretary has a broader responsibility for that area, although there is a junior minister with that portfolio. It is about those who are not in work—particularly mothers on maternity leave—and have not previously chosen to access nursery provision. Will any additional support be made available to them if they do not have an extended childcare bubble or other family support? Is there a mechanism to enable them to access additional support at this time?

We have made available a range of materials through Parent Club, which is our principal means of communicating with and providing support to parents. There are a lot of good resources available through that. Education Scotland provides learning propositions through the Scotland learns element of its work for each stage of the curriculum—early stage, first level, second level and third level. All of that is available through learning tasks via Education Scotland.

We also made explicit provision in response to suggestions that were made to us by Opposition parties in the dialogue about priorities for investment. In the previous round of investment that was made through the £45 million announcement, we gave local authorities scope to spend those resources on specific measures to assist parents as they face these challenges. There is flexibility for local authorities to make choices in that respect if they consider that there is the need to do so at the local level.

A number of young mothers have been in touch with me on the back of yesterday’s announcement. They are concerned that they will not have access to family and friends—it is very cold and wet at the moment, which affects those with children under one—and they really fear the lockdown being extended. I understand why we have to do that, but they have no external access to childcare or support through the cold, wet months, when it is difficult to meet people outside. I want to highlight their concerns. They support young people getting back to school, but it creates a worry for them that they will have to keep struggling on for longer on their own.

09:45  

We have tried to maintain a range of childcare options. I appreciate that the exact group that Mr Mundell raises with me may not be accessing the childcare options that we would ordinarily have in place, but we have maintained those during the current lockdown to ensure that there is a broad range of opportunities available.

Mr Mundell’s question raises legitimate issues around isolation, which we are all concerned about. I am very concerned about the impact of isolation on individuals and on young families, in particular. These can be challenging times, and it is not an easy period to live through. The best counsel that I can give is that the more we concentrate on trying to reduce prevalence, the more we can begin to get back to something that resembles a normal approach to life and address issues around isolation.

There are a range of childcare options available, but they might not meet everyone’s needs at this point.

Good morning, Deputy First Minister. Ironically, I was talking to my sister Jennifer today about schooling. My niece, Kimberley, is in primary school, and Jennifer was talking about having to get her organised for a 9.30 am Google meeting. Over this period, there has been a new-found respect for the work that teachers do. My daughter has had the same experience as my sister, as my granddaughter is in primary school, too.

On the return to school, there seem to be two camps. There are those who say—I think that they are a minority—that they want their children to go back to school as soon as possible, regardless, but the majority have taken a safer approach and are worried about ensuring that everything is safe.

How will the return to school look? To follow on from Beatrice Wishart’s question, will it be different across the country? I am coming at the issue from a more urban point of view, as there are high-density populations in various parts of my constituency. How do we ensure that we get to a place where both parents and teachers are happy with the safety protocols that are in place?

The only way that we can address the issues that Mr Adam raises is by providing everybody with an assurance that we will proceed with caution and ensure that safety is a paramount consideration in the return to school. I openly give the committee that assurance today.

There will be people who are critical of the fact that the Government did not go further yesterday. I understand exactly why they are critical of the Government but, equally, I have to be able to assure staff, pupils and families that it is safe for us to contemplate a return to face-to-face education. The safety issues will be absolutely central to the cautious judgments that the Government makes in that respect.

In my opening remarks, I referred to the four harms. The Government has developed a framework that enables us to look at the direct Covid health harm, the non-Covid health harms and the social and economic impacts of Covid and try to come to a rounded judgment about the correct steps to take. I go back to 4 January, when the Government had to look at the direct Covid harm. The pandemic was galloping away from us, and if we had not taken dramatic action of the type that we took, we would have ended up in a worse position. We took that dramatic action and we are seeing dramatic results as a consequence. We had to act urgently.

We are now in a situation in which, having acted urgently and effectively, we can begin to take some cautious steps to move towards a resumption of what we might all consider to resemble normal schooling activity. I give the committee and the public an assurance that the Government will do that with safety uppermost in our minds.

I have a final question, convener. To use my daughter and granddaughter as an example, I think that younger parents seem to have more fear. My daughter’s fear is about knowing when it will be safe to take the wee one to school. That is the sort of thing that goes through parents’ minds. They might also hear teachers saying that they have concerns. I take on board your commitment to make sure that schools will be safe, but how do we find a balance and offer people the opportunity as they go about their day-to-day lives to feel totally secure about their child going back to school?

We have to do two things. We have to widely communicate the advice that we receive on these questions, which we will do. The Government has taken the decisions that it has only because we have scientific advice enabling us to do so. That information should be available for open scrutiny as part of the process.

The second thing is to put in place effective mitigation measures to protect staff and pupils. I have taken great care to ensure that we take every step to prepare relevant, appropriate and effective mitigation measures in our schools. That is published in the guidance that we have set out and I have taken a number of steps to challenge that guidance. We invited the Health and Safety Executive—at least, it invited itself—to check whether the mitigation measures were in place and effective, and we received very positive feedback from the HSE on that. Last week, I spoke to Professor Cath Noakes—she advises the United Kingdom scientific advisory group for emergencies on mitigation measures around ventilation, hand hygiene and other things—to check our assessment of the measures that we had in place. We had a very helpful conversation that reassured me that we had appropriate measures in place.

The measures are formulated by the education recovery group, which involves the professional associations and other trade unions. Unison is a member of that group. It is important that we listen to all staff, hear their views, address their concerns and, crucially, put the mitigation measures into practice. That is the route. It is about making information openly available and putting in place effective mitigation measures.

The evidence from the August to December period tells us that our schools were not purveyors of the virus but victims of it. The virus was out in the community and made its way into schools, rather than circulating its way around schools. That was because our schools were safe environments for pupils and staff. The only way we will sustain that is by reducing community transmission.

A host of additional educational resources have been allocated since the start of the pandemic–-more than £200 million. As we move forward, where should the balance be struck in terms of providing any further resources directly to schools rather than to local authorities?

That is an interesting question. I have been at pains to work with the education system to meet its needs and requirements. The route that we have taken during the pandemic has been to channel resources to local authorities for them to make decisions about. Primarily, they have been used for recruitment of additional staff, generating more than 1,400 additional teaching staff and more than 200 additional support staff. The resources have also enabled local authorities to procure technology solutions in addition to what was put in place by the Government through direct procurement. We purchased and distributed 25,000 devices.

Of course, we have other experience—habitually through pupil equity funding, which has been paid directly to individual schools to enable them to take focused and targeted measures to close the poverty-related attainment gap. Generally, I am very satisfied with the effectiveness of the choices that have been made by schools in the use of pupil equity funding, so I have confidence in the route by which we could channel resources directly to schools to enable that. In the circumstances of the pandemic, in which we needed to make sure that we had effective support in place for all schools, channelling those resources through local authorities was the right decision, but it does not always have to be that way.

I think that an element of flexibility would definitely be appreciated in that regard.

At the start of the session, Mr Swinney, you said that a very high number of teachers are participating in digital learning. Are there any schools or local authorities that are doing particularly well, which others could emulate? In addition, what of physical education teachers and others who we would not necessarily imagine would be as up to speed with things such as digital learning? How are their skills being fully utilised at this time?

It is invidious of me to draw out particular areas of success in digital learning but, as an example, Scottish Borders Council has essentially gone for an all-devices approach for all pupils which, frankly, has given it a very strong platform for the delivery of digital learning. Other authorities have gone for much the same approach; Glasgow City Council is in a similar place. There has been a range of solutions, which I think has created stronger platforms for the delivery of learning. The reports by HMIE will draw out some of that good practice. It would be slightly invidious for the inspectorate to name individual schools, but it will draw out that good practice.

On the second part of Mr Gibson’s question, which was about PE teachers and digital learning, more things are happening across digital platforms than I had thought possible, with different elements of physical education being delivered digitally and teachers leading exercise routines and skills training across Microsoft Teams and various other applications. The lack of physical presence is not always an impediment, although there will be some elements of practical work that cannot be undertaken over a digital platform—hence the decision that the Government announced yesterday on some access for senior-phase pupils.

I am pleased to hear about what is happening in the Borders. I think that it can be only beneficial to highlight areas in which there are elements of excellence, so that others can decide whether they wish to emulate that, or at least to find out what is going on in such areas so that they can see how they might be able to tweak their own practice. A high tide floats all boats, and if we can share best practice—which I think has always been an issue in Scotland, despite its being a country of only 5.4 million people—we can certainly move forward. Thanks very much for that, cabinet secretary.

If I may add to Mr Gibson’s points, convener, one of the key elements of reports by HMIE has been to identify examples of good practice. I am certain that members will have looked at those reports. I think that they are a valuable insight into how remote learning is being delivered and into some of the innovation and creativity that has been put into the delivery of education and the change of pedagogy that has been required by that approach, which has been responded to very substantially by members of the teaching profession.

There are two supplementary questions—I hope that they will be quick—from colleagues.

Cabinet secretary, I want to return to a previous answer that you gave to George Adam about the role of schools in virus transmission. Presumably, the rationale for keeping schools closed for the majority is that there is an accepted principle that they are part of the vector of community transmission. I want to press you slightly on that. Can we be clear for parents and the public, among whom the case has not been made, what specific roles schools play in community transmission or the increased incidence of the virus? Why has the Government not already set up a nationwide programme of mass asymptomatic testing of senior pupils and/or all staff, which surely would identify positive cases and allow far greater numbers of pupils to return to classes more quickly?

10:00  

I do not think that it is quite as compartmentalised as that. The issue that I was trying to address in my points to Mr Adam is that, if community transmission is low, we have a greater opportunity of maintaining face-to-face schooling and minimising risk to all involved in the education system. However, if the level of community transmission is too high—obviously, a rate of more than 300 cases per 100,000 people is too high—the ability to sustain face-to-face schooling and to operate on the precautionary principle changes dramatically.

I do not think that we can look at schools as being in one compartment and the community in another. What I tried to set out in my answer to Mr Adam is that I do not think that the evidence demonstrates that schools are significant transmitters of the virus, but they are victims of the transmission of the virus in the community, which can be disruptive to learning and serious from a safety perspective. That is why public participation in complying with the wider measures is so important. It has suppressed the prevalence of the virus to protect face-to-face schooling. That is the strategy that we are forming.

What I think members of the public can now see is that, because they have worked with us to suppress the virus in the community, we are now able to open up some face-to-face schooling, and the more we suppress, the more we can open that up.

In response to a written question from me, you confirmed on 26 January that you were still in discussions with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about the distribution of the additional £45 million for schools. I think that COSLA leaders were due to discuss that on 29 January. Has a distribution formula for that £45 million been agreed? If so, has that money been received by councils yet?

I am pretty certain that agreement has been reached on that. In fact, I am pretty certain that I authorised a letter yesterday to go to local authorities confirming the distribution arrangements. One point that I will make to Mr Greer is that there is generally not a requirement for the money to arrive in the bank account before local authorities can begin to commit against that expenditure. Local authorities have reserves that enable them to handle cash management and make commitments without the money being in the bank.

The distribution arrangements are consistent with those for the previous £80 million. I had better protect myself, though, by saying that, if things are different from what I have described, I will write to the committee about that. However, I am pretty sure that the distribution arrangements for the £80 million are the same as those for the £45 million and that that has been confirmed in writing to local authorities. I am much more certain now about that answer.

Thank you, cabinet secretary. That concludes questions on item 2 on coronavirus and education. Before moving to item 3, I am minded to have a five-minute break. We will resume at 10.10 and will see the cabinet secretary then, too.

10:04 Meeting suspended.  

10:10 On resuming—