Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring 100% superfast broadband access across Scotland by 2021. We intend to launch new procurement activity aimed at pushing coverage beyond what will be delivered by our existing Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband Programme. Part of this will be engagement with suppliers to determine the most appropriate solution for premises out-with the immediate vicinity of exchange cabinets.

The term special education is no longer used in Scotland. Instead the term additional support needs is used, reflecting the legal framework of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. Consequently there are no teachers designated as 'special education' in Scotland. Information on the movement of teachers whose main subject is additional support for learning and support staff is not held centrally.

Information is collected each year on the numbers of teachers including those whose main subject is additional support for learning, and the numbers of support staff in primary, secondary and special schools broken down by local authority area. The following links provide this information:

2015

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachcenssuppdata/teachcensus2015

2014

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachcenssuppdata/teachcensus2014

2013

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachcenssuppdata/teachcensus2013

2012

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/Summarystatsforschools/teachcensus2012

2011

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/teachcensus2011

We have made clear that the Scottish Government is committed to incorporating further guidance on physical restraint and seclusion within the refreshed Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: A Positive Approach to Preventing and Managing Schools Exclusions. This guidance is for all children, including children with complex additional support needs, including those arising from learning disabilities. This is in line with the responses to public petition PE01548 stating that restraint and seclusion should be seen within the context of early intervention, positive relationships and behaviour.

The purpose of the guidance is to support local authorities, mainstream and special schools and other learning establishments and their partners to keep all children and young people fully included, engaged and involved in their education wherever this takes place; and to improve outcomes for those most at risk of exclusion. The guidance focuses on prevention, early intervention and responses to individual need, incorporating staged interventions and additional support to prevent problems escalating. The guidance will also set out the circumstances in which physical restraint may be appropriate as a last resort and as part of a planned approach.

There is already a range of guidance on this issue in place. The Scottish Government guidance Holding Safely on the use of restraint in residential settings, which is also applicable in schools and other establishments, was updated in 2013. Further, additional guidance for child protection for disabled children was published in 2014. This applies to all settings, and states that inappropriate restraint, sanctions, humiliation, intimidation, verbal abuse, and having needs ignored; depending on the circumstances, may also be criminal offences, acts of gross misconduct and reportable to Police Scotland and relevant professional regulatory bodies.

With Scotland and the Scottish Ministerial Working Group on Child Protection and Disability produced a ‘toolkit’ for practitioners (2014). It is aimed at practitioners and managers in child and family and disability services. Ensuring disabled children's wellbeing is everybody's responsibility and an awareness of what constitutes best practice is essential. It is critical that all practitioners are aware of the potential vulnerability of disabled children and of what constitutes best practice in protecting them from the risk of abuse and neglect.

All local authorities should provide staff with training and guidelines on appropriate levels of intervention including physical restraint.

The Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc. Act 2000 places a duty on education authorities to provide education for all children in a mainstream school unless specific exceptions apply. The legislation indicates that it is presumed that these circumstances arise only exceptionally.

Education authorities are supported in these decisions by guidance which was produced by the Scottish Government at the time of the introduction of the duty in August 2003. In December 2015, Scottish Ministers confirmed that they would review the guidance on mainstreaming to take account of more recent legislation and policy developments. The review will be undertaken in partnership with key stakeholders and will be publicly consulted on.

There are no plans to introduce legislation on the use of physical restraint in schools. The Scottish Government is clear that the use of physical intervention, physical restraint and supported isolation should only ever be used as a last resort and when in the best interests of the child. These approaches should never be used for disciplinary purposes.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of Scotland’s children and young people and each local authority is responsible for the care, safety and welfare of pupils in school. To support this, we have committed to include guidance on the use of restraint (for all children, including children with complex additional support needs), in the context of de-escalation as part of early intervention approaches in our refreshed guidance Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: A Positive Approach to Preventing and Managing School Exclusions. This approach has been agreed by stakeholders including the Association of Directors of Education Scotland who agree that physical restraint should be seen in the context of positive relationships and behaviour.

We have made clear that the Scottish Government is committed to incorporating further guidance on physical restraint and seclusion within the refreshed Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: A Positive Approach to Preventing and Managing Schools Exclusions. This guidance is for all children, including children with complex additional support needs, including those arising from learning disabilities. This is in line with the petition responses stating that restraint and seclusion should be seen within the context of early intervention, positive relationships and behaviour.

The purpose of the guidance is to support local authorities, mainstream and special schools and other learning establishments and their partners to keep all children and young people fully included, engaged and involved in their education wherever this takes place; and to improve outcomes for those most at risk of exclusion. The guidance focuses on prevention, early intervention and responses to individual need, incorporating staged interventions and additional support to prevent problems escalating.

The draft guidance is clear that ‘it is only acceptable to physically intervene or to restrain a child or young person where the member of staff reasonably believes in all the circumstances that if he/she does not physically intervene or restrain the child or young person, the child or young person’s actions are likely to cause physical damage or harm to that pupil or to another person.’ It also highlights that ‘The use of physical intervention, physical restraint and seclusion should all be included in an agreed plan and be used as a last resort. Where seclusion is used it should be used under supervision and should take into account the additional support needs of the child or young person.’

The guidance also makes clear that local authorities should ensure that appropriate support and training is provided. This should include guidance on support following an incident for all those involved. Local authorities should also monitor, record and review any incidents involving physical restraint and seclusion using their own reporting mechanisms. It is also clear that these approaches should not be used for disciplinary purposes.

The term special education is no longer used in Scotland. Instead the term additional support needs is used, reflecting the legal framework of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004. Consequently there are no teachers designated as 'special education' in Scotland.

There are teachers whose main subject is additional support for learning. The number of teachers who have additional support for learning as their main subject was recently provided in the answer to the parliamentary question S5W-00665 which was answered on 16 June 2016. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

<>The Scottish Government fund the provision of high speed broadband to a central point in each local authority for use by education. Local authorities themselves are responsible for onward connectivity to their education establishments and for the provision of wired or wireless connectivity within those establishments. This funding amounted to £1.8 million in 2015-16.

Like all other assessment activities used in schools, the national standardised assessments for Scotland will be designed to create an understanding of how children are progressing. They will provide information for teachers on where children are doing well, and where further support might be required. That information will be used by teachers to plan future learning; to help parents understand their child’s progress, and how best to support them to progress further; and to improve outcomes for individual children. Alongside a range of other evidence, the information will also provide consistent and robust information to help to inform teachers’ professional judgement of a child’s progress towards curriculum for excellence levels in literacy and numeracy.

The Scottish Government is not introducing a national testing regime or ‘high stakes’ tests. National standardised assessments are being put in place to support improvement, not to create more statistics. Children will not be expected to revise or prepare for the new national standardised assessments, other than by undertaking routine classroom learning activities. Teachers will decide the appropriate time within the school year for individual children to sit the assessments.

More than 5000 people were involved in shaping the National Improvement Framework, over three months of widespread consultation. The approach to national standardised assessment was developed after extensive engagement with teachers, parents, children and academics. We have drawn evidence from a range of advice and publications, including from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development – specifically their publications Synergies for Better Learning: An International Perspective on Evaluation and Assessment and Education Policy Outlook 2015.

It is important to note that the Scottish Government is not introducing a national testing regime or ‘high stakes’ tests. The national standardised assessments will be designed to provide information for the teacher on where a child is doing well, and where further support might be required. That information will be used by teachers to plan future learning; to help parents understand their child’s progress, and how best to support them to progress further; and to improve outcomes for individual children.