Late and Lengthy Guidance for Teachers Issued with Letter from Cabinet Secretary for Education

On Monday morning, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, John Swinney, issued a letter to all teachers in Scotland along with links to three separate documents:

A Statement for Practitioners from HM Chief Inspector of Education August 2016 (6 Pages)

Benchmarks Numeracy and Mathematics Draft, August 2016 (43 pages)

Benchmarks Literacy and English Draft August 2016 (49 pages)

In his letter he says, 

"I accept in the last few years, that time (of teachers) has become cluttered by a plethora of guidance and advice that, however well intentioned, has led to increased workload, confusion and duplication. I am determined to tackle that problem."

While he promised to deliver this to teachers by the beginning of the new school year, he must be embarrassed that he has missed his target by two weeks with two of the documents unfinished and only issued in draft. Issuing almost one hundred pages of additional guidance may also suggest that he has not made a good start in simplifying and clarifying the priorities for our school teachers.

Clearly more documentation will need to be considered when the final versions of the Benchmarks for Maths and English are eventually circulated. I think, the length and ambition of the new documents mean that it will be difficult for our Head Teachers to find collective time to work out with their staff what this means for their schools until the next CPD days in November. 

This is a disappointing start from the Cabinet Secretary for Education.

Link to Guidance and Benchmarks

Commenting on Continuing Teacher Shortages in Dundee

According to the latest figures, Dundee Schools have begun the new school year with vacant teaching posts. While it is positive that, the figure is apparently less than this time last year, these shortages will undoubtedly put additional demands on our teachers as they provide cover. 

While the Director of Children and Families' Services and his staff should be congratulated for their efforts over the summer, it is clear that the supply of newly qualified teachers is currently insufficient to meet the demands in Dundee and throughout Scotland. 

The responsibility for this mess rests principally with the Cabinet Secretary for Education, in the Scottish Government, Angela Constance MSP. She will point to her recently increasing the intakes to teacher training courses, but she and her predecessors acted too slowly. As a result our teachers and pupils in our schools are paying the price.

Our pupils and teachers deserve better.

10.5% Fall in University Applications from Scottish Applicants

Click on table to enlarge

UCAS, the organisation responsible for managing applications to higher education courses in the UK, has just reported their latest application figures for courses starting in Autumn 2013. 

Up to mid-November there were were 145,000 applications, compared with 158,000 at the same point in 2011 and 182,000 in 2010. That works out at 13,000 fewer applications in the UK, which is a fall of 8% compared with the same point last year and these are apparently the lowest figures for at least six years.

Many commentators had anticipated a reduction in applications to Universities from students living in England because of the introduction of much higher Tuition Fees with many Universities charging the maximum of £9000 per year. While this is the case, this doesn't explain why the reduction in applications in Scotland, where the Scottish Government pays the student's tuition fees, is larger than in England.

Percentage Fall in Applications to UCAS #
Scotland  - 10.5%
UK           -  8.0%

Behind these statistics there are clearly many individual applicants in Scotland who are holding back from applying to University. This is a disturbing trend. It means that there are other factors, most probably economic which are putting off well qualified potential applicants from taking the next step to improve their qualifications. This trend is also likely to reduce the demand for places at our two Universities in the City and might lead to empty places and a loss of income to the Universities.

I think the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Mike Russell MSP needs to tell us what he is proposing to do to help reverse this trend?

# Note the final figures for University applications will be known after the main deadline on 15 January 2013.

Curriculum for Excellence in Dundee Must Provide Best Options for Our Secondary School Pupils

At the Education Committee tonight, I will be arguing that there is an alternative to the Director’s one size fits all flow charts and timetables for curriculum for excellence in our Secondary Schools.

Let’s not kid ourselves that it’s all under control and everything in the educational garden is lovely.  In recent workforce surveys many teachers in Scotland have indicated their lack of preparation for and confidence in delivering the new curriculum and preparing their pupils for the new examinations.  Although the recent letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education is last minute, it offers some additional cash and some opportunities for opt outs from the new examinations.

The motion I will be presenting to the Committee tomorrow evening will provide an opportunity to pause and take stock rather than ploughing on regardless.

We need our secondary schools and their subject departments to honestly explore the possibility of deferring entering their pupils for the new exams and taking the existing Intermediate assessments instead. We must be guided by the overriding principle that we must always do what is best for our pupils who only get one shot at this.

We should not be over influenced by the Director’s grand design but rather take account of the reality of readiness in every department in every one of our secondary schools.  I am sure many subjects departments and many teachers are relatively confident about the big changes ahead and will take these in their stride. But it would be surprising if some departments in some schools would not benefit from the opportunity to make use of the special measures which the Cabinet Secretary for Education has made available for every secondary school in Scotland.

Finally, we need a report in early June that appraises councillors of the real choices that are to be put before pupils, parents and carers before the end of the summer term.

Confusion from Contrasting Advice About Readiness of our Secondary Schools for Curriculum for Excellence

This week Councillors in Dundee have received contrasting advice about preparations for the next phase of Curriculum for Excellence in Dundee secondary schools. In contrast to the confident tones of the Director of Education’s report issued for the Education Committee on Monday 26b March, we have been circulated with a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Mike Russell MSP, that concedes:
more help is needed to ‘ensure all secondary schools move confidently to the next stage of implementation (of Curriculum for Excellence)’. Mike Russell is providing £3.5 Million for secondary schools to buy in supply cover while specific teachers have dedicated time to prepare course materials. This would work out at about £110,000 for Dundee.  I also notice that parents and carers have been asked to stump up for cover at home when two additional in-service days are held and their children will be off school.

So what are councillors to make of this apparently contrasting advice?
Are we ready or not?
Are these additional in-service days necessary in Dundee when preparations for Curriculum for Excellence are apparently so advanced?

Curriculum for Excellence in Dundee - Urgent Local and National Changes Required

Now that the 33 period week has been abandoned in Dundee, parents and carers and members of the Education Committee need to know how our nine secondary schools will progress the new S3 which will run for the first time from August 2012. We also need to know how the senior phase, S4-S6, will be structured. The first students undertaking the new S4 on Curriculum for Excellence will begin their studies in August 2013. This year of study will lead up to the examinations, National 4 and 5, in May 2013. 

Although the new S4  was not strictly part of the consultation about the 33 period week, it was inquired about by parents at both of the consultation events I attended at Grove Academy and Morgan Academy. The biggest bone of contention is the narrowed number of subjects that each pupil will apparently be able take in S4. Pupils will only be able to take a maximum of six subjects at National 4 or 5, the new exams, compared with a maximum of eight subjects at Standard Grade, which are being phased out.  While a model of the the new 'senior phase' (S3-S6) has been sent to the Head Teachers in our nine secondary schools, there has not been a cheep to the Education Committee. This should be remedied at the next Education Committee. I have written to the Council requesting that this is added to the agenda of the next meeting of the Education Committee.

This narrowing of subject choice in S4 seems at odds with the stated aspirations of the Curriculum for Excellence which was supposed to provide a more comprehensive broad general education. It seems we may have had all this upheaval to make S3 a general year with a wider number of subjects while postponing exams until S4 when there would be 25% fewer subject choices.

But not all these issues can be fixed on the spot in Dundee; some need attention at the national level by the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Mike Russell. 

For example, the slow pace of details being released by the Scottish Qualifications Authority about the new National Four and Five examinations is reducing the long term planning time in secondary schools. This could be remedied by a one year postponement of implementing the introduction of the new examinations and continuing with Standard Grades for another year. In similar circumstances in England, the government have been prepared to allow twelve months more for preparing for an important educational change. Last week we learned that in East Renfrewshire, a Labour/SNP led council has decided to postpone putting its pupils in for the new exams by one year.

  

If we don't take this decision to postpone in the next few weeks, timetables will be written for next year and we will be saddled with a change that is being rushed in without the confidence of teachers, parents and carers that this is neither the right change nor the right timescale for the new exams.

If I met Michael Russell, the Cabinet Secretary for Education, these are the four key questions I should want to ask him about making a success of the Curriculum for Excellence in Dundee schools:

• Why, while advocating a broader general education via curriculum for excellence, is choice actually going to be decreased by a quarter in S4? What has he got to say to the parents who have already complained about the effects of this reduced number of choices in S4 on the options for their child in meeting entrance requirements for some University courses?
  
• Why has the Cabinet Secretary gone out of his way to antagonise teachers by cutting their conditions of work and their pensions at a time when he needs their undivided professional attention to make a success of implementing the Curriculum for Excellence and the new examinations?
  
• Why has be allowed the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) to get so far behind providing the documentation for schools and teachers so that they can adequately prepare themselves and their senior pupils for the new exams to be sat for the first time in May 2014? Many parent are worried that their children are the unfortunate guinea pigs for all these changes.
  
• Many secondary teachers feel they are under prepared and the changes in the Senior Phase (S4-S6) of Secondary Schools are being rushed. Many parents have reservations too. Will he now provide another year of preparation time for the new examinations and review the limits on subject choices in S3/4?