Week 1: Education Flashcards
What are the main organisations involved in the Scottish education system?
- The Scottish Government, develops national policy and sets the overall direction of education policy.
- Councils, responsible under the Standards in Scotland’s Schools Act 2000 for providing school education for every child of school age. This includes developing local education policy, and planning and managing resources to improve the quality of school education.
- Education Scotland, works to improve the quality of education, for example by inspecting schools and by developing the curriculum.
- The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), accredits and awards qualifications at both secondary and college level.
- The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership, manages the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework. This sets out the level and type of qualifications that are available.
- The General Teaching Council Scotland, the independent professional body that promotes and regulates all teachers in Scotland.
How is education funded in Scotland?
Councils:
- Needs to pay for primary schools, secondary schools and nurseries
- Pay for the upkeep of the buildings, new buildings, teaching, resources, school meals etc.
Glasgow city council:
- Last year, the council spent 27% of its budget on education
- That’s £517million for over 300 schools and nurseries providing education for around 70,000 pupils
what does scot gov spend money on?
Learning Children and Families Early learning and childcare Advance learning and science Scottish funding council Higher education student support Skills and training budget Central government grants
The attainment gap
Many children and young people living in our most deprived communities do significantly worse at all levels of the education system than those from our least deprived communities. This is often referred to as the ‘attainment gap’.
New figures reveal that children living in the most affluent areas of Scotland are continuing to perform at a higher level than those living in the most deprived communities.
In P1, there is a 19.2 point attainment gap for literacy, which grows to a 21.5 point gap in P4 and P7.
This is replicated in numeracy, with a 13 point gap in primary one, growing to 18.3 points in primary four and then a 19.3 point gap in primary seven.
Devolution of resources and budgets to schools
Devolution of resources and budgets to schools will give direct control of some budget to school heads (where this was previously totally controlled by local councils) to improve standards and close attainment gap between best performing and other schools in the local area.
This therefore means less resource under control of the local council. Teaching and other school staff will remain council employees’.
new headteachers charter
These new powers will be set out in a statutory charter for head teachers, and will include:
They will “design” their local curriculum in line with Curriculum for Excellence
Head teachers will be responsible for deciding their school’s “improvement priorities” and enact a plan based on those priorities
They will choose their own staff with regard to employment law and the contractual obligations of their local authority
And head teachers will make decisions on how to spend their budgets
What other issues is the Scottish Government facing in education?
-Pay disputes with school teachers and college lecturers were resolved in 2019
Who are Education Scotland?
Education Scotland is the Scottish Government’s arm’s length body which aims to promote improvement in Scottish education (child care, pre-school, school, colleges, including the private sector).
It conducts inspections for institutions in each of these sectors of education.
It inspects various aspects of education, including leadership, curriculum etc and gives a rating in each of these areas plus an overall rating for the institution.
Ratings are excellent, very good, good, satisfactory, weak and unsatisfactory.
How is higher education funded?
Universities get their income from a number of sources including:
Money from the Scottish government - via the Scottish Funding Council - which pays for the free tuition of Scottish and EU undergraduates
Fees charged to students from other parts of the UK
The uncapped fees charged to students from outside the EU
Research funding. This comes from the Scottish and UK governments, the EU and the private sector.
Outline the nature of state funded faith-based schools and the process of establishing a new faith-based school.
Faith-based schools – denominational schools – aim to provide education predominantly for members of a particular faith (e.g. Roman Catholic or Muslim).
Mainstream curriculum in accordance with guidelines from the Scot Govt. is followed with special provision for religious education.
These schools are subject to the same inspection framework as all schools in Scotland.
Any faith group can set up a school if the local education authority (local council) is in agreement regarding the demand and feasibility of such provision in the area.
Such schools are subject to the same funding arrangements and professional standards as non- denominational schools e.g. all teachers must be registered with the General Teaching Council Scotland.
Denominational schools
A denominational school is one where special provision for religious education is included in the school’s education.
In the main these are Roman Catholic faith schools, permitted under the Education (Scotland) Act 2018 and all political parties in Scotland have agreed their continued provision, provided demand for places is justified.
While not all teachers (or pupils) are required to be Roman Catholics, most are.
A representative of the Roman Catholic Church is represented on school management.
Most denominational schools (except for a small number of independent schools) are run and funded by local authorities like all other comprehensive schools in Scotland.
Standardised test
Standardised tests are diagnostic assessments of school pupil achievement and attainment over a number of subject areas at specified ages.
The tests are similar (standardised), to be administered in all schools and the aim is to provide a benchmark of data attainment across all schools; this should enable improvements, actions and plans where this is found necessary.
What are the Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSA)?
School children in P1, P4, P7 and S3 complete online standardised assessments in literacy and numeracy as part of everyday learning and teaching.
The assessments help to identify children’s progress, providing diagnostic information to support teachers’ professional judgement.
The assessments are as inclusive as possible to accommodate the needs of children and young people who require additional support.
There is no pass or fail and children and young people do not have to revise or prepare for these assessments.
Education is devolved to the Scottish Govt, who carry out the following duties:
- oversee school curriculum and qualifications
- raising attainment and ending the poverty related attainment gap
- introduced the national improvement framework to deliver excellence and equity in education
- endeavour to have the best people in teaching and support their professional
- invest in school buildings and oversee changes to the school estate
- provide guidelines on devolved school management to help local authorities develop their own schemes
-are taking advantage of digital opportunities to transform delivery of education in schools - support and promote pupils’ health and wellbeing
ensure children and young people with additional support needs are supported in learning - provide guidance to assist local authorities to locate children if they go missing from education
WHat is being done to close the attainment gap?
Scottish Attainment Challenge
The Scottish Attainment Challenge is about achieving equity in education. This can be achieved by ensuring every child has the same opportunity to succeed, with a particular focus on closing the poverty-related attainment gap.
The Scottish Attainment Challenge was launched by the First Minister in February 2015. It is underpinned by The National Improvement Framework, Curriculum for Excellence and Getting it Right for Every Child.
It focuses on improvement activity in literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing in specific areas of Scotland. It will also support and complement the broader range of initiatives and programmes to ensure that all of Scotland’s children and young people reach their full potential.
The £750 million Attainment Scotland Fund is a targeted initiative focused on supporting pupils in the local authorities of Scotland with the highest concentrations of deprivation.
