Behaviour in Schools

The Scottish government published a lot of education statistics last week so the report into behaviour in schools didn’t get much coverage. Which is a shame because its important. What the report tells us is that cuts, particularly to classroom assistants and to specialist support staff, are creating problems in school when it comes to maintaining positive behaviour. This substantial report backs up what members told UNISON during our survey of school staff at the beginning of the year.

The new report finds that there has been an increase in low-level disruptive behaviour since 2012. Staff also reported that it is this type of disruptive behaviour that has the biggest negative impact on their experience in schools.

Head teachers, teachers, support staff and pupils all agree that there is a clear link between having sufficient support staff in a classroom and positive behaviour in that classroom. Staff also felt that the reduction in support staff combined with growing numbers of pupils with ASN had resulted in a shortage of one-to-one support for pupils and a wider negative impact on behaviour.

Again in line with UNISON’s research, it is clear that support staff do not have enough time for discussions with class teachers about pupils or involvement in whole school discussions about behaviour and relationships in schools. Headteachers also indicated that cuts in non-school based support for pupils with additional needs are also impacting on the level of support available to pupils. It is also clear that when resources in schools are stretched in general then that has an impact on other aspects of school life which could promote positive behaviour.
The report also states that

“There is also scope for improvement in relation to: ensuring that support staff feel valued, communication and training”

Earlier in the year our members told us the feel undervalued and the lack of time, lack of resources and heavy workloads mean they are struggling to maintain standards for pupils in Scotland. Things like the Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland only including teacher numbers doesn’t help. This year they have added the numbers of early years workers with or working towards degrees but no numbers for those with other qualifications. Not counting these staff seems indicative of an attitude that these workers don’t count. The Behaviour in Schools report shows that they do.

We need to invest in and value the whole school team if we want to give pupils the best chance of succeeding.

School Infrastructure: Minister's Response to the Parliamentary Report

The Minister for Local Government and Housing, Kevin Stewart has now responded to the Education committee’s report into school infrastructure following the Cole Report. The Cole report was the result of an investigation into the collapse of a wall at Oxgangs primary school and the subsequent closure of 17 other schools.

UNISON evidence to the committee is available here. The remit of the Cole inquiry included

Reasons for the wall collapse
Use of private finance for the building work
The Council’s role in providing quality assurance of buildings

The Education Committee made a range of recommendations and the Minister has now responded laying out the Scottish Government plans going forward: He writes that the government will soon produce new procurement guidance for all public bodies and the Scottish Futures Trust. This new guidance will also include guidance on how public bodies can be “intelligent customers”.

Sadly they have not accepted the committee's recommendation that the route to quality assurance is through ensuring that public bodies employ a Clerk of Works for every capital project. The minister states that there are a range of methods but that guidance will identify "the critical value that a Clerk of Works role can bring to a projects but will also identify the conditions where a Clerk of Works may not be the optimal approach" There is also a plan for new research to support a review of what “reasonable inquiry” means and how local authorities can undertake them in their role as "intelligent customers".

The Minister states that has written to all authorities indicating that they must ensure that buildings no longer come into use without the appropriate building warrants. He has reminded them of their power/responsibilities and that they risk losing their verifier status if they do not use these powers.

Building standards teams will now be tasked with promoting their role as verifiers to the public and promote the Scottish government guidance. If responses to UNISON’s survey of our members in building standards are anything to go by this is the sort of thing they keeps them away from their central role of ensuring the safety of buildings and building work. They are building professionals not marketing/pr people. The teams are already overworked. There is no indication in the ministers response of any extra funding for local authorities to enable them to meet these requirements.

The Education and Skills Committee also recommended working with stakeholders including trade unions to improve training for construction workers and ensure we have enough properly trained skilled construction workers. UNISON is disappointed that the Minister’s letter refers to meetings and discussions with SBF, SQA and CITB but not with any trade unions.

UNISON report into the impact of cuts in Building Standards teams shows how much pressure they are under to maintain a high quality service.

• Almost half (48%) said there have been budget cuts this year while one in five (20%) said the cuts had been severe.

• There are 56 less staff working in Building Standards departments now than in 2010.

• The overwhelming majority (89%) feel their workload has got heavier in the last few years.

• Almost half (47%) felt they should spend a lot more time on site visits while just 13% felt they had the right balance between site visits and office time.

• Nearly 40% work unpaid hours ‘now and again’ while over a third (37%) work unpaid hours most weeks.

• 48% described morale as low, with over three quarters (78%) saying they don’t expect it to improve as a result of budget cuts, increased workload and lack of a pay rise.


Building standards play a vital role in ensuring public safety. There needs to be adequate funding and staffing in order to ensure they can undertake that role.

Getting it Right for Every Child

Before the recess the Education Committee at the Scottish parliament published a report into how well additional support for learning is working in practice. The report supports the feedback UNISON had been getting from our members in schools. Scotland is not getting it right for children with additional support needs.

We have some great strategies and policy commitments to supporting children with additional needs but these have not been matched with adequate funding to enable their implementation. Schools do not have enough money for recruitment, training and support for the staff needed to meet those needs.

There is also still widespread misunderstanding about who is actually working with these children and young people on a day-to-day basis. Again and again in policy papers and inquiries the focus in on teachers, teacher training and improving their skills and knowledge. These are not the workers supporting children. It is is support workers, pupil support assistants and classroom assistants. There needs to be training and professional development for all the staff working with those children.

When the education committee held an evidence session at the parliament it was interesting to see that politicians, and policy people talked about teachers all the time but the parents talked about classroom assistants and support workers. They know who is working with their children.

No policy will work without appropriate funding. This means the day-to-day delivery of that service and for adaptions, special equipment and extra space in mainstream schools and nurseries and as the new proposals for strategic delivery acknowledge very specialist provision out with the mainstream for some.

Parents often have to fight to get the additional support their child needs. When parents (who are able to fight) “win” that fight is no additional funding attached to implement the decisions. This therefore has an impact of provision of services for other children relying on that budget. The Scottish government needs to develop a much more detail on the demand for both the strategic services proposed in the strategy and those services that will remain in local authority control. There then needs to be funding to meet those costs. It is also clear that there is a risk that those from better-off backgrounds have higher chances of winning those battles and so further increasing the attainment gap.

UNISON conducted a survey of school staff earlier in the year and while the survey was about the impact of cuts on schools, members working with children with ASN consistently responded saying that they were not getting adequate training and support to deal with the complex needs of the children they were supposed to be supporting.

Scottish government is now consulting on improved guidance for schools on “supporting children’s learning” and the "healthcare needs of children in our schools". Good guidance on these issues is very welcome but delivery of the services depends on adequate funding otherwise it will just be another set of folders on an office shelf.

Education reform - a tricky balancing act

The Scottish Government’s education reforms are an attempt to balance their centralising tendencies with local democracy and give headteachers’ greater responsibility for their schools, without excessive bureaucracy.

The document published yesterday is the Scottish Government’s response to the consultation on education governance. It sets out the next steps in their reform of education and schools in particular. While there will be some immediate actions over the summer, the details will be the subject of a further consultation before decisions are taken in the autumn. Legislation will follow early in 2018.

This is significantly later than planned and has already been criticised as a further delay. In fairness, there have been a few other things going on and complex reforms need to be properly considered and planned. The shambles of Police Scotland reminds us of the risks in making changes without proper planning.

The main criticism of the original consultation was that it signaled further centralisation and the undermining of local democratic accountability. The seven new regional bodies are to be called Regional Improvement Collaboratives, using the Welsh model, and helpfully these don't involve taking over all local authority support services. While the paper is light on detail, it appears to focus on teaching collaboration, sharing best practice etc. Support services will remain with councils, although they will have a statutory duty to collaborate and pool resources.

The new Regional Directors will be appointed by the Scottish Government, enabling them to direct policy through a national framework. This gives a further indication that the Scottish Government has moved away from outright centralisation, towards what I have described in my recent Reid Foundation paper as a hybrid model. This uses quangos or other mechanisms to direct policy while leaving the administrative delivery to local government. COSLA has  expressed its concern over this dilution in the local authority role. A COSLA Spokesman said: 

 “There can be no getting away from the fact that the Scottish Government is trying to give the impression that Scotland’s councils still have a role to play in the delivery of education when the reality is that they do not; the simple truth is that there will be no meaningful local democratic accountability for education in Scotland.”

While most funding will remain within local authorities, there will be a national funding formula supporting a new statutory ‘Headteachers’ Charter’. It remains to be seen how much local flexibility will remain to address local circumstances.

There is a welcome recognition that there is a wider education team other than teachers. The paper states:

“We will recognise the contribution of the whole school workforce by working with them to introduce professional standards for these staff, including classroom assistants, to recognise the importance of the whole education team.”

Given the scale of job cuts to this group of staff any recognition is welcome, and the paper makes special mention of the need to support young people with additional support needs, something UNISON has highlighted. Other education staff that have learning roles or support teaching will be professionally registered with the new Education Workforce Council that will also take over the functions of the GTCS. UNISON will have a number of issues with this regarding fees, training, professional standards and how we can ensure that the roles of our members in education are not ignored in this wide ranging body.

The paper indicates that headteachers’ will select and manage staff in their school. The HR function will remain in local authorities, which wisely avoids a lot of bureaucracy, but we will need more detail on how this will work in practice. For example, what does this mean for grievance, disciplinary and other procedural agreements? Retaining national bargaining over terms and conditions is a helpful reassurance, although there is also local bargaining over the terms and conditions of the wider workforce.

The paper may also have implications for UNISON members in the Care Inspectorate, through the shared inspection model and the requirement on the SQA to strengthen its consultation and engagement processes.

The paper promotes greater parent, pupil and community engagement in schools, which is an important element of any education system. However, there is a risk that schools could be isolated in the new structures losing the whole system approach. As COSLA puts it:

“The Scottish system has worked tirelessly towards a co-ordinated approach – health, social work, the third sector and others rally around a child and provide them with the help both they and their family need.  Schools are only one facet of this.  If the Scottish Government continue down this path of isolating education, the whole system approach is lost and it is the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children in our society who will suffer as a result.”

The primary aim of these reforms is to close the attainment gap. Schools and early years provision clearly have an important role in this, but the solution involves action to tackle inequality in Scotland. Headteachers are not well placed to address this and it is unclear from the paper how this partnership approach will work in practice to avoid isolating schools.

Overall, the government has certainly listened to the consultation responses and attempted to create a something of a balance between their centralising instinct and local democracy. The paper sets out a high level response and a realistic timetable. The debate will be over how these proposals achieve the stated objective and how they will operate in practice. 

Apprenticeship Levy - Keeping it local

With an ageing public sector workforce, we should be encouraging apprenticeships by passing the funding from the Apprenticeship Levy onto those public service employers who deliver quality apprenticeships.

 

This is Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2017, which focuses on the benefits apprenticeships bring to businesses, individuals and the Scottish economy - an opportunity to encourage more employers to offer quality apprenticeships. Events and activities involving employers, apprentices, colleges, local authorities and training providers are taking place across the country to celebrate the success of apprenticeships.

 

The UK wide Apprenticeship Levy is to be implemented from April 2017 and collected by the HMRC from large employers. Employers in England, including public sector bodies, will be able to directly access funding. However, in Scotland the money goes into the Scottish Government's budget - around £230m per annum.

 

Public sector employers in Scotland are important providers of quality apprenticeships. In a recent UNISON Scotland survey 81 per cent of apprentices described their training as excellent or good, even though almost half (46%) felt there should be a greater degree of off-the-job training. That is not to say there are not issues that need to be addressed. More than one in three (35%) rated their chances of achieving a job upon completion of their course as ‘don’t know’ or ‘unlikely’. Gender segregation also remains a huge issue. While the percentage of women employed in apprenticeships varied across councils, a strong pattern exists of women taking up apprenticeships in administration or care, while being almost completely absent from ‘craft’ apprenticeships.

 

Councils spend at least £25m on providing hundreds of valuable opportunities for young people such as modern apprenticeships, craft apprenticeships, graduate trainees, probationer teachers, formal work experience as employers that all contribute to the Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce (DYW) Programme, jointly led by the Scottish Government and local government as partners.  This major programme aims to reduce youth unemployment by 40 per cent by 2021.

 

However, in Scotland the apprenticeship levy resource is not being passed on to these providers. COSLA has estimated that, based on last year’s pay bill for councils, the Apprenticeship Levy could potentially cost local authorities £24m as employers. That could rise to almost £50m across the public sector in Scotland.

 

Originally, local government understood that it would have its Levy funding returned in full in the next financial year by the Scottish Government.  Then councils were told that they were not to receive any of their own funding back from the Scottish Government. This decision undermines the DYW Programme and efforts to reduce youth unemployment in Scotland by putting in danger the future of valuable local initiatives provided by councils and other public service employers for young people. 

 

The bottom line is that apprentice recruitment is not happening at a sufficient rate to either: alter the ageing demographic of the workforce in public services; or replace the numbers leaving the workforce through voluntary redundancy or early retirement.

 

By centralising funding, the Scottish Government is discouraging public service employers from taking on apprentices. It is time to think again and return this funding to those local employers who want to develop quality apprenticeship programmes.

Getting it right in schools

Reorganising education governance is simply a distraction from the real issues facing our schools as highlighted in UNISON Scotland’s survey of school staffs. That’s also the conclusion of a wide range of published responses to the Scottish Government’s governance consultation.

 

UNISON Scotland’s response to the consultation highlights the OECD report on Scottish education, which identifies successes and challenges in the Scottish education system and offers recommendations to drive continued improvement. The report points out that it’s time “for a bold approach that moves beyond system management in a new dynamic nearer to teacher and learning”. Instead we are seeing a continued focus on systems and governance.

 

Current education structures provide democratic accountability through local government. Parent councils and parent forums also exist to give parents a voice in their children’s schools. Local authorities also provide a balance allowing economies of scale for HR services, purchasing and specialist support. Where there are difficulties for head teachers accessing the support they need the issues are about staff shortages and budget cuts not the structures involved. Managing more bureaucracy under central direction is the last thing schools need.

 

If the government needs an example of this, then we give them one today in our publication ‘Hard Lessons’. In probably one of the biggest surveys of school support staff ever in Scotland, staff report heavier workloads, jobs cuts, lack of educational supplies, and dirtier schools. This is while pupil numbers and education support needs are increasing.

 

There are 6707 more pupils since 2010 in Scottish schools, but there 1841 less support staff and 1389 less teachers. This report confirms the enormous stress this puts on support staff.

 

54% of support staff say budgets have been cut, 40% carry out unpaid work to meet workloads, 60% say morale is low, and 80% say workloads are heavier. And services like school libraries are closing. Many report stress from the lack of training and support they receive for the tasks they are asked to carry out – like administering medicines or caring for pupils with challenging behaviour.

 

The report reveals a dedicated workforce committed to supporting children to reach their potential. Staff skip breaks and work late to meet their pupil’s needs. But they are exhausted, undervalued and under enormous pressure.

 

Any serious attempt to improve educational attainment has to start well before children get to school - that’s why early learning is so important. In UNISON Scotland’s submission to the Scottish Government’s ‘Blueprint 2020’ for early leaning and childcare, we place an emphasis on quality provision.

 

We need to make sure that we learn the lessons of the adult care sector where we now have a fragmented service, which is costly and hard for users to navigate, with varying quality of service and a race to the bottom for staff terms and conditions. The voucher schemes proposed in the consultation have a high risk of creating a service based on low paid and unqualified staff.  It risks creating a two tier system where those who can afford to pay more on top of the vouchers will have access to better nurseries than those on low incomes. Vouchers also add extra complexity and administrative costs to the system. Vouchers will do the opposite of closing the attainment gap.

 

The Scottish Government’s ambition to close the attainment gap is entirely right. However, simply moving the deck chairs didn’t work for the Titanic and it won’t work for schools. The focus should instead be on tackling the issues identified in today’s UNISON report and invest in preventative spending like early learning.

Challenge Poverty Week - Early Years

Important though actions to ameliorate poverty are in the short-term, it is through preventative spending and early interventions that we will begin to eradicate poverty in Scotland. One of the most important of these interventions is through early year’s provision.


This is Challenge Poverty Week in Scotland in which the Poverty Alliance and its member organisations seek to highlight the reality of life for over 900,000 people living in poverty. It is therefore a good time to look at the measures being taken to address poverty.


The Scottish government has chosen this week to publish its blueprint for the expansion of early years learning and childcare (ELC) in Scotland.  The centrepiece of this plan is to almost double entitlement to free ELC to 1140 hours per year by 2020 for all three and four year olds and eligible two year olds.


Five years ago, the Christie Commission used early year’s provision to illustrate the importance of early intervention. The blueprint confirms the Scottish government’s support for this concept when they say:


“It is widely acknowledged that the provision of universally accessible and high quality early learning and childcare enriches children with the skills and confidence to carry into and multiply throughout school, and is a cornerstone for closing attainment and inequality gaps”


With this statement you would assume that the plan would be to expand high quality early year’s provision that makes a real intervention in the lives of children at this crucial period in their lives.


The blueprint covers a number of key areas that might help achieve this. As ELC is delivered by people, the workforce is a key element. The blueprint states:


“It will be vital to ensure that, as part of the expansion, the skills and qualifications profile of the ELC workforce is raised, diversity is increased, and there is greater gender balance in the workforce.”


The blueprint also reminds us that we are a considerable way from achieving this in the private sector, with 80% of practitioners and 50% of supervisors in partner provider settings paid less than the Scottish Living Wage. Levels of qualifications are also poor in this sector.


To deliver the laudable aims in the blueprint we need a delivery mechanism to match. This is sadly where the plan starts to unravel. Three of the four options in the blueprint are demand led approaches, very similar to the Tory voucher scheme approach to public service delivery. The obvious risk in this approach is that it leads to a race to the bottom in quality provision and the wholesale privatisation of the sector.


This is not entirely unexpected. The SNP manifesto commitment to employ an additional 20,000 childcare workers and build 200 early years centres, always looked optimistic on a suspiciously round budget of £500m. Sadly, government budgets don’t stretch on the loaves and fishes principle!


We have some experience of a race to the bottom in the social care sector. Because of budgetary pressures, social care has suffered from a race to the bottom in poor quality care. The consequences are half a million patient days in hospitals lost to delayed discharges. Only now are we beginning the climb up from the bottom with the requirement to pay the Scottish Living Wage. Even so, most councils in Scotland are still a long way from a quality care standard as set out in UNISON’s Ethical Care Charter.


The workforce lesson is that this approach results in workers that feel so undervalued that they don’t want to work in the sector and turnover rates soar. When you add Brexit to the mix, recruiting 20,000 additional workers to the sector is going to be beyond challenging.


So, my plea would be to learn the lessons of social care and don’t replicate them in ELC. We need a fairly paid, well trained workforce that can make the early year’s interventions that can close attainment and inequality gaps. We know all too well that privatisation and inequality go hand in hand.

Scottish universities in good shape, but the future looks challenging

Audit Scotland has taken a look at Scotland's higher education sector. It finds that it is financially healthy but faces future challenges, and tough choices are likely if public funding is to deliver government policy ambitions.

Scotland has more world-class universities per head of population than any other country in the world except Luxembourg. There are 19 universities in four groupings:

- the ‘Ancient’ universities – Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews

- the ‘Chartered’ (1960s) universities – Dundee, Heriot-Watt, Stirling, Strathclyde

- the ‘Modern’ universities – Abertay, Edinburgh Napier, Glasgow Caledonian, Highlands and Islands, - Queen Margaret, Robert Gordon, West of Scotland

- the Small Specialist Institutions (the ‘SSIs’) and Other – Glasgow School of Art, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Scotland’s Rural College, the Open University in Scotland.

The report finds that Scottish universities play an important role economically and socially and have a strong international reputation. The Scottish Government budget includes £1.1 billion funding for universities in 2014/15, and £623 million funding for individual university students. Scottish Funding Council (SFC) funding to universities has reduced by six per cent in real terms since 2010/11 while funding for university student support increased by approximately 37 per cent in real terms over the same period. 

The sector supported 144,549 jobs and contributed an estimated £7.2 billion to the Scottish Economy in 2013/14. The report argues that the SFC needs to do more to ensure that its funding to universities makes the maximum contribution to achieving government policy ambitions. It should review its strategies for key areas, such as research and innovation, to ensure funding is used to best effect. Never the less, in the most recent UK-wide assessment of research quality, 77% of the research submitted by Scottish universities was judged to be either world-leading or internationally excellent.

The Scottish higher education sector is currently in good financial health with an income of £3.5 billion that generated a surplus of £146 million. However the report says this masks underlying risks within the sector. Surpluses and reserves are concentrated in a small number of universities and some are heavily reliant on Scottish Government funding at a time when it is reducing. 

Universities need to continue generating surpluses and reserves and making efficiency savings to fund capital costs and subsidise some of their activities. They are placing increasing reliance on generating income from fee-paying students from the rest of the UK, which may not be there post-Brexit, and outside the European Union (EU). For example, the SFC assesses the cost of providing teaching for Scottish and EU students and pays on average, £5,179 in 2014/15, and £6,999 when the tuition fee element is included. This appears to be well below the actual cost.

A good example of cost pressures is the estate - 22% of the overall higher education estate in Scotland is in poor or very poor condition. The report concludes that there are risks that universities with lower surpluses and reserves will not be able to continue to fund capital improvements at the level they require. In addition, from 2015/16, the actuarial deficit in the USS pension scheme (£8.2bn) will be placed on university balance sheets.

In 2014/15, there were 232,570 students studying at Scottish universities, 66 per cent of whom were Scottish. Overall student numbers have increased by 5% over the last ten years and the student population is becoming increasingly international. It has become more difficult in recent years for Scottish and EU students to gain a place at a Scottish university as applications have increased at a greater rate than increases in the number of places that the SFC funds for Scottish and EU students. The report also finds that the current funding approach to improving access to university for students from college and deprived backgrounds is under pressure. The Scottish Government's support for widening access needs to be backed up with cash.

The media headlines focused on the finding that it has become more difficult in recent years for Scottish and EU undergraduate students to gain a place at a Scottish university. However, the future funding challenges highlighted in the report are significant and will need to be addressed if the Scottish model is to survive.

Education reform - empowerment or centralisation

The Scottish Government has signalled education as its first priority, most notably by giving the Deputy First Minister, John Swinney the lead role. Possibly shades of Tony Blair's, education, education, education mantra here. The first indication of John Swinney's approach comes with the publication of his Education Delivery Plan and it looks  eerily  reminiscent of the New Labour approach to public service reform.

The  Education Delivery Plan aims to achieve excellence and equity in Scottish education by focussing action around three key priorities: closing the attainment gap, delivering the curriculum and empowering teachers, schools and communities.

The plan gives an explicit commitment to “a publicly owned and run, comprehensive education system in Scotland – a mutual system, not a market system – which supports every child to achieve". This is clearly meant to differentiate from the Tory, free school, privatised model, which is supposed to be driven by the market.

While the Tory approach pays lip service to inequality, the driver for this plan is bridging the attainment gap. A pupil from the 20% least deprived areas of Scotland is almost twice as likely as one from the 20% most deprived areas to leave school with a qualification at SCQF 6 or better (Higher equivalent or above). There will be few who disagree that this the correct driver, five years on from the Christie Commission identifying the 40% of public spending on failure demand and the importance of preventative spending. However, schools cannot bridge this gap alone. This can only be addressed by cross-cutting government action on income, taxation and strong public services.

The most important intervention has to be before a child gets to school, arguably before birth, but certainly in the early years. This plan therefore includes the government's welcome commitment to the doubling of early years and childcare hours. The concerns relate to funding and quality. It looks as if we will have to await the financial review of early learning and childcare in September 2016, for clarity on how the promised £500m is going to stretch to 20,000 staff and 600 centres. The frequent references to childminding is worrying, as this is not the quality early years provision required to make a difference in supporting children in the vital early years.

In schools, there will be a renewed focus on literacy and numeracy at P1-3; indisputably the correct focus. This will be backed up by targets, inspection, advisors and a range of national programmes. As well as an increase to £750m in the School Attainment Challenge fund that ministers dole out directly. It is here that we see shades of the Blairite approach developing - very reminiscent of the central delivery unit approach to reform. Top down targets and inspection, backed up by league tables in a reformed Parent Zone website, with ministerial handouts to pet projects.

More positively, there are elements of the plan that recognise that resources will have to be targeted on the schools in the most deprived areas. Proportionate universalism is the right approach, but it will require some bold political decisions if the targeting is to be significant enough.

There will be a range of measures to reduce bureaucracy for teaching staff by clarifying the requirements of Curriculum for Excellence. This will be welcomed by teaching staff, although the other centralised initiatives may place new burdens on schools. Sadly, there is no recognition of the role the wider education team play in schools – staff other than teachers are totally ignored. Teachers may be less keen on the introduction of national standardised testing in all schools by August 2017.

A Governance Review will be announced alongside the Programme for Government in September 2016. This review, starting in early 2017, will examine the system changes required to "empower schools, decentralise management and support through the encouragement of school clusters and creation of new educational regions". The plan is to extend to individual schools responsibilities that currently sit with local authorities. This will be done in a new Education Bill in the second year of this Parliament.

The structural changes will be the subject of further consultation, but the direction of travel is clear. It proposes centralising the education role of local authorities to new regions with more central government direction. How these new regions will be constituted will be important for issues like VAT exemptions and the employer role. Equally important, will be clarity on the freedoms schools will have over devolved budgets, including the deployment of staff. 

The new governance model is one of some devolution to the very local (individual schools), with an enhanced role for central government. Government will have a wide range of powers to direct how education is delivered, backed up with advisors, testing, direct funding and data transparency. In a country the size of Scotland it is perfectly reasonable to set national standards and frameworks. The risk with this plan is that almost all the real levers of power over schools will be in St Andrew's House. I count more than twenty new national initiatives, on top of those already in the National Improvement Framework.

New Labour may be dead, but it's approach to public service reform is very much alive in Scotland. The temptation on ministers to try and run services from the centre is always strong. However, the lessons from the 1980's are that central delivery doesn't work - so that temptation should be resisted.

Prospects for education services in Scotland

Giving the Deputy First Minister responsibility for education is meant to send a message that this service is a priority for the new government. So what might we expect in the coming years?

Let's start at the beginning, with early years. The SNP manifesto commitment is:

"By 2021, we will almost double the availability of free early learning and childcare to 30 hours a week for all 3 and 4 year olds and vulnerable 2 year olds – a policy that will save families over £3,000 per child per year. To deliver this expansion, we will invest an additional £500 million a year by 2021 and create 600 new early learning and childcare centres, with 20,000 more qualified staff."

By any standards this is a big and welcome commitment, even over a five year period. The first delivery challenge is budgetary. Is £500m really enough to pay for 600 new centres and 20,000 staff? By my calculations this will barely cover the cost of employing qualified staff at todays pay rates. Then you have the capital and revenue costs of the new buildings, which is difficult to calculate, but will be huge. Perhaps it's a good thing the former finance cabinet secretary is now running education - he will need to do the 'loaves and fishes' miracle with this one!

What the manifesto doesn't say is how and who will be delivering this massive expansion. As the UNISON Scotland early years manifesto sets out, this is best delivered as a public service with fairly paid staff. Working with children is not just about the time spent with each child. Workers also have to plan, evaluate, and assess learning and keep detailed records of each child’s progress. There needs to be wider recognition of what these posts involve and adequate funding for the staffing levels and hours of work required to do the job.

Schools and closing the attainment gap is the next challenge. There has been some ridicule from opposition parties over John Swinney’s call for some time, given they have been in power for nine years. However, he does at least bring a fresh pair of eyes to the challenge and as UNISON has pointed out in our submission on the Education Bill, the attainment gap is rooted in our unequal society, not simply what happens in schools.

The specific proposals in the SNP manifesto have a very Tory/New Labour feel about them - testing, targets, and funding directly to schools bypassing local authorities. Sadly, there is little evidence that these approaches have worked elsewhere and it is noticeable that the advocates of academies and free schools in England are now calling for larger groupings of schools, as large as 25 schools. That looks remarkably like a local educational authority to me!

What is sensible is the plan to renew the focus on literacy, numeracy, health and well-being – targeting support on areas with significant areas of deprivation. Investing £750m ‘in the next parliament’ in the Attainment Fund and £100m from the Council Tax changes will be welcome - even if the extra bureaucracy of head teachers having to administer it isn’t.  There is also a welcome recognition that teacher numbers are not the only solution – classroom assistants get a mention after years of cuts. School libraries also deserve greater recognition.

The biggest structural change is the proposal to create ‘new educational regions to decentralise management and support’. That sounds like tautology to me, but we can only assume it means regionalising education authorities, while allocating more resources directly to schools. This will be backed up by ‘more focused and frequent’ school inspections.

The next stage in the education journey is colleges. After years of cuts, regionalisation and 2000 job losses; the commitment is to, ‘maintain the number of full-time equivalent college places that lead to employment’. There is an understandable view in the sector that they have paid the price for extra university funding. However, there should at least be a bit of stability going forward.

For universities the focus is on improving access for students from the most deprived backgrounds. Free tuition is the right policy and enjoys cross party support, but it has done little to improve access. They will adopt the recommendations of the Widening Access Commission and set a new target of 20 per cent of students entering university to be from Scotland’s 20 per cent most deprived backgrounds by 2030. Reviewing bursary support for students in colleges and universities will be an important part of achieving that target.

It is pretty clear that the new government’s education focus is on early years and schools. Educational inequality starts young, certainly before school age, so that is the right priority. The row over the Named Person scheme is frankly a distraction from more important issues. The big challenges will be financial, particularly in early years where the ambition doesn’t match the budget. In schools there will be significant scepticism that the outlined structural reform will contribute to the solutions, but targeting additional funds where it is most needed, is the right approach. 

College Cuts: Plenty Of Pain But No Evidence Of Any Gain

As UNISON stated when the proposals came out college mergers have not improved further education. Audit Scotland’s review: Scotland's Colleges 2015 confirm that our concerns about the changes in further education colleges have been realised. As we stated during the consultation, any savings would come from job losses. There is no evidence of any other savings other than these job cuts. There were no measures in place to capture the costs of mergers and/or savings from the process other than staff costs. The Scottish Government promised that mergers would make £50m a year savings by reduced duplication and better engagement with employers. College funding has fallen by £26.1m between 2011-12 and 2012-13. There are still no mechanisms in place to capture this information. It is impossible to judge success without any criteria to measure it by.

Audit Scotland also state that "many of the effects of the mergers are still taking place, however, and there are continuing challenges for the sector: IT systems still have to be integrated and staff terms and conditions have yet to be standardised” Again staff are an afterthought in a process of change rather than central to it."

What we do know is that staff numbers have been cut by 9.3% and that there has been a 48% reduction in part-time students and 41% in those who are 25 and over. At a time of wider job losses cutting back on the opportunity to retrain and gain new skills and combine this with part-time work will not only harm individuals but will hold back economic recovery.

UNISON welcomed measures put forward by the Government to improve governance and accountability in our colleges so there is no celebration here that our concerns have been proved right. What we want is high quality services that meet the needs of our communities. Listening to the workers who deliver services helps get things right: prevention is after all better than cure

Poverty is the real difference between school attainment levels

The Scottish Government's parentzone website has published data on the performance of school leavers. The Daily Record highlighted how these figures show a shocking class divide between the wealthiest and least well off areas of Scotland.

Dave Watson's opinion piece in the Daily Record ran alongside the article. In it he argues that the difference tells us more about poverty than schools.

 

"These figures don’t tell us much about schools. What they tell us is that poverty ruins lives.

The enormous gap in qualifications between children in poor and wealthy areas is simply a reflection of the inequality that scars Scottish society. An appalling number of families are relying on foodbanks. You don’t need to be an educational psychologist to work out that a well fed child is going to be a better pupil than one who is hungry. Saying that looking at these figures tell you more about house prices than it does about standards in schools is no joke, it’s the truth.

They certainly don’t tell us much about the teams who deliver education in the schools. Arguably it’s the schools where fewer children are getting qualifications that are working the hardest, as the team in the school attempt to help the children overcome a host of social disadvantages in order to learn. Think about it – if it were simply a matter of the attitudes of the staff would the pattern of poor areas and supposedly poor schools be quite so consistent?

One of the things that drives attainment is the chance to undertake educational enhancing activities. It is clear that better off parents have resources to allow their children to take part in a wider range of activities than their less well-off peers. For example, going to see a play live makes it easier to get good marks in English than just reading it in a book or out loud in the class.

Those who have the least opportunity to do these activities out of school because of lack of money, need to have these opportunities through school. Cuts in local authority funding, made worse by the council tax freeze, mean that the cost of school trips, whether for a day or a week, and sports clubs are increasingly falling on parents. These are burdens that many families cannot meet. Here in UNISON we have been told by members on low wages or zero hour contracts of instances of their children, knowing the sacrifices their parents would make to find the money, of not even telling parents about school trips. These charges mean that far from narrowing the gap will see it grow.

There are some initiatives that could be taken in schools that might make some difference. Ensuring poorer children are not denied support that can't otherwise be offered would be a good place to start - for example by ending the trend of getting rid of Classroom Assistants.

And let’s hope that the political response to these figures avoids nonsense about ‘improving aspiration’. As if the poor, who lets remember are mostly working for a living, don’t or can’t care for their children.

No one should be in any doubt that the real key to reducing the gap between how children in poor areas do compared to children in rich areas is to reduce the gap between rich and poor."

 

School support staff do make a difference

New research shows the value of pupil support staff in schools - particularly for pupils with low attainment levels or from disadvantaged groups.

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), a UK charity set up in partnership with the Sutton Trust has published the first of six reports funded by the English department of education. Another 66 studies involving 450,000 children are ongoing at one in ten schools in England. The studies – based on trials with 6,800 pupils at 238 schools – focused on programmes to help children at risk of arriving at secondary school without the level of literacy and numeracy expected of them. Some of the programmes were seen to be more effective than others.

One report called Catch-up Numeracy, an intervention in which pupils struggling with maths had two 15-minute sessions a week for 30 weeks, found that the one-to-one time with teaching assistants led to a significant gain in numeracy skills.

The research shows that Teaching assistants can help children improve literacy and numeracy skills if they work in small groups with specific pupils known to have low attainment levels. The findings appear to contradict previous research on teaching assistants, which had suggested that they did little to help struggling children.

No more NEETs

The IPPR has published a paper that sets out a strategy for radically increasing the proportion of young people who are learning or earning, by establishing a distinct work, training and benefits track for those aged 18–24. This approach is underpinned by two new initiatives: a youth allowance, to keep young people out of the adult welfare system, and a youth guarantee, to ensure they stay in touch with the labour market.

There are over a million young people who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) in the UK, equivalent to almost a fifth of all 18–24-year-olds. Just 4% of 15–24-year-olds in the Netherlands and 7% in Denmark are NEET, compared to 14% in the UK. This is a huge waste of individual potential and imposes large, long-term costs on society.

There are three key planks to the plan:

1. A youth allowance should replace existing out-of-work benefits for 18–24-year-olds and provide financial support for young people who need it, conditional on participation in purposeful training or intensive job-search. Access to inactive benefits should be closed off for all but a very small minority. To pay for this substantial expansion of financial support for young people who are currently NEET or in further education, the youth allowance should be paid at a standard rate and be means tested on the basis of parental income until the young person is over the age of 21. This would mirror the rules for access to the higher education maintenance grant. There should also be a presumption that young people are housed by their parents until they are over 21, with exceptions for those with a child, a disability or in employment.

2. A youth guarantee should be established that offers young people access to further education or vocational training plus intensive support to find work or an apprenticeship. For those not learning or earning after six months, paid work experience and traineeships should be provided, with no option to refuse and continue receiving the youth allowance. The youth guarantee would ensure that young people can complete their initial education and gain practical employability skills, while not drifting into inactivity. To pay for this substantial expansion of provision for young people, expenditure on 18–24-year-olds in the Work Programme should be re-directed, along with adult skills and apprenticeship funding for over-24s. In addition, parents’ entitlement to child benefit and child tax credit should cease at the end of the school year after their child has turned 18, when their entitlement to youth allowance begins.

3. The government should set national objectives and priorities for the youth guarantee, but the leadership of local areas should be mobilised to organise and deliver it. Decentralisation should start with London and the eight ‘core cities’ in England taking on resources and responsibility for their young people. These cities should establish strong governance arrangements, including a central role for employers, along with plans for commissioning a diverse network of local providers. In other parts of England the youth guarantee should be commissioned nationally and delivered through existing agencies and providers (with local input wherever possible). In every area, the personal adviser model should be paramount and data on performance against headline national objectives should be regularly published. To increase opportunity and drive employer engagement, large firms that do not offer apprenticeships for young people should pay a ‘youth levy’ to train and prepare the future workforce.

There are devolved aspects of this plan that would need to be agreed by the Scottish Parliament. It also fits in well with suggestions that Scotland’s cities should take responsibility for welfare to work programmes.

Commission for Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce

Having had, an admittedly quick, read of the Wood Commission’s interim findings it’s a bit disappointing that there are no recommendations to tackle gender segregation in workplaces and modern apprenticeships or low employment rates for people from BME communities and people with disabilities.

Wood Commission’s interim report offer recommendations on the “educational offer to young people“ with the next session on employer’s support still to come. The recommendations are somewhat predictable, schools and colleges to develop better links with local businesses, and more focus on economic development. Nothing new here: businesses want the public sector to ensure young people are ready to become workers.

What is disappointing though, is that tackling inequality does not appear to be core to the commission’s thinking. The foreword says that “An appropriate title for our school/college vocational initiative would be ""attainment for all", enriching school education with clearer and more open routes for all young people,” but we will have to wait for the second half of the study to find out their the results of their plan to “look to make meaningful recommendations to improve employment outcomes in relation to gender, disability and ethnicity.” The issues Scotland’s people face from discrimination on the grounds of gender, disability and ethnicity should have been central to this report. Allowing discrimination to prevent people reaching their potential and so contributing most to our society and economy should have been to use the jargon “mainstreamed” into the commission’s work.

The fact that the interim report only mentions gender in order to park it for another section does not fill me with much confidence about their recommendations. Equalities issues need to run through all of the work done to improve workforce development; they are not a separate issue.

Just pay your taxes

It seems that Mike Russell is exploring ways of encouraging philanthropists to take on a role is Scottish schools. The cabinet secretary was speaking this week at a conference organised by the David Hume institute. Lindsay Paterson presented his report: Outstanding Students and Philanthropic Contributions in Scottish School Education” at the event. Here Professor Paterson lays out ways in which “the imagination of the philanthropic entrepreneur can be brought to bear on providing opportunities for outstanding students to flourish”.

It’s great that people want to give money to support Scottish education but there are also risks. Lindsay Paterson is right to say that we have to retain democratic accountability in policy making. The Herald also rightly raises concerns about whether such a scheme will widen the existing gap between top and bottom. Too many children fail to achieve their potential.

What happens to pupils with outstanding talents isn’t really the issue in Scottish education. The outstanding students in Scotland already match the outcomes of the highest achievers in international comparisons. Last week at another conference on inequality in education I learned that in maths the highest achieving children match those in Hong Kong but at the other end of the scale we rank alongside Turkey. The issues are why the outcomes are so poor for those from deprived backgrounds and how to raise their attainment. As Mike Russell said “promotion of greater social justice and greater equity in educational outcomes for all our children and young people” should be the priority for government initiatives. Fresh ideas and energy are always welcome but schools need adequate secure funding, (not tied to the whims of big money donors) and education professionals, trained to high standards in order to achieve these goals.

Another way forward would be if those who have lots of money who want to support our schools just pay their taxes at a decent rate. That’s how we maintain democratic control over spending. They wouldn’t get a flashy building or fund with their name on it but they would be able to help a lot more children reach their potential.