 develop their professional learning. To improve school leadership there will be a new programme for aspiring and existing headteachers, while teachers will get more funding to obtain masters-level qualifications (all Finnish teachers have one).
These changes are also intended to address the deprivation gap, among various other measures. These include ensuring there are enough teachers of science, maths, technology and engineering; and a new sort of teacher that works between upper primary and early secondary. Currently, Scottish pupils often regress in early secondary years.
Potentially most controversial are plans for standardised testing in primary 1, 4, 7 and the third year of secondary. There are also plans for clearer performance information for parents, school inspections more focused on the government’s education priorities, and an annual report of school performance information at national level.
These are certainly more than just high-level aspirations. The extra emphasis on teacher professionalism takes their responsibilities seriously. The reforms wisely don’t suggest any silver bullet to the deprivation gap, recognising the need for adjustments across the board that don’t hinder pupils from better backgrounds.
Standardised testing is a concern. It is not clear why the Scottish government is embracing a strategy which in England has been proven to take an unwelcome psychological toll and narrows the curriculum by encouraging teachers to focus on areas being tested.
This is not to say there shouldn’t be assessment in primary schools. Any jurisdiction worth its salt, such as Ontario, Canada, analyses what results are saying. This is not used to shame teachers, still less pupils, but to put in place necessary learning for teachers and pupils to improve.
If the Scottish government takes this kind of balanced approach to testing and follows through on raising standards in other areas, the country may yet achieve what it wanted in the early 2000s. There is some way to go, but scaling the OECD rankings and creating a system that the world envies is certainly not out of the question.
First punblished by The Conversation and reproduced here with permission
Image courtesy of Scottish Government