Attainment takes centre stage

Standardised testing for P1, P4, P7 and S3 pupils was the headline story from the Scottish Government’s new agenda, but in fact much of Nicola Sturgeon’s speech was on education.
“Improving school attainment is arguably the single most important objective in this Programme for Government.

“Improving it overall and closing the gap between children in our most and least deprived areas is fundamental to our aim of making Scotland fairer and more prosperous,” she said.
The SNP has been under pressure from opposition figures and teaching unions over its record on education, with teacher numbers having fallen by around 4,000 since 2007, and results from the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy showing a decline in standards in the last two years. There have also been cuts to Further Education.

The introduction of new CfE exams for s4 and s5 pupils has also led to criticism the changes have been rushed through without adequate support for teachers.
And the attainment gap between the most and least deprived areas of Scotland has persisted.

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One of the architects of CfE, educationalist Keir Bloomer, told Holyrood this year he felt Nicola Sturgeon was less “self-congratulatory” about Scottish Education than her predecessors, but warned: “We’ve had now a solid fifty years of consensus thinking, with very little result whatsoever.” 

The relationship between the Scottish Government and the country’s local authorities – who run schools – has been increasingly terse as council budgets are squeezed.
Councils umbrella body COSLA said it was cautious about the new framework after not being consulted on it.

“We share the concerns of parents and unions that if not handled correctly this risks being a retrograde step for Scottish education that heaps more pressure on pupils and teachers and leads to inaccurate and unfair comparisons between schools,” said Councillor Stephanie Primrose, COSLA Education, Children and Young People Spokesperson.
“The whole point of the Framework should be to raise the bar on the quality of education data, starting with literacy and numeracy, but how that data is used and interpreted is even more important,” she added.

Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie warned primary testing would “lead to teaching to the test and every child put under unacceptable pressure to make the numbers look good”.
He added: “Despite what the first minister says it is clear that we are returning to the kind of testing and tables the previous Liberal Democrat/Labour administration abolished.”

The £100m Attainment Scotland fund is designed to raise standards among the poorest pupils over four years, but Scottish Labour Opportunity Spokesperson Iain Gray said the SNP are paying ten times more cutting Air Passenger Duty.

"The First Minister shouldn't be telling us her priorities, she should be showing her priorities in the budget," he said.