Committee
Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee 26 January 2011
26 Jan 2011 · S3 · Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee
Item of business
Review of Teacher Education in Scotland
Graham Donaldson (Review of Teacher Education in Scotland)
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First, I thank the committee for taking the time to consider the report “Teaching Scotland’s Future: Report of a review of teacher education in Scotland”. It has been published at a very important time for Scottish education, because the decisions that will be taken in the current financial environment could have far-reaching implications for Scottish education. One of the things that I hope the report will do is help to inform the decision-making process so that the necessity of dealing with the financial situation also takes account of the need to build for the future rather than deal just with current issues.I was asked an interesting question about halfway through the review by a colleague from the Netherlands, who said there is an awful lot to admire in Scottish education and that the perception internationally is that we have a very high-quality education system that has a great tradition going back centuries, and that we have a well-qualified teaching profession, for which the McCrone agreement has put in place a number of things in respect of the contractual position of teachers that many other countries would like to get into. With reference to my previous post, she said that we have an approach to inspection and school improvement that is world class: it is recognised across the world as being at the forefront of thinking about how to bring about school improvement. She also said that curriculum for excellence is absolutely setting the right agenda for our education system to move forward. Then she stopped and asked, “Why are your outcomes not better?”We have in place most of the conditions that would suggest that we ought to have not just a generally high-quality education system, but one that produces the kind of high-quality outcomes that, for example, Finland, New Zealand and Australia produce. We should be in that company. We are not at the other end of the spectrum, but we are not in that company. One of the things that I hope the report and its recommendations will contribute is an answer to why we are not. We have perhaps given insufficient attention in recent years to how to support and develop the capacity of the teaching profession as individuals as opposed to doing so for schools in the abstract, or for teachers in general. The question is how we support and develop and build the capacity of each and every one of our teachers and school leaders.I hope that the report will partly help to answer that. The report’s recommendations are intended to deal very directly with the two big questions of how we ensure that the quality of our teaching force is as high as it can be, and how we ensure that it is led as well as it can be. In that sense, the report builds on the philosophy and practice of McCrone, and prepares the ground for, and works with the grain of, the philosophy of curriculum for excellence. I see this report as being designed very much to bring those two together in a way that can lead to the next step in Scottish education.It is important for me to put on the record two points. First, a lot of what I say in the report is possible only because of existing strength, so I am not talking about a deficit model: the report builds on existing strength. Secondly, throughout the nine months of the review, the response that I invariably got from all quarters—not only in the education system, but more widely in the business and political communities—was significant engagement with the issues that I was dealing with and support for the need for us to examine the relationship between how we develop our teachers and the quality of education.
In the same item of business
The Convener (Karen Whitefield)
Lab
Good morning. I open the third meeting in 2011 of the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee. I remind all those present that mobile phones and o...
Graham Donaldson (Review of Teacher Education in Scotland)
First, I thank the committee for taking the time to consider the report “Teaching Scotland’s Future: Report of a review of teacher education in Scotland”. It...
The Convener
Lab
Thank you. I am sure that a number of members will want to ask questions, but I will start. The report has a section on ensuring that we get the right people...
Graham Donaldson
That is starting with a tricky question. The report looks directly at entry to the profession in terms of both how we ensure that the right people are being ...
The Convener
Lab
It was a helpful answer, too. I am sure that it will lead to lots of questions.
Elizabeth Smith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Con
Good morning, Mr Donaldson. You have done a first-class job in this report—not only in the way in which it has been presented, but in the way in which you ha...
Graham Donaldson
In recent years, we have been fortunate in Scotland in that we have not had major supply questions in relation to teaching, but that has reinforced the situa...
Elizabeth Smith
Con
You raise an interesting point. You are absolutely right: we must have rigour, and I strongly defend the GTC with regard to the process. It is absolutely rig...
Graham Donaldson
In principle, I agree with that. Of those who are engaged in helping young people to learn, the core will remain the body of the teaching profession itself. ...
Elizabeth Smith
Con
I have a further question, which I hope is relatively simple. When it comes to improving outcomes, what—among all your 50 recommendations—should we emphasise?
Graham Donaldson
The key is how we test what matters: we should always test by asking what impact something will have on children’s learning.Education can sometimes become a ...
Elizabeth Smith
Con
Indeed.
Alasdair Allan (Western Isles) (SNP)
SNP
I note your emphasis on literacy among teachers. My colleague and I were comparing notes—I should not laugh—on teachers we had who had literacy problems. Is ...
Graham Donaldson
That is extremely hard to quantify. My recommendation would give us the evidence. We would have a much better handle on the problem if we had better assessme...
Alasdair Allan
SNP
Did a picture emerge of intervention where there are problems? If there are problems with literacy, is something happening to address them? I know that you w...
Graham Donaldson
No, intervention is not the norm; it is variable. I asked that question of staff in universities. Some said that they regarded it as being important and that...
Graeme Logan (Review of Teacher Education in Scotland)
I echo that. The diagnostic approach seems to be the effective way forward. In some other countries that have literacy and numeracy tests, it is a case of pa...
Alasdair Allan
SNP
I am thinking primarily of English teachers and primary teachers for my next point. I understand that, in most countries around Europe, a teacher is defined ...
Graham Donaldson
As Graeme Logan said, what we define as being relevant to literacy in a teacher needs to be discussed. I did not attempt to deal with that in the report, but...
Kenneth Gibson (Cunninghame North) (SNP)
SNP
I am a bit shocked to hear that we expect teachers to be above average for literacy and numeracy; I expect them to be well above average, although that is no...
Graham Donaldson
Your questions have two aspects—one is relevant to the remit that I was given and the other is not. I have views on that other issue, but it is not part of t...
Kenneth Gibson
SNP
I think that my point follows on from your report. A lot of your report is about recommendations on literacy and numeracy, quality, training and so on, but s...
Graham Donaldson
You are setting up a straw man there. Obviously, somebody who is manifestly incompetent ought not to be teaching. I absolutely agree with that. We need to se...
Christina McKelvie (Central Scotland) (SNP)
SNP
That leads on quite nicely to my question, because Kenny Gibson’s question on the role of the teacher in leading their own learning is where I want to go. Yo...
Graham Donaldson
The General Teaching Council for Scotland has responsibility for accrediting courses in initial teacher education. Nobody has any insight into what happens t...
Christina McKelvie
SNP
The structure that we have for kids in schools at the moment involves learning communities. You are talking about extending that so that the teaching profess...
Graham Donaldson
The trick is to get much better flow than exists at the moment. Really good things are happening here and there across Scotland—in the 32 authorities, the se...
Christina McKelvie
SNP
It is quite an exciting world out there.In your opening remarks you talked about all the good things that are going on in Scottish education and you asked wh...
Graham Donaldson
That is a powerful hypothesis. As an inspector, I have to be careful and say that nothing is automatic. At the end of the day, what matters is how we do it. ...
Margaret Smith (Edinburgh West) (LD)
LD
I thank you and your team for an excellent report. I concur with Kenny Gibson’s comments about how we deal with teachers who should not be in the classroom. ...