Hansard

Some of Mr Kelly’s colleagues on the Labour front bench with an education brief have highlighted that we most certainly do not want to adversely affect the availability of teachers in the classroom, so we have proceeded with care to get the right people in place and to ensure that there are no unintended consequences from recruiting the much-needed attainment advisers.

I will focus now on the national improvement framework. Since I became the education secretary, there has been strong debate about the need for more information on how our children are doing, particularly in primary and in lower secondary. Meaningful information is a key tool in informing learning and teaching.

That debate informed our programme for government, which had education and the new national improvement framework at its heart. The framework is the next phase of curriculum for excellence and builds on a strong record of achievement. It will bring together key information from a number of areas to evaluate performance and it will inform the action that is to be taken to improve achievement for every child. This is not about narrowing the curriculum or forcing teachers to teach to a test and it is not about a return to high-stakes testing. Assessment will inform, not replace, teacher judgment.

Assessment is not an end in itself. The framework is about meeting children’s needs, knowing how well they are doing in the classroom and identifying where schools and local authorities need more support. Assessment is just one part of the framework, which will also look at the key areas across education—school improvement, school leadership, teacher professionalism, parental involvement and performance information.

The framework sets clear priorities so that everyone who works in Scottish education is clear about what they are trying to achieve—to improve attainment, specifically in reading, writing and numeracy; to improve children’s and young people’s health and wellbeing; to improve the achievement of sustained school leaver destinations for all young people; and to close the attainment gap between the most and the least disadvantaged.

Last week, I wrote to every headteacher in Scotland to express my thanks for the significant contribution that they and their staff have made to implementing curriculum for excellence. Their professionalism and leadership are fundamental to achieving the improvements that we all want for all our children.

An intrinsic aim of the framework is that it will provide parents with meaningful information about their child’s progress. Parents and parental organisations have a crucial role in working with us to ensure that the framework meets their needs. Starting in Edinburgh next week, we will have eight engagement events that are aimed at teachers, local authorities and parents, and in the coming months I want teachers and parents to continue to have their say and to shape the framework.

The successes of Scottish education to date are testament to the hard work and commitment of pupils, teachers, school leaders, parents and everyone who is involved in our education system. They deserve our recognition and our thanks, but there is more to do, and I make no apology for setting the bar high. I want every child in every community to have every chance to fulfil their potential and realise their dreams, no matter who they are or where they go to school. That is more than an ambition; it is indeed our moral imperative, and it is up to each and every one of us to shape the education system to ensure that it delivers that.

I move,

That the Parliament welcomes Scotland’s educational success since 2007; further welcomes that more children are entitled to the highest ever level of early learning and childcare, that the number of Primary 1 pupils in classes of 26 or more has fallen by 97%, that more young people get the qualifications that they need, that a record percentage leave for positive destinations and that more of the population is educated beyond school than in any other European country; notes, however, that the Scottish Government needs to do more to raise standards for all children, securing its twin aims of equity and excellence; acknowledges the investment in these aims through a range of initiatives focusing on closing the attainment gap, including the Scottish Attainment Challenge and the Attainment Scotland Fund; commends the Making Maths Count programme as a route to driving up attainment in maths and numeracy; recognises that it is important to gather the right evidence about children’s progress to show that all that local authorities, schools, teachers, parents and children and young people themselves are doing to raise standards is working, and looks forward to the next steps in developing a national improvement framework to achieve this.