Meeting of the Parliament 02 February 2016
I rise to support the amendments in the name of George Adam. The bill’s purpose is to close the attainment gap. Mr Adam said that we need to look at the bigger picture, but I argue that we need also to look at the smaller picture if we are seriously going to address the attainment gap. We must ask ourselves what the key problems are that lead to that gap.
Later this afternoon, we will move amendments about looked-after children—a group of young people who have particularly poor outcomes at school. Mr Adam also made a compelling case for considering the strong association between socioeconomic disadvantage and delayed development in speech, language and communication. Indeed, he quoted the huge figure of 54 per cent of children from low-income households presenting with below-average vocabulary ability at age five. That means that they arrive at school with problems in the very skills that are required for them to do well in their learning. It is therefore no surprise that, as Mr Adam said, there is a strong association between delayed development in speech, language and communication and inequality of outcome, including in attainment. For those reasons, we agree with Mr Adam that, although this is not a special case, it is a very powerful aspect of the problem that the bill is designed to address.
I will mention two of the amendments in the group that seem to be quite important. Amendment 27 is on the duty to use inclusive communication standards in communicating with, for example, parents. Those of us who have looked at the evidence around the attainment gap agree that engaging with parents and families in the round, not just children, is crucial to making a difference. Some of the parents to whom we need to provide the most support will themselves have SLC needs; therefore, we should require schools to consider that and how they can account for it.
If the cabinet secretary does not feel able to support the other amendments in the group, I hope that she will support amendment 28, which seems to be of particular significance because it would require the national improvement framework to take account of the most common barrier to learning—that which is faced by children and young people with SLC delay.
For those reasons, I support the amendments in Mr Adam’s name.