Meeting of the Parliament 29 March 2017
In my contribution, I will concentrate on the first part of the Liberal Democrat motion, which refers to inspections.
As a member of the Education and Skills Committee, I was interested in asking Education Scotland about the inspectorate when it appeared before us at the end of last year. In my mind, the main questions about inspections were about the workload and stress that they have traditionally resulted in, but we were assured by the current chief inspector, Alastair Delaney, that the method of inspections was changing, with more emphasis on support and advice on classroom practice and less of the sort of walking around with a clipboard and making judgments based on documentation and copious written evidence that we had for many years.
I must admit that I was sceptical. I know many teachers—indeed, Mr Cole-Hamilton is not the only person who is married to a teacher—and their experience of inspections has not always been positive, as was reflected in some of the submissions that we received from teachers based on historical inspections. However, when a school in my constituency has an inspection, I take it upon myself to go and speak to the headteacher about their experience, so I have some up-to-date evidence from my constituency that the inspection method is improving. Recently, two of my local primary schools underwent inspections that both headteachers said were a vastly more positive experience for the schools than inspections in the past have been. It is important that we monitor that and ensure that that is the trajectory.