Meeting of the Parliament 17 May 2017
I congratulate Liz Smith on her motion, which seems to have brought a degree of consensus to the chamber. As others have done in their opening remarks, I thank all the teachers and staff in our schools who are involved with additional support needs for the work that they do for our children. That work is invaluable, as most speakers have said.
There is good performance in education in Scotland, but we recognise that there are areas in which we need change. This SNP Government is getting on with the job of taking the actions to deliver improvements. We are investing record amounts in schools to close the attainment gap and £120 million will go direct to schools in the most deprived areas this year alone. As I have said in the chamber before, in a constituency such as Coatbridge and Chryston, where some of the schools will receive fairly significant sums of money, that is very welcome. It should not be downplayed or undervalued in any way and I have enjoyed speaking to headteachers during my many visits to schools about the inventive ways in which they plan to use the money. As members can imagine, literacy and numeracy have come up in those discussions.
The evidence that the committee received is concerning, as members have acknowledged, and the Scottish Government knows that there is room for improvement. The evidence highlighted inconsistencies with working practices between different establishments and the analysis of initial teacher education courses found variations in the time that is spent on key components of the curriculum, with the widest variation in the crucial area of literacy.