Meeting of the Parliament 17 May 2017
I join Johann Lamont in welcoming the tone of the debate, which has perhaps been more measured than some of our other education debates—it has certainly been more measured than the rather fraught fish fight that, by all accounts, preceded it. She is right that that is partly because the debate has come about, not for the first time, because of good work by the Education and Skills Committee in identifying a particular problem, although in fairness, work has also been undertaken by the GTCS and the Scottish Government. It is important that we have had a chance—albeit a short chance—to discuss some of the teacher training issues that are being considered. Mr Swinney is right that that involves a number of people and bodies and not just the Government.
A lot of speeches have focused on the capacity and preparation of teachers to teach literacy and numeracy. I suppose that that is not surprising given the recent poor results in literacy and numeracy, which Murdo Fraser certainly did not resist revisiting.
Others made the important point that this is not just about literacy and numeracy. Liam Kerr and Ross Greer referred to the need for better training for teachers on supporting pupils with additional support needs. Like Mr Scott, I acknowledge the work that the NASUWT has done in recognising that, as we have fewer ASN specialists in schools, the obligation to carry out that work and for it to be better falls across the spectrum of all teachers.
In fairness to the Scottish Government, that issue is not new. I have spoken before about how, in my early days of teaching at Gracemount high school, we also taught pupils from Kaimes school for the partially sighted, and I did that with no preparation in teacher training at all. My teaching experience was just as long ago as Johann Lamont’s experience and I think that things should have improved since then.
The lack of confidence among most primary teachers in teaching science has not been spoken about. Developing that confidence is important for our economic future, too.
I will take just a few minutes to speak about our amendment. It refers to the need for more teacher training on working with pupils who have particular challenges, such as being looked-after children or living with adoptive families. Although people might think that that is a relatively small number of pupils, they face particular challenges, especially around attachment, and they are very much at the wrong end of the attainment gap that we talk about so often.
I raise the issue because of a small Adoption UK project in my constituency of East Lothian. The attachment ambassador programme is a grass-roots project that was started by an adoptive parent who is an Adoption UK volunteer. In a single cluster, the programme has recruited in each school an attachment ambassador who has significantly improved the educational experience for looked-after children and those who live with adoptive families. We need to see much more of such projects. However, one problem that was identified through the project was the lack of training in initial teacher education on dealing with pupils with such backgrounds.
I agree with Jenny Gilruth’s important point that initial teacher training is not just about how good people are at carrying out their job but about the attractiveness and status of the profession. I remember my placements when I was in teacher training, but what I remember more than anything else was a particularly inspirational contribution that was made by an Educational Institute of Scotland activist called Alex Wood. His politics went slightly wrong later in life, but he became a well-regarded headteacher. I have never forgotten his description of why teaching is such a worthwhile profession. We certainly need to do all the work that we have talked about so that we can do exactly what has been described for more people.
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