Hansard

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Christine Grahame) SNP

The next item of business is a debate on motion S5M-13945, in the name of Liz Smith, on primary 1 tests. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to ...

Liz Smith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con) Con

The Scottish Conservatives are very pleased to bring this debate to Parliament, because we believe that it is of crucial educational importance. I am sure th...

Bruce Crawford (Stirling) (SNP) SNP

Is the member aware that currently 29 councils across Scotland carry out P1 assessments? Will she call today for those councils to halt the assessments, or w...

Liz Smith Con

I am very well aware of exactly what councils are saying just now. In some of those very same councils, teachers are speaking out loud and clear about their ...

The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills (John Swinney) SNP

Liz Smith said that the Conservative Party was supportive of P1 assessments in 2016. On 28 August 2018, Liz Smith issued these words: “The Scottish Conserva...

Liz Smith Con

I recognise that we made a mistake about primary 1. I just say to the SNP that this, coming from a party that in two programmes for government—in 2016 and 20...

Stewart Stevenson (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP) SNP

Will the member take an intervention?

Liz Smith Con

I will not do so at the moment, if the member does not mind. In my teacher training years, I remember exactly the same debate taking place among primary tea...

Stewart Stevenson SNP

Is the member aware that on 17 September 2017 Justine Greening announced a mandatory test for pre-school children, and that on 18 April 2018 a contract was p...

Liz Smith Con

Thank you, Mr Stevenson. Yes, I am aware of that. The same debate is happening in England, Wales and many other places—it is not unique to Scotland. I would...

John Swinney SNP

Does Liz Smith not accept that the issues that she recounts from a primary schoolteacher, which are entirely reasonable, should lead us to the conclusion tha...

Liz Smith Con

No. Scottish Conservatives disagree with that. Given the evidence that has been piling up over the past two years, we consider that the time has come to call...

The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills (John Swinney) SNP

When we make decisions about the future of our children’s education, it is important that we have available to us dispassionate expert opinion to help us to ...

Oliver Mundell (Dumfriesshire) (Con) Con

I wonder whether the cabinet secretary had time to listen to Professor Jim Scott’s comments this morning in the Education and Skills Committee. He said that ...

John Swinney SNP

I have just set out why we need the assessments: the OECD told us—

Oliver Mundell Con

Where is the evidence?

John Swinney SNP

I am just marshalling the issue. Interruption. We sought external independent opinion, which said that we did not have enough information about learning outc...

The Deputy Presiding Officer SNP

I am sorry, cabinet secretary, but before we carry on, I have a point to make. Mr Mundell—you are annoying me with your barracking. If you want to say someth...

John Swinney SNP

The president of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland made the point, in the letter that she authored with my officials to directors of educ...

Iain Gray (East Lothian) (Lab) Lab

When Mr Swinney made a statement a couple of weeks ago, I asked him whether he knew how many of those local authorities had replaced the previously used diag...

John Swinney SNP

East Renfrewshire, for example, is a long-established assessment authority. It wants consistency between the SNSA and the historical model that it has been u...

Liz Smith Con

When it comes to raising standards across the board, which is what we all want, what evidence does the cabinet secretary have to support his approach? With r...

John Swinney SNP

The key point here goes back to the quotation from the OECD that I read out at the beginning of my speech. Essentially, we do not have enough information abo...

Johann Lamont (Glasgow) (Lab) Lab

Is the data being collected at national level? We have been advised that it would not be collected at national level, but the cabinet secretary seems to be s...

John Swinney SNP

I am saying nothing of the sort. I am saying that teachers, in working their way through the assessments, will have greater clarity about the performance of ...

The Deputy Presiding Officer SNP

I am giving speakers a little extra time—Liz Smith could have had that, too—as we have time in hand. There were a lot of interventions. If anybody is wonderi...

Iain Gray (East Lothian) (Lab) Lab

I am clear that we on the Labour side of the chamber have no problem with teachers assessing pupils’ learning. Teachers assess pupils’ learning every day usi...

John Swinney SNP

Mr Gray said that we use the standardised assessments to judge performance around the country, but that is not the case. We use information from teachers’ pr...

Iain Gray Lab

The survey is certainly not a diagnostic learning tool, and it was never claimed to be. It is a summative survey tool. Later on, I will go into a little deta...

John Swinney SNP

I acknowledge that many teachers do not like the standardised assessments. Equally, many other teachers like them. The issue was illustrated to me this morni...