Committee
Education and Skills Committee 05 June 2019
05 Jun 2019 · S5 · Education and Skills Committee
Item of business
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Inquiry
Ian Menzies
Watch on SPTV
Sure. One of the big features in the STEM strategy is teacher confidence. We have heard that from some of the other panellists already. Education Scotland is playing a leading role in professional learning and in building teacher confidence in the system. Last week, we published the results of the practitioner survey and provider survey that we undertook to look at the provision of STEM professional learning in Scotland. The results show that 43 per cent of the respondents from early learning and childcare agree or strongly agree that they are confident in delivering STEM. That compares with 63 per cent of respondents from primary education. We know that we have a big piece of work to do if we are to build on those confidence levels. I mentioned that the RAiSE programme has been a big part of our work in that area over the past three years. We are really excited to be extending that programme to local authorities around Scotland in partnership with the Wood Foundation. We are grateful to the Wood Foundation for the financial support it has given to that programme, which is more than £1 million to date. Another big piece of work that we have been doing is the grants programme that we launched in October, through which we have issued £187,000 to 24 organisations around Scotland. The focus of that programme was to extend provision to practitioners around Scotland to ensure equity of access, to develop new models and approaches and to find ways of scaling up existing provision that has proved to be successful. Last week was a big week for Education Scotland, because we launched a second round of that grants programme. We now have a budget of £1.3 million, which is really exciting. Our new STEM team is busy working with local authorities around Scotland and with school clusters to encourage them to bid for that money. That money is for the STEM strategy, but it is also for making maths count, because we realised that mathematics and numeracy are a core part of STEM. We are really keen to have a focus on maths and numeracy. We know that we have work to do on building confidence in technologies and engineering, and we have identified those as priority areas for the grants this year. In addition to the £1.3 million that we announced last week, we are starting to distribute a further £500,000 of funding to those organisations that bid for the funding last year. The idea is that, year on year, we will see growth in the provision of professional learning within the STEM strategy. For instance, most of the 24 organisations that received funding last year will continue to extend and develop that support into this year. The £500,000 is to support that work.
In the same item of business
The Convener
SNP
Agenda item 2 is the committee’s inquiry into STEM in early years. I welcome to the committee Susan Boyd, a primary school teacher; Elisabeth Kelly, a princi...
Elisabeth Kelly
My name is Elisabeth Kelly. I am a principal teacher for early years in Midlothian Council, and my role is primarily to support, challenge and help to improv...
Susan Boyd
I am currently a primary teacher at Breadalbane academy, in Aberfeldy, but I have over 40 years of experience of working with children and was formerly a pri...
Dr Emma Woodham (Glasgow Science Centre)
I am the STEM learning manager at Glasgow Science Centre, and my role involves managing our multifaceted learning team. At Glasgow Science Centre, we are pas...
Ian Menzies (Education Scotland)
Good morning. I am a senior education officer at Education Scotland. I lead on the sciences curriculum and on learning for sustainability, and I am responsib...
Andrew Bruce (Scottish Government)
Good morning. I am a civil servant in the learning directorate at the Scottish Government. The division that I lead was responsible for developing the origin...
The Convener
SNP
Thank you. We have quite a big panel this morning. When you want to respond to a question from the committee, please indicate that to me or the clerks and we...
Liz Smith (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con)
Con
Mr Menzies, I wonder if I could ask you about Education Scotland’s overall strategy on the STEM subjects. You have pinpointed some examples of what you consi...
Ian Menzies
Sure. One of the big features in the STEM strategy is teacher confidence. We have heard that from some of the other panellists already. Education Scotland is...
Liz Smith
Con
I am sure that all of that work is immensely encouraging. I want to draw your attention to some of the comments that have been made to us by STEM profession...
Ian Menzies
Obviously, there is an opportunity to promote that competence within teacher training. For us, it is about the whole journey of a professional from the momen...
Liz Smith
Con
On that theme, are specific issues being raised by teacher training colleges and the GTCS? Is there a problem with the knowledge that is being taught on STEM...
Ian Menzies
The issue is really just people going into teacher training without a background in, or experience of, science. There is a big job to be done. There is an op...
Liz Smith
Con
I have one final question—
The Convener
SNP
I think that Ms Kelly wants to come in on that point, before we move on.
Liz Smith
Con
Apologies.
Elisabeth Kelly
Most of the practitioners that we work with in early learning and childcare do not go through the initial teacher education programme; they come from many ot...
Liz Smith
Con
Thank you. My last question is for Susan Boyd. A couple of years ago—and more recently—the Royal Society of Chemistry commented that it would like to see a d...
Susan Boyd
That would be lovely, and I would totally welcome it. I will deviate slightly from the question that you asked, but I hope that this relates to it. I am hap...
Liz Smith
Con
Thank you.
Ross Greer (West Scotland) (Green)
Green
Ian Menzies mentioned some of the survey results on the confidence of practitioners. Roughly 43 per cent of early years practitioners and 63 per cent of prim...
Ian Menzies
We do. That is one of the reasons why we took forward the work on the annual STEM practitioner survey and the provider survey. We published those results las...
Ross Greer
Green
I am interested in the balance between initial teacher education and continuous development. I accept that we have just been talking about early years practi...
Ian Menzies
The value of the data that is coming from the STEM surveys is really important. Teachers have told us that their top priority across all sectors by a long sh...
Ross Greer
Green
I would be interested in Susan Boyd’s perspective on the balance. Have you seen any change over the past few decades in the balance between what is covered i...
Susan Boyd
My experience is that a lot of IT work is going on in the early years centres. In our survey in the school that I am currently in, we identified things that ...
Ross Greer
Green
I have a final question on early years practitioners for Elisabeth Kelly. I am thinking about balance again. How much emphasis should we put on equipping ear...
Elisabeth Kelly
It is probably a matter of a mixture of both, but the early years practitioners are the people on the ground every day with the children, and they are the on...
Ross Greer
Green
Yes—absolutely. Thank you.
Johann Lamont (Glasgow) (Lab)
Lab
My question, which is probably mainly for Education Scotland and the Scottish Government, is specifically about how realistically we can deliver the theoreti...