Publication - Strategy/plan
National Improvement Framework and Improvement Plan: 2020
Sets out the vision and priorities for Scottish education and the improvements that need to be made to help deliver those priorities.
Annex B
Summary of ongoing/completed activity from the 2019 National Improvement Plan
| Action | Current Position |
|---|---|
| School Leadership | |
| SL05 Next Steps commits to developing the Headteachers’ Charter and to consulting on a proposed approach to the legislation to underpin this, in time for the introduction of an Education Bill by June 2018. Given the commitment to bring forward the Charter, it will also be necessary to review the content of the Into Headship qualification. |
Complete A draft Headteachers’ Charter was published on the Education Scotland website on 7 February 2019. This was published alongside school leaders guidance and an empowering schools jigsaw diagram. The School Empowerment Steering Group has agreed a process for completion of the remainder of the suite of guidance, and the progress of this will be monitored as part of the Education Reform Programme: |
| SL08 Next Steps commits Scottish Government and Education Scotland to enhancing the leadership support package to build the capacity and culture for teachers and headteachers to take on their new more empowered roles. This is an ongoing commitment but one we have started working on from August 2017. |
Complete Education Scotland announced the launch of their enhanced leadership support package in May 2019. The recruitment process is now established and the support package is available to school leaders throughout Scotland |
| SL09 SG/ES will develop by the end of 2018 new Executive Consultant Head and Cluster Leader roles with partners to strengthen school leadership. |
Superseded The Independent Panel on Career Pathways, commissioned by the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT), has now published their final report, which contains recommendations on headteacher career pathways. These do not include Executive Consultant Head or Cluster Leader roles. The panel has however proposed that multi-headship roles should be properly defined while advocating the creation of system leadership positions. We will now actively contribute to the three SNCT workstreams being developed to implement the recommendations of the Independent Panel. |
| SL10 Scottish Government and Education Scotland will develop by the end of 2018 a new Systems Leadership role to provide clear progression opportunities and to strengthen educational leadership at all levels in the system. The Standards, including Standard for Headship, are currently under review by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS). The Scottish Government will work with GTCS to ensure that the revised Standard for Headship takes into account the headteachers Charter. |
Complete Education Scotland offered 2 professional learning opportunities to develop systems leadership in the form of Leading Systems Change and Evolving Systems Thinking. GTCS Standards are now out to consultation and making reference to empowerment. ES task has been completed. This is now under the ownership of the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers and GTCS |
| SL12 Further to the conclusion of the governance review consultation in January 2017, we will consider leadership throughout the system, building on existing models and supporting the development of school clusters and regional models. This will support a strengthened middle and highlight the importance of collaborative leadership. |
Complete School leadership is a key driver of the National Improvement Framework in recognition of the impact of effective leadership on children and young people’s outcomes. In 2018 Education Scotland became responsible for professional learning and leadership development and the Scottish College for Educational Leadership joined Education Scotland in order to take forward this work. In 2018 Education Scotland developed two new programmes supporting system leadership and collaborative working, Leading Systems Change and Evolving System Thinking. During 2019 Education Scotland will continue to offer a suite of national leadership development programmes while also working with the RICs to support regional activity to meet needs identified by teachers (see SL82 in Annex A). |
| SL13 We will continue to support the Scottish College for Educational Leadership in its vital role in supporting leadership development for all education practitioners across Scotland. This will include new packages of support for aspiring, new and experienced Headteachers. The Excellence in Headship programme for experienced Headteachers will be in place by March 2017 and will include professional learning opportunities to strengthen and expand school leadership skills, an international exchange programme for school leaders, and the development of a network of local champions to support Headteachers to draw on local expertise and work in partnership with the wider community. |
Complete During 2018 Scottish College for Educational Leadership (SCEL) became part of Education Scotland. Education Scotland widened its remit and role to include professional learning and leadership, with the SCEL team working collectively with their Education Scotland colleagues to support professional learning and leadership development for all educators across Scotland. The Excellence in Headship Programme was introduced during 2017 and development continued throughout 2019 and now offers enhanced leadership professional learning opportunities for headteachers. |
| SL14 We remain committed to supporting the Into Headship programme which supports up to 160 aspiring Headteachers each year through 2018/19. This will represent an investment of £1.5m from 2016 onwards. |
Complete – Business as usual Recruitment to cohort 5 is complete with over 160 participants starting the programme with our 7 university partners. (see SL79 in Annex B). |
| SL15 We will make holding the Standard for Headship mandatory for all new Headteachers by August 2019. |
Complete The regulations were agreed by the Education Committee in May 2019. It will now be mandatory for all those aspiring to headship after August 2020 to hold the Standard for Headship. |
| SL19 During 2019 the Headteachers’ Charter and new national guidance on an empowered system will be available to support local areas in ensuring that decisions are made as close to the child or young person as possible, in a collaborative and collegiate way. |
Complete National guidance was drafted in 2019, and shared across the system in August. These drafts are now being consulted on with the aim of issuing final agreed guidance by June 2020 (see SL83 and SL84 in Annex A). |
| SL20 In addition to continuing to provide a suite of high quality and effective leadership development programmes, Education Scotland will during 2019 enhance the leadership support package to ensure that empowered headteachers are well supported. This will include introducing new content to existing programmes to support empowered headteachers make key decisions about learning and teaching and in leading their teams – such as coaching and mentoring. Scottish Government will enable more headteachers to experience the Columba 1400 Headteacher Leadership Academy. |
Complete A prototype peer coaching process for Excellence in Headship participants was offered in March, and further opportunities for head teachers to engage with the Columba Head Teacher Leadership Academy programme have been promoted. An enhanced Excellence in Headship Programme was then launched in September 2019. During 2020 Education Scotland will extend engagement in international knowledge exchange including through the Excellence in Headship programme (see TP93 in Annex A). |
| SL21 The Headteacher Recruitment Working Group’s 2018 report identified a need for better data to support local authorities in succession planning for headteacher posts. In 2019 Education Scotland and Scottish Government will produce data packs to support local authority planning. |
Complete Data packs were prepared and shared across local authorities in advance of Into Headship cohort 5 recruitment. |
| SL22 During 2019 Education Scotland will continue to nurture the developing peer networks through which headteachers are leading improvement at a system level. |
Complete – Business as usual Education Scotland continued to develop the Excellence in Headship programme to support peer networks of head teachers and worked with head teachers who have completed system leadership professional learning programmes to support their ongoing learning and encourage support for further system improvement. This included engagement with the Evolving Systems Thinking programme. The Scottish Government has committed to continuing support for the Into Headship Programme through to the end of this Parliament |
| SL23 In 2019, General Teaching Council for Scotland will undertake a 5-year longitudinal evaluation of the impact of Professional Update including the use of the Professional Standards as a self-evaluation tool and the impact of professional learning on teachers and learners. |
Complete Professional Update was launched by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) in August 2014, and so 2019 was the fifth year of the GTCS annual evaluation of Professional Update. In 2020 the GTCS will be looking to create a 5-year longitudinal report to track particular questions through the data to uncover trends and key messages for the first complete cycle of Professional Update. |
| SL24 During 2019 Education Scotland will develop revised evaluation mechanisms for their leadership programmes, ensuring participant experience continues to inform future programme refinement and development. |
Complete The Education Scotland Professional Learning and Leadership team have worked with colleagues in the Improvement and Evaluation team to revise their evaluation methods to ensure evidence of engagement and impact is gathered consistently across programmes and is utilised in future programme development |
| SL25 Based on feedback from participants, during 2019, Education Scotland will introduce more resources to support headteachers’ resilience, health and wellbeing, including a new ‘health and wellbeing’ theme in Excellence in Headship. |
Complete – Business as usual The Excellence in Headship programme trialled an offer focused on headteacher health and well-being. This has now been embedded into the programme as part of the enhanced leadership support package. |
| SL26 In 2019, Education Scotland, with partners and stakeholders will take forward the recommendations from the Strategic Board for Teacher Education (SBTE) report including supporting system wide adoption of a revised model of professional learning, expansion of the Framework for Educational Leadership and a commitment that the General Teaching Council for Scotland and Education Scotland will work in partnership to review the purposes and processes of the Scottish College for Educational Leadership endorsement of programmes for inclusion in the Framework for Educational Leadership and GTCS accreditation of programmes leading to the award of professional recognition. |
Complete – Business as usual Education Scotland has convened a Professional Learning Stakeholder Forum to support overtaking the Strategic Board for Teacher Education (SBTE) recommendations. Guidance to support adoption and engagement with the new national model of professional learning is being developed collaboratively with stakeholders. Education Scotland has reopened endorsement processes which includes automatic endorsement for programmes which have been awarded GTCS Professional Recognition. The first meeting of the new endorsement panel has taken place with good feedback from the providers. We have also put in place a peer-review process with partner organisations in Ireland and Wales. Education Scotland will continue to work with GTCS in aligning processes across the organisations. Endorsement panel dates have been agreed across the year, chaired by Education Scotland with panel members from across the education system in Scotland. A refreshed online resource to support broader professional learning was in place and promoted at the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) September 2019. |
| SL27 We will publish, before the end of 2018, a new national standard that all Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) providers will be required to meet to deliver funded ELC hours from August 2020. It will include a range of quality criteria, with a strong focus on staffing, leadership and management within settings. This will include requirements about working towards relevant benchmark qualifications. |
Complete The national standard was published on 18 December 2018: https://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781787814783 |
| Teacher Professionalism | |
|---|---|
| TP01 The intention remains to fund professional learning for teachers in this area (Masters-level Professional Learning) including at school leadership level |
Ongoing £750,000 has been committed by the Scottish Government to support Masters-level learning for teachers through the Teacher Education Partnerships. Bids from Teacher Education Partnerships have been received and approved. In 2020 we will continue to fund masters level professional learning for teachers, including at school leadership level. |
| TP02 Next Steps confirms that Scottish Government will work with our partners and particularly the profession, to establish new career pathways for teachers allowing greater opportunities for development and progression into leadership, specialist or improvement roles. |
Complete – Business as usual The Independent Panel on Career Pathways was established in June 2018 to consider the design and development of teacher career pathway models and was chaired by Moyra Boland. The Panel engaged broadly with the teaching profession in Scotland in order to gather views and ideas, and presented its recommendations to the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers on 30 May 2019. The SNCT is now taking forward implementation of those recommendations with key partners. |
| TP07 The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) have strengthened accreditation procedures and are also reviewing the professional standards which, in time, are likely to require Initial Teaching Education courses to be amended. |
Ongoing GTCS are currently reviewing the suite of Professional Standards and expect to consult later this year before publication in August 2020. Important that the revised Standard for Leadership and Management reflects the Headteachers' Charter. |
| TP09 Next Steps confirms that SG will streamline and enhance professional learning so that there is a coherent learning offer to teachers which is focused on curriculum area and sector specific issues. More professional learning will be provided by teachers, for teachers, through the RICs. |
Complete Throughout 2019 Education Scotland has worked with all national organisations and RICs to embed the new national model of professional learning, and to further enhance and streamline the professional learning offer for teachers. |
| TP13 We will encourage more people into early learning and childcare and teaching, particularly those groups under-represented in teaching (men and minority ethnic communities) as well as in particular subjects (STEM) and geographical areas. In early 2017 we will extend our teacher recruitment campaign, building on the positive work of the current campaign, to address these issues. |
Complete The Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) recruitment campaign gained pace in 2018, with each local authority area visited and our roadshow taking the message directly in to schools. Our advertising drives potential candidates to our website – www.childcarecareersscotland.scot – for information on careers in ELC as well as live training and job opportunities. As well as school children the campaign also focuses on potential career changers and parental returners. Roadshows targeting this audience went live, for a third burst of activity, on 22nd Jan 2019 accompanied by a wrap of the Metro newspaper. Advertising and support for those joining the sector continued over the summer of 2019. We have created a fund (£50,000), which is administered by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), to investigate innovative ways of recruiting and retaining males in to the ELC sector. A ministerial event was held on the 26th September in Stirling to look at the issue of encouraging more males in to the ELC sector, including initial updates from the SFC challenge fund. We have also funded (£140,000) a project with our partners the Council for Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO) which seeks to engage those from ethnic minority communities on the opportunities available for careers in ELC. All with the aim of making the ELC workforce more representative of wider society and creating a richer learning environment for our youngest children. We will continue to expand ELC provision and support efforts to attract under-represented groups into ELC and teaching (see SL80 in Annex A). |
| TP20 We will maintain our strong focus on Gaelic teacher supply with promotional campaigns which will be led in 2018 and 2019 by Bòrd na Gàidhlig; innovative courses such as Gaelic Immersion for Teachers (GIFT) and Streap, which support teachers who wish to transfer to Gaelic teaching; and new routes into Gaelic teaching being introduced by the University of Edinburgh, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and the University of the Highlands and Islands. |
Complete – Business as usual Working with Bòrd na Gàidhlig and partners we have:
We will continue to focus on Gaelic teacher supply and their ongoing professional development. We will work with Bòrd na Gàidhlig on revising courses such as GIfT and Streap, which support teachers who wish to transfer to Gaelic medium teaching, and support new routes in Gaelic teaching and those bodies who wish to develop and introduce them. A review of GIfT is underway to ensure its meeting the needs of the sector. This will be monitored as TP85 (Annex A). |
| TP23 Working with the wider school workforce to introduce professional standards for these staff. |
Superseded The development of professional standards for the wider education workforce would have fallen under the remit of the proposed Education Workforce Council. Following the decision in June 2018 not to establish this council, we have continued to work in partnership with local government, the professional associations and other relevant stakeholders to facilitate a process of extending the benefits of registration to wider education workforces. From 1 April 2019 College lecturers have been encouraged to register with the GTCS. In addition, we have developed, in partnership with ADES, COSLA and Education Scotland, a bespoke professional learning offer to Business Managers, and we are working with key stakeholders to establish a working group to consider how best we can empower and support classroom support staff. We will continue to seek to offer the benefits of professional registration to the wider education workforce. |
| TP24 In recognition of the continued appetite for Masters level learning amongst the teaching profession, in 2019 Education Scotland will work with partners to review the Scottish Masters Framework as part of their enhanced role in professional learning. |
Complete – Business as usual Meetings of the Masters Framework group were established in 2019 and are ongoing. In 2020 Education Scotland will work with partners to embed the new Scottish Masters Framework guidance (see TP94 in Annex A). |
| TP25 In 2019, the Scottish Government will gather data on the number of teachers who benefit from a specific Scottish Government-funded programme to provide Masters-level opportunities and participation in national programmes. |
Complete – Business as usual A wide range of Masters-level professional learning opportunities are now available across the system and an annual cycle of data collection is now established |
| TP26 In 2018 Education Scotland became responsible for professional learning and launched a new National Model of Professional Learning, developed in partnership with the profession. As set out above, there is a commitment for the General Teaching Council for Scotland and Education Scotland to work in partnership in 2019 to review and provide guidance on the endorsement and accreditation of programmes leading to the award of professional recognition. During 2019 Education Scotland will expand the Framework for Educational Leadership to include professional learning activities for teachers and work with subject associations to enhance teachers’ access to subject specific professional learning. |
Complete Education Scotland have worked with colleagues across the system to develop new learning activities for the Framework which are focused on broader aspects of professional learning. This first phase of development was available at the Scottish Learning Festival in September 2019. Further development will take place during 2020 following a tender process as part of overall revisions to Education Scotland's web estate (see TP94 in Annex A). |
| TP27 In 2019, the Scottish Government will support the Measuring Quality in Initial Teacher Education (MQuITE) project, which is being led by the University of Edinburgh and University of Strathclyde on behalf of the Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE). This aims to measure the quality of ITE provision in Scotland by studying a cohort of those graduating in 2018 over a period of five years. This will complement information to be captured through application of the ITE self-evaluation framework, produced by Education Scotland in partnership with representatives from the SCDE and the GTCS and published in 2018 on the Education Scotland Improvement Hub. |
Complete Funding of £61k has been provided in financial year 2019/20 to support the ongoing delivery of this five-year research project. Emerging findings will be published on the Scottish Council of Deans of Education (SCDE) website: http://www.scde.ac.uk/projects/measuring-quality-in-initial-teacher-education-mquite/. These findings are providing a more detailed insight and understanding of how effectively initial teacher education (ITE) is preparing newly qualified teachers for the classroom. It is also anticipated that the results from this work will contribute to the on-going development, delivery and improvement of quality teacher education in Scotland and help to ensure we remain able to adapt to the changing needs of our children and young people. (see TP97 in Annex A) |
| TP28 By June 2019 the new ITE self-evaluation framework will be used to support universities to demonstrate the quality of learning and teaching in these priority areas and identify where more support is required. |
Complete A working group led by Education Scotland and the Scottish Council of Deans of Education has been established to oversee application of the framework. Initial focus of activity has been on the delivery of numeracy within ITE programmes. Subsequent areas of focus by ITE providers to be agreed by the working group going forward. |
| TP29 In 2019/20, GTCS will take forward national rollout of the My Professional Learning (MyPL) platform, to support practitioners in logging their professional learning activities |
Complete MyProfessionalLearning (MyPL) is an online professional learning service, launched with a pilot in October 2016 by the General Teaching Council of Scotland. A full roll out took of MyPL took place in 2019 following improvements to the service in response to pilot feedback. Development of MyPL is now complete. |
| TP30 Through the STEM strategy, a new team of six STEM advisers will be in place from the start of 2019 to support practitioners through the RICs to improve STEM learning and teaching. |
Complete This team has been recruited by Education Scotland and officers have already engaged extensively with schools, clusters, local authorities and regional and national partners to promote the STEM professional learning grants. An initial focus will be to engage with each RIC/local authority to better understand their needs and contexts. |
| TP31 Education Scotland will be commissioning new STEM related professional learning in 2019 to complement that provided through existing programmes, including Career-Long Professional Learning (CLPL) related to numeracy and mathematics. |
Ongoing Education Scotland commissioned Phase 1 of new STEM related CLPL for practitioners in November 2018, with 24 grants issued totalling £187k. £572k has been awarded in 2019/20 to over 20 of the Phase 1 recipients to extend the reach and development of these programmes. £1.376m has also been awarded in 2019/20 for Phase 2 of the grant programme to 140 projects across 2 funding streams: a Regional and National Partner Fund and a Leadership and Collegiate Fund. This is expected to benefit an estimated 722 establishments and 13,847 practitioners in financial year 2019-20. |
| TP32 During 2019, additional collaborative professional learning opportunities in STEM will become available through the activities of the college-led STEM Hubs. |
Ongoing A baseline of current activity has been established and regional steering groups are in place. Next steps include building links with local authorities, planning outreach and engagement activity, and stimulating new activity in primary settings through changes to the SFC credit guidance. SFC has identified a risk around the ability of colleges to deliver increased activity without additional resource for co-ordination of this work. Discussions are ongoing around this. |
| TP33 A new team of gender balance and equalities officers will start work from January 2019 to deliver gender balance training and to develop a gender champion network and a gender kite-mark to grow and spread best practice in whole school approaches to improving gender balance in STEM. |
Complete This team has been recruited by Education Scotland and all officers are in post. The Improving Gender Balance and Equalities officers are embedded within the Education Scotland regional teams, working closely with the STEM Advisors and other officers, and providing training and support to tackle gender stereotyping and unconscious bias. |
| TP34 In 2019, a Young STEM Leaders programme to grow mentoring and inspiration for STEM for young people by young people will be established. There will be piloting in the first half of 2019 with the programme starting to be rolled out in the second half of the year. |
Ongoing A pilot and consultation across 74 centres has been carried out as Phase 1 of this work, and will start to be rolled out over the 2020/21 academic year with ongoing delivery for the duration of the STEM strategy. The programme is available at Curriculum for Excellence Second, Third and Fourth Levels, underpinned by a framework that identifies the skills, knowledge and behaviours expected of a young STEM leader. |
| Parental Engagement | |
| PE01 Publication of case studies on the National Improvement Hub to support the evaluation of family learning in each sector by March 2018. |
Complete 31 articles tagged with "Family learning" have been uploaded to the National Improvement Hub since December 2018: https://education.gov.scot/improvement |
| PE04 Early Learning and Childcare Quality Action Plan includes a commitment to increase support for evidence-based family learning to embed this in the early learning offer for families facing disadvantage. |
Ongoing The Scottish Government’s Programme for Government 2019/20 makes clear that we will use the opportunities presented by our expansion of early learning and childcare (ELC) and provide £500,000 to establish the Family Learning Scotland Programme. Family learning will be offered in or near ELC settings and will be targeted at priority families. It will help parents to learn about early childhood development and how to support their children’s learning. It will also build parents’ confidence in their own capacity to learn, acting as a catalyst to help them take up adult learning, training opportunities and gain employment. We published an invitation to tender on Public Contracts Scotland on 17.10.19 which invites bids to train and support over 400 ELC practitioners to deliver the programme. We hope to have the contract in place by February 2020. |
| PE05 The main focus will be on improving the legislative and guidance framework underpinning parental involvement and engagement. The forthcoming 2018 Education Bill will clarify definitions and key requirements, strengthening the duties on headteachers to involve and engage parents. There will be a requirement for every school to identify a teacher or professional with responsibility for promoting parental, family and community engagement. There will be a requirement that every school pursues the key principles of pupil participation. |
Superseded In June 2018 it was decided not to proceed with an Education Bill. In place of amendments to primary statute, the Scottish Government worked with a range of partners to strengthen and update the statutory guidance accompanying the Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Act 2006. The development of new statutory guidance was monitored as action reference PE32 |
| PE06 In tandem with the strengthened legislative framework Education Scotland will work with local authorities and schools through regional improvement collaboratives during 2018/19, to help them further develop approaches to parental engagement and family learning. |
Complete – Business as usual There have been a number of professional learning events across Scotland during the year, and several case studies have been added to the National Improvement Hub to exemplify good practice: https://education.gov.scot/improvement This work is complemented by a national network on parental engagement, supported jointly by Scottish Government and Education Scotland. The network involves circa. 60 members including practitioners, school and early learning centre leaders, policy makers, local authorities and academics. |
| PE07 Education Scotland will update the Engaging with Parents and Families Toolkit for practitioners by March 2019. |
Complete The revised Engaging Parents and Families Toolkit was published on the 26th March, and updated on 23 July 2019: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/engaging-parents-and-families-a-toolkit-for-practitioners |
| PE08 Education Scotland will support professional learning on parental engagement locally and regionally by March 2019. |
Complete Support for professional learning has been provided to a number of RICs and local authorities throughout the year. These have included events at practitioner and senior leader level. Updates have been made to the Engaging Parents and Families Toolkit for practitioners, and to further support good practice, a number of parental engagement and family learning professional learning resources have been added to the National Improvement Hub: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources |
| PE09 Education Scotland will continue to promote and share good practice in family learning and parental engagement through local and regional activity and practice sharing on the National Improvement Hub by March 2019. |
Complete Support for professional learning has been provided to a number of RICs and local authorities throughout the year. These have included events at practitioner and senior leader level. Updates have been made to the Engaging Parents and Families Toolkit for practitioners, and to further support good practice, a number of parental engagement and family learning professional learning resources have been added to the National Improvement Hub: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources |
| PE10 Scottish Government will work with partners to ensure that by 2019 every school has access to a home to school link worker to support parents and families who find it challenging to engage in their child’s learning and feel excluded from the work and life of their child’s school. |
Superseded The first meeting of a national working group on home school link support was held in August 2018, a second meeting on 18 Jan 2019. A survey of local authorities was issued in late 2018 and analysed in 2019 in order to provide more comprehensive information on access to home/school link workers, current coverage and the various models being adopted by local authorities. While in the Scottish Governments 2019 Programme for Government a decision was taken not to continue to focus on home-school link worker access for every school in Scotland work has continued to promote measures which will assist in increasing home-school link support across Scotland. This includes further guidance from Education Scotland was issued in spring 2019. Scottish Government has continued to engage with COSLA and ADES partners in order to monitor and support the provision of home/school link support (see PE39). |
| PE18 Scottish Government to work with the GTCS/ Scottish Education Workforce Council to review and improve the Initial Teacher Education and Continuing Professional Development offer to headteachers in relation to parental engagement. Detailed commitments will be contained a National Action Plan on Parental Engagement and Family Learning by June 2018. |
Ongoing The Scottish Government and COSLA published the “Learning Together” Action Plan in August 2018. The plan contains a number of actions relating to workforce, professional development and skills. These actions continue to be progressed in partnership with Education Scotland and the GTCS. Statutory guidance is being updated and will be issued for consultation in late 2019/early 2020. Scottish Government is exploring with partners how to best support that guidance with complementary learning resources. A round table discussion with ITE institutions will take place in 2020 with a view to sharing practice and approach across ITE. |
| PE19 Local authorities to update their engagement strategies to respond to the LA recommendations within the National Parent Forum’s Review of Parental Involvement and to consider cross-authority regional improvement strategies. |
Complete – Business as usual The Scottish Government and COSLA published the “Learning Together” Action Plan in August 2018. The plan includes a joint Scottish Government and COSLA commitment that local authority Parental Involvement Strategies will be reframed as strategies for involvement and engagement, with a commitment to review strategies every three years. The plan also includes a Local Authority Implementation Statement. This statement contains commitments from local authorities to develop comprehensive, effective parental involvement and engagement strategies and to ensure that those strategies consider parents needs for advice, information and support. A joint steering group involving both COSLA and ADES has been set up to monitor implementation of the overall plan. The steering group will continue to consider progress with updates to local authority parental engagement strategies. |
| PE26 We will continue to deliver and improve our national campaigns and gifting programmes to parents and families across Scotland – Bookbug, PlayTalkRead and Read, Write, Count – providing advice and materials to parents to support their children’s learning from an early age and extend the Read, Write, Count Programme into P4-7 in areas of high deprivation from April 2017. |
Complete – Business as usual Bookbug, Play,Talk, Read, and Read, Write, Count are now established programmes providing gifting and outreach to support family learning in literacy and numeracy for families of children from early years to P3. Read, Write, Count pilots targeting families of children in P4-7 have run in 2017, 2018, and 2019 and evaluation of these will inform the future shape of the programme. Parent Club Marketing Campaigns will continue to promote behaviour change aligned to the priorities of these programmes. |
| PE30 Almost double the hours of early learning and childcare to 1140 per year. |
Ongoing The Scottish Government reached a landmark multi-year funding agreement with COSLA on 27 April 2018, which will provide £567 million additional revenue funding by 2021-22 and £476 million capital funding over the period 2017-18 to 2020-21. The Scottish Government wrote to local authorities on 2 November 2018 regarding the allocation of the remaining £6 million revenue funding for 2018-19 to be allocated to providers, including childminders. A Delivery Support Plan for ELC Providers was launched on 19 December 2018 to outline further support for providers through the transition to 2020. Funding Follows the Child will be introduced from 2020, and will be underpinned by a National Standard that all providers delivering the funded ELC entitlement will have to meet. A consultation on the new National Standard ran from March to June 2018. The final version of Funding Follows the Child and the National Standard was published on 17 December 2018 as a suite of 3 documents: Principles and Practice, Operating Guidance and FAQs for LAs and ELC Providers. Initial engagement and consultation sessions with local authorities, providers and ELC staff on the approach were held between January and March 2019 to capture views from the sector as a whole. On 29 April Scotland Excel published technical guidance notes to support the implementation of Funding Follows the Child covering Business Sustainability, Setting Sustainable Rates from August 2020, and Transition Options Guidance on Contracting. In November 2019 model terms and conditions and supporting tender documentation, produced by Scotland Excel, were also made available. The Quality Action Plan was published at the end of October 2017. A national recruitment campaign up and running since Autumn 2017. A Workforce Delivery Plan has been developed and further engagement with the public to attract new career professionals underway. ELC Expansion Plans received, and assessed, from all local authorities. A programme of SG-funded ELC Trials ran until Easter 2018 and an evaluation was published in late 2018. The phasing of the expanded hours is underway in the majority of local authorities. |
| PE31 Strengthening parental and community engagement by working with the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC) to learn from their Partnership Schools initiative to ensure that schools support parents to play an active part in school improvement. |
Complete – Business as usual The Scottish Government continues to engage with “Connect” (the new title for the SPTC) and to attend partnership schools events in order to capture learning for wider national policy, and will continue to monitor and engage with the programme. Learning from the Partnership Schools work continues to be shared with key partners via the Scottish Government’s national network on parental engagement. |
| PE32 Strengthening the voice of children and young people by requiring all schools to promote and support pupil participation, consulting on a requirement that every school pursues the key principles of pupil participation. This will be included in our consultation on our Education Bill. |
Complete –Business as usual The empowering schools parent and carer section of the empowered system guidance went live in 2019 as an agreed draft on the Education Scotland National Improvement Hub. This work will highlight the requirements placed upon head teachers to fully embed the principles of empowerment in schools including involving and engaging parents as part of an empowered school system. The first report from the Scottish Government’s Learner Panel was published in September 2019, providing a number of recommendations which will be considered as part of the policy development and improvement process. Education Scotland continued to develop their Young Leaders of Learning Programme which aims to Ensure children and young people are actively involved in on-going self-evaluation activities leading to improvement. This programme is currently being delivered in schools in Aberdeen, Moray, Highland and Aberdeenshire. There are plans in place to roll out national from January 2020. In 2019 Education Scotland continued to develop professional learning opportunities to support the Learner Participation 3-18 resource and Education Scotland refreshed the Recognising and Realising children’s Rights resource and accompanying professional learning materials. Refreshed statutory guidance for the 2006 Parental Involvement Act is in draft form and has been sent to all National working group members. This includes references to learner participation. The Scottish Government continues to engage with policy and legal colleagues and stakeholders to make amendments to the draft based on feedback in advance of a full public consultation. |
| PE36 The joint Scottish Government/COSLA “Learning Together” Action Plan was published on 21 August 2018. The plan contains a variety of national actions in relation to both involvement and engagement which will be implemented in 2019, including: review and strengthen statutory guidance in time for academic year 2019/20 |
Ongoing A working group was set up to develop fresh statutory guidance. The group met four times over the course of 2019, and developed draft amended guidance by the end of August 2019. This guidance will be issued for consultation in winter 2019/20 . This means that the final guidance will now be issued in 2020. |
| PE37 The joint Scottish Government/COSLA “Learning Together” Action Plan was published on 21 August 2018. The plan contains a variety of national actions in relation to both involvement and engagement which will be implemented in 2019, including: pilot a new parental involvement survey in early 2019 and roll out for academic year 2019/20 |
Complete The new National Parental Involvement and Engagement Census was rolled out across Scottish local authorities in May/June 2019 with responses closing in June 2019. 24 Local authorities participated in the pilot year of the census. The Scottish Governments Analytical Services team have received data from all of the 24 local authorities who participated in the pilot year of the census and the data will be published in the NIF Interactive Evidence Report in December 2019. |
| PE38 The joint Scottish Government/COSLA “Learning Together” Action Plan was published on 21 August 2018. The plan contains a variety of national actions in relation to both involvement and engagement which will be implemented in 2019, including: raise awareness of participatory budgeting amongst parents |
Ongoing The Learning Directorate's Parental Involvement Team continue to liaise with SG colleagues who lead on participatory budgeting to ensure that steps are taken to further raise awareness amongst parent organisations and across Local Authorities and Parent Councils. NPFS have highlighted the potential for participatory budgeting to Parent Councils via social media. The SG Team delivered an awareness-raising workshop at the national parental engagement network in autumn 2019. |
| PE39 The joint Scottish Government/COSLA “Learning Together” Action Plan was published on 21 August 2018. The plan contains a variety of national actions in relation to both involvement and engagement which will be implemented in 2019, including: work with local authority partners to increase access to home-school link workers and similar roles |
Ongoing The first meeting of a national working group was held in August 2018, a second meeting on 18 January 2019. A survey of local authorities was issued in late 2018 in order to provide more comprehensive information on access to home/school link workers, current coverage and the various models being adopted by local authorities. Education Scotland published additional guidance on the home/school link worker in March 2019 https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/par2-section9-mar19.pdf The potential for further joint monitoring and co-ordination activity will be considered in late 2019/early 2020. |
| PE40 The joint Scottish Government/COSLA “Learning Together” Action Plan was published on 21 August 2018. The plan contains a variety of national actions in relation to both involvement and engagement which will be implemented in 2019, including: invest in the Parent Club marketing campaign |
Ongoing A joint literacy/numeracy and Eat Better, Feel Better campaign ran in 2019 and independent evaluation is complete. All planned topics were consolidated to the Parent Club website increasing visibility of the content and cost effectiveness. Next steps are to respond to the latest research among parents of children (8wks to 5yrs) and consolidate further topics into Parent Club with support from partner organisations NHS Health Scotland and NHS Inform. There will be a "Read, Write, Count" focus for a further Parent Club targeted campaign in 2019/20. |
| PE41 The joint Scottish Government/COSLA “Learning Together” Action Plan was published on 21 August 2018. The plan contains a variety of national actions in relation to both involvement and engagement which will be implemented in 2019, including: set up a working group in early 2019 to explore how digital and information technology resources can be better exploited to support parents’ involvement and engagement |
Complete The final report on parental involvement and digital was completed and submitted to the national steering group on parental engagement in mid 2019. The required pages have been completed and are ready to publish on the National Improvement Hub, and will be finalised for publication in early 2020. |
| PE42 The joint Scottish Government/COSLA “Learning Together” Action Plan was published on 21 August 2018. The plan contains a variety of national actions in relation to both involvement and engagement which will be implemented in 2019, including: continue to refresh the content of Education Scotland’s Parentzone Scotland website (Mar 2021) |
Complete – Business as usual Education Scotland will continue to review and refresh the content of the Parentzone Scotland website. New action will be opened for 2020. |
| PE43 The national standard that all ELC providers will be required to meet from August 2020 will be published by the end of 2018. This is likely to include a requirement that settings support parents and carers to engage in their child's learning and development |
Complete The national standard was published on 18 December 2018: https://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781787814783 |
| PE44 The Scottish Government will develop a national online professional learning module for ELC practitioners on supporting parents to further engage in their children’s learning. This will be ready by the end of 2019 |
Ongoing We have commissioned the University of the West of Scotland to develop this online learning module. Development is progressing well and is being overseen by a reference group of key stakeholders. We expect to have a final draft of content at the end of the year, and to launch to the sector in early 2020. |
| PE45 A new national parental involvement and engagement census will collect a range of data to inform improvement activity. It will be piloted by summer 2019. |
Complete – Business as usual The Parental Involvement and Engagement Census pilot year has been undertaken, and the Scottish Government is analyzing the data to be shared in order for use and inclusion in the National Improvement Framework Interactive Evidence Report from December 2019 onwards.. |
Assessment of children’s progress
| AC01 From April 2018, we will also draw upon the Care Inspectorate’s inspections data to assess the extent to which graduate-level practitioners are improving outcomes for children. |
Ongoing The Scottish Government is working with the Care Inspectorate to evaluate the impact of the commitment to delivering 435 additional graduates in nurseries in the most deprived areas. From April 2019, this included a specific focus area for the inspection year on the influence and impact the role has had on the quality of provision and outcomes for children. As of August 2019, 399 posts have been filled. This figure was reported in the most recent equity and excellence lead collection and refers to the number of posts ever filled. |
| AC02 From 2020, we will also draw upon two additional health visitor assessments at 13 months and at around 54 months. |
Ongoing Preparatory work is on track to enable data to be available from the 13-15 month and 4-5 years health visitor assessments by 2020. |
| AC03 From 2021, we anticipate a revised ELC census that will provide additional data on some of the drivers of children’s outcomes. Work is ongoing in all of these data development areas. However, the main data gap is around health and wellbeing in the younger primary years. Recent evidence, particularly from Growing Up in Scotland (GUS), has highlighted the importance of quality to ensure better outcomes for children. It showed that the most important factor is that early learning and development is delivered by a profession that is dedicated to the care, learning and development of our youngest children. This is being drawn upon in taking forward actions from the ELC Quality Action Plan. SG is carrying out an exercise to understand how information is currently shared and whether there are any existing barriers. As part of this, we will be identifying examples of good practice with a view to sharing these more widely. We will also consider what action can be taken to improve upon the current position in relation to the 27-30 month review across authorities. |
Ongoing Preparatory work is on track to enable data on number of hours spent in ELC, which is a driver of child outcomes, to be available from the ELC census by 2021. Data is currently available on the development of children at age 27-30 months. This information can be used to support children and their families when additional support is required, using a joined up approach in the spirit of GIRFEC. Health and wellbeing data is available at aggregate level for 4-12 year olds through the Scottish Health Survey, and for 13 and 15 year olds from SALSUS. We are working on introducing a new Health and Wellbeing Census that will provide data for children and young people from late primary upwards. |
| AC05 Parental involvement and enjoyment of literacy and numeracy is being promoted through the Read, Write, Count initiative, the First Minister’s Reading Challenge, Maths Week, and the Deputy First Minister’s Holiday Maths Challenge. |
Superseded This commitment is now being taken forward as part of PE26 |
| AC08 Education Scotland are currently undertaking a review of Personal and Social Education in schools. The review commenced in July 2017 and is split into 3 phases. Phase 1 – a literature review of guidance available to teachers – was completed in August 2017. Phase 2 commenced in October 2017 and is expected to be complete by spring 2018. Phase 3 – which analyses findings and develops recommendations is expected to commence in June 2018. It is expected that the overall review will be completed by the end of 2018. |
Complete The final report was launched on Wednesday 23rd January 2019: https://www.gov.scot/publications/review-personal-social-education-preparing-scotlands-children-young-people-learning-work-life/ |
| AC10 Continue to support use of the Insight senior phase benchmarking tool at local level to secure improvements in learner outcomes through the provision of ongoing training and support from the Insight Professional Adviser Team and newly established network of local authority Insight leads. |
Complete – Businss as usual In 2019, the Insight Team worked to strengthen links with the BGE benchmarking tool and data leads from the RICs while continuing outreach work to ensure maximum use of the tools across Scotland. The BGE Reference Group and Insight Project Board have been merged to form a single benchmarking board with a remit to provide strategic input and advice across the improvement tool portfolio. The Scottish Government officials responsible for the Insight and the BGE Benchmarking tools are now part of a single analytical team under a common management structure, to facilitate closer working and establish data linkages. All of these developments will enable greater use of the range of available data to drive improvements in learner outcomes. The Insight Professional Adviser Team continue to provide support to schools and local authorities to enhance their understanding and usage of the data within Insight, in their local context. The Team also provides a means for users to feedback to the Insight team with ideas for refinements to the tool and suggestions on what kind of learning opportunities would be most useful. |
| AC11 Two significant areas of development of data on school leaver destinations are underway. The first is to improve the dataset by including employment data. Scottish Government and SDS are working with HMRC to develop solutions that will allow individual level employment data to be shared to support service delivery and service reform. The aim is to have these arrangements in place by Autumn 2018. |
Ongoing Legal gateways and data sharing agreements were agreed for the proof of concept and test data had been sent from SDS to HMRC. Returned employment data from HMRC to SDS has been sent. Timescales had previously slipped due to challenges with setting up the data sharing arrangements. SDS have now tested the proof of concept which showed positive improvement. A assessment now needs to be carried out on the benefits achieved from accessing individual level tax information and the costs involved for full implementation before agreeing next steps. |
| AC12 The second area of development of data on school leaver destinations is ongoing capacity building with partners who access the dataset to help them understand the breadth of information available, how best to interrogate it, and how to use it to challenge service delivery and planning. SDS is leading on this work with local authorities and colleges with support from the Scottish Government. |
Complete – Business as usual SDS continue to engage with key partners on the use of the Opportunities for All shared dataset which includes school leavers but covers a broader cohort of young people aged 16-24. This helps them to better understand the breadth of information available, how to best interrogate it and how to use it to support service delivery and planning. |
| AC13 Education Scotland will work with RICs to support leaders and practitioners to identify and use effective learning, teaching and assessment strategies which promote inclusive practices, improve achievement and raise attainment aligned with regional improvement plans. |
Complete – Business as usual Education Scotland have appointed 6 Senior Regional Advisors (SRAs). All SRAs are now in post. Each SRA is meeting with RIC leads and will do so on a regular basis to share information. The Education Scotland teams have worked with local authorities and RICs to support leaders and practitioners to develop further good practice in learning teaching and assessment and to share good practice. |
| AC14 To ensure further improvement in levels of service delivery, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) is:
|
Complete – Business as usual Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has completed an upgrade of the Customer Support System allowing for a more effective recording and reporting which will support directing their interventions; SDS has commenced phase 2 which centres around improvements to the data hub which will include improved reports for use by partners and a shared portal to enable partners access to directly update customer status. The results of the latest Headteacher survey highlighted the value and effectiveness of SDS working in close partnership with local authorities and schools. SDS works closely with relevant staff (Post 16, Ops for All, guidance staff etc.) to provide information, advice and guidance in support of learners' progression towards positive and sustained destinations; SDS has continued to work closely with all Local Authorities to improve the quality and completeness of legislated data (Anticipated School Leaving Date/Preferred Route and Preferred Occupation) which is used by partners to identify and support learners in need to support to make a successful transition. Education Scotland has developed an interactive resource for practitioners to raise awareness of how to support learners with protected characteristics through the CES 3-18. SDS Equalities Team has developed & delivered resources and activities for use by CIAG & School practitioners to support for learners related to DYW identified characteristics. |
| AC15 Education Scotland will continue to provide support to improve the consistency and effectiveness of moderation of teachers’ professional judgement further across the country. |
Ongoing Education Scotland has a plan for national moderation and training for new Quality Assurance and Moderation Support Officers (QAMSO’s) that will run until June 2020. The NIF Officers will consult with assessment coordinators and other stakeholders to inform plans for moderation 20/21 |
| AC16 Four Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) Regional events for Directors of Education and College Principals are being delivered jointly by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Scottish Government in order to consider barriers to growing school college vocational pathways. The outcome of these events will determine next steps, to include consideration of any additional measurements required. The Outcome Agreement process has been intensified, ensuring expectation of greater collaboration within regional partnerships and a step change in provision of vocational programmes in the senior phase. Expansion will be captured under current SFC measurements. |
Complete A letter and note of the discussions was circulated to all attendees with the offer made for individual follow up meetings to target any specific support required. Colleges and schools have increased the number of Senior Phase students choosing work based pathways. Colleges are projecting further increases in AY2019-20. Colleges have also expanded the number of subject areas to support choice and pathways for Senior Phase pupils and will continue to work with industry and employer groups in 2019-20 to make sure the curriculum offer is right for regional industry need and student choice. |
| AC17 A network of 21 Regional Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) Groups has been established to bridge the gap between employers and education. This network also links with the network of DYW local authority leads. |
Ongoing KPIs have now been agreed and rolled out (cf AC66). Actions in response to recommendations to support school employer collaboration from the DYW Employers Forum are being taken forward in partnership with Skills and Senior Phase policy to ensure they can be implemented in a way that meets the needs of employers and the education sector. |
| AC18 We will ensure that nurseries in the most disadvantaged areas in Scotland benefit from an additional teacher or degree qualified early learning and childcare professional from August 2018. |
Ongoing 435 additional teachers or graduates will be required to deliver the commitment, with all local authorities receiving at least 1 additional Full-Time Equivalent staffing resource. We know that not all of these posts have been filled and so we are collecting regular data from local authorities to monitor progress. In July 2019 – less than a year after the commitment was implemented - 399 of these posts had been filled, at some point in the preceding 12 months. The staff expansion required to deliver the extended ELC entitlement by August 2020, means that there has inevitably been staff movement within the sector as new managerial level posts are created. We expect this movement to settle down in time and to result in more stability in retention of Equity and Excellence Leads. We know that the Equity and Excellence Leads that are in post are embracing their new roles and making an important contribution to children’s development and learning. Presentations at the Scottish Learning Festival in September highlighted how the leads are supporting children’s development by, for example: engaging parents in their children’s development; developing enhanced tracking and monitoring of children’s progress; and strengthening the delivery of learning in early literacy and numeracy skills. We have taken the various steps to help to recruit the full complement of additional graduates. In January this year we held a summit for local authorities to discuss recruitment challenges and share solutions. We have also raised the profile of the post by producing a series of recruitment marketing resources to raise awareness of the new role, including a video and career profile case study which have been distributed to relevant universities and local authorities. We continue to seek regular updates from authorities and remain in contact with those facing specific challenges. For example, we have been collecting monthly data for 6 authorities in which some of the posts have never been filled. |
| AC21 We will continue to support the Scottish Attainment Challenge authorities and schools and a number of national programmes, including staffing supply and capacity, professional learning and school leadership with £50 million per annum from the Attainment Scotland Fund. |
Complete – Business as usual Up to £50m of funding was assigned to support nine Scottish Attainment Challenge Authorities and 73 individual schools on the Schools Programme. Each authority and school developed an annual improvement plan and report, tailored to their own circumstances, detailing the actions they will take to close the poverty related attainment gap and their impact. An event was held in November to allow networking, showcasing and challenge across the Schools Programme schools (see PI17 and PI18 in Annex A). |
| AC22 We will implement the Getting it Right for Looked After Children Strategy in full. We will take a tailored approach to young people who most need support, increasing positive destinations from school for care experienced young people by 4 percentage points per annum, resulting in parity by 2021. |
Ongoing Through our schools, it is important to recognise the needs of care experienced young people and the impact of trauma. There is no doubt that additional funding to schools from the Attainment Challenge and PEF means schools are better able to improve the way they support children and young people who have been impacted by ACEs and improve support around mental and emotional health. More than £8 million of Scottish Government funding was spent last year on projects to improve the attainment of care experienced young people. Projects as diverse as mentoring programmes, counselling services and driving lessons were supported through the Care Experienced Children and Young People fund. Now more than £12 million of further funding will be provided this academic year to enhance the support available. Local authorities will work with Chief Social Workers and Directors of Education to decide how this year’s funding will be used. We continue to focus on improving the outcomes for those with care experience through Developing the Young Workforce, our youth employment strategy, and the implementation of the recommendations of the Commission on Widening Access. In 2017/18, 76% of care experienced young people (looked after for the full year) and 93% of all school leavers were in a positive destination and as we move towards the conclusion of Scotland’s independent Care Review (early 2020) it will be important to reflect on the recommendations to focus our efforts and work collaboratively to increase positive destinations for care experienced young people. |
| AC23 We will begin work in 2016/17 on a strategy for families with disabled children, linking to activity to develop the Child and Adolescent Health and Wellbeing Strategy. |
Complete – Business as usual The Scottish Government committed to developing a resource to Support Disabled Children, Young People and their Families. This stems from SNP 2016 manifesto commitments to ensure disabled children have the best start in life. The website launched on the Scottish Government website on 24 April 2019 - https://www.gov.scot/publications/supporting-disabled-children-young-people-and-their-families/ The site is rights based and was developed through a process of co-design and co-production. It aims to provide clear, accessible information on national policies, entitlements, rights and the different options of support available. The guides to policies, legislation and service provision are interspersed with examples of real life stories to showcase best practice. This action is now complete apart from bi-annual updates that will be requested from content owners. The website analytics will continue to be gathered to ensure there is still interest and visitors to the site. |
| AC24 From January 2017 we will implement the Making Maths Count report recommendations to encourage greater enthusiasm for, and a greater understanding of, the value of mathematics amongst children and young people, their parents, carers and the wider public. |
Ongoing To ensure improvement in Maths, we are committed to continuing our implementation of the recommendations of the Making Maths Count report. The annual Maths Week Scotland, established in 2017, is promoting and celebrating maths. Its reach is expanding annually with children and young people in every local authority area in Scotland participating. The national thematic inspection report on numeracy and maths, published in December 2019, highlights what is working well and where we require additional support and improvement. It confirms that our main strength is our teachers and their commitment to continuing improvement. Education Scotland’s enhanced teams are working at local level on numeracy and maths, STEM and closing the poverty related attainment gap providing direct support to schools and local authorities on their local priorities. Over the past 5 years the Scottish Government has invested almost £2 million in professional learning for numeracy and maths education. |
| AC25 We will continue to drive forward the actions in our Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy, including the ongoing evolution of Glow. Our focus will shift to supporting local authorities in making best use of technology in schools. |
Ongoing In 2020, SCDE will seek to publish their Digital Literacies for ITE Framework, helping to ensure some consistency in digital provision in their teacher education programmes. Education Scotland will seek to drive further value from Glow through deeper user engagement with local authorities, schools and teachers. In the first instance, this work will seek to provide digital support for issues such as parental engagement and teacher workload. |
| AC26 We will deliver the new Universal Pathway for Health Visitors including the new Child Health Reviews to support early intervention and prevention in those crucial early years. This work is already underway. During 2017 and within the parameters of legislation, we will examine arrangements for information sharing to facilitate appropriate data sharing between professionals on children’s progress from the early years onwards. |
Complete – Business as usual The Scottish Government continues to monitor the progress of implementation of the new Universal Pathway for Health Visitors including all Child Health Reviews to support early intervention and prevention in those crucial early years. We are working with NHS Boards to explore how uptake of the 27-30 month review can be further improved, and where variation in uptake across Scotland can be reduced. We know that there is no legal impediment to the sharing of information from the 27-30 month review with early years settings where there are concerns about a child. We know that this information sharing already happens in some cases – most commonly with parental agreement. We need to make that information sharing more confident and consistent in order to support and protect our most vulnerable children. Practice guidance learning materials and training to promote consistency in confident information sharing will now be developed as part of the programme to support the refresh of the Getting it Right for Every Child policy and practice guidance. |
| AC27 We agreed requirements for standardised assessment for Gaelic Medium Education (GME)by June 2017. These assessments are being developed and will be available in early 2019. |
Complete – Business as usual The Gaelic Medium National Standardised Assessment system (Measaidhean Coitcheann Nàiseanta airson Foghlam tron Ghàidhlig) was launched on 19th December 2018. Further releases of assessment content took place in March and July 2019 to optimise both the system’s usability and its adaptive model. We will continue to liaise with the GME sector through our co-creation approach, to take forward further improvements. |
| AC31 We will retain the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) as an entitlement to ensure that school pupils, college students and young people on Activity Agreements from financially disadvantaged households can receive support to overcome any financial barriers to remain in learning. |
Complete – Business as usual Education Maintenance Allowance is a demand-driven entitlement. Scottish Ministers continue to provide support to all young people who are eligible, allowing young people to choose the learning and training opportunities that are right for them, regardless of their financial circumstances. |
| AC32 We will continue to provide, through the Developing the Young Workforce programme, more opportunities for young people to experience high quality, work-related learning, and to gain vocational qualifications. We will increase the percentage of school leavers attaining vocational qualifications at SCQF level 5 and above by the end of school year 2020/21. |
Ongoing The Scottish Government has committed to further expansion of college provision for school pupils, including Foundation Apprenticeships. There has been a positive increase in the number of school leavers achieving vocational qualifications since the start of the programme. 7% of 2013/14 school leavers achieved a vocational qualification at SCQF 5 and above. This increased to 9% of school leavers in 2014/15 and has increased year on year to 10.7% in 2015/16, 12.8% in 2016/17 and 14.8% in 2017/18. Initial school leaver achievement data is published annually in February each year. Over 5,000 Foundation Apprenticeship places have been contracted for the academic year starting 2019. The confirmed number of FA starts for this cohort will also be published in February 2020 alongside complete data for the earlier cohorts. |
| AC33 Develop a range of national programmes and further extend the reach and impact of the Scottish Attainment Challenge. |
Complete – Business as usual Additional funding from the Attainment Scotland Fund was made available to support workforce and professional development throughout 2019. Third Sector organisations and RICs/events continues. In 2019 the work with YoungScot continued with 3 new local authorities. The Scottish Attainment Challenge will continue through 2020, and we will continue to administer the Attainment Scotland Fund (see PI17 and PI18). |
| AC35 We will extend the reach and impact of the Attainment Advisers, through regional alignment, to promote collaboration and joint delivery across local authorities from October 2016. Using the data available from the Framework, the Attainment Adviser team will work directly with schools where they can make the biggest difference to accelerate efforts to close the gap. Educational leadership of the programme will be extended through a new Chief Adviser role. |
Complete 31 Attainment Advisers are now in post and working directly with their link local authorities and RICs to deliver the recently developed Maximising Progress five point plan. The Attainment Adviser for Argyll & Bute will start in January 2020. Until then, the authority is being served by an existing experienced AA who knows the authority well. An Education Officer post has been created and filled. This is to support effective communication, analysis and synthesis of evidence and reporting. The Chief Adviser role is no longer considered necessary. |
| AC39 Making clear our expectations of the SQA, including the importance of listening and being open to the voices of learners, teachers and parents. We will ensure that the Chair regularly reports to Ministers on the improvements being made in relation to these matters. We will request that SQA outline in their annual corporate plan their strategic communications and engagement plans. |
Ongoing SQA is taking steps to address how it communicates more effectively with stakeholders. A new chair took up post on 1 September 2017 and a new CEO in July 2019. Specific communications and engagement objectives are included in the current the SQA Framework Agreement and Corporate Plan. SQA is drafting a 2020/23 Corporate Plan, which is expected to include an outcome on meeting customer needs. SQA is identifying deliverables and indicators to accompany the new Corporate Plan and outcomes. The SQA Framework Agreement is due to be updated by August 2020 and Scottish Government will work with SQA to ensure that stakeholder communication is included. SQA is exploring how ICT could be used to meet customer needs whilst also making efficiency savings. Regular monthly meetings take place between DFM and the Chief Executive of SQA. Bi-annual meetings also take place between DFM and the Chair. Scottish Ministers appoint stakeholder representatives to SQA's Advisory Council to facilitate the consideration of a wide range of views when decisions are made by SQA's Board. |
| AC43 We will ensure that by 2030, students from the 20 per cent most deprived areas make up 20 per cent of higher education entrants |
Ongoing Implementation of the recommendations of the Commission on Widening Access is being overseen by the Access Delivery Group, which is chaired by the Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science. The Scottish Funding Council’s University Outcome Agreement guidance has been updated to reflect the Government’s targets for progress. Higher Education Statistics Agency stats show 15.6% of Scottish domiciled full time first degree entrants to Scottish HEIs are from the 20% most deprived areas in Scotland in 2017/18. This is only 0.4 percentage points away from the 2021 interim target. |
| AC44 The Scottish Government will work closely with NHS Boards and ISD Scotland over the course of 2019 to drive improvement in both completeness and quality of the data provided for these reviews. |
Superseded This fits with AC26 and the work we are doing with 27-30 month review but also AC02 where it shows that preparatory work is underway around the 13-15 and 4-5 yr checks. This is therefore superseded by the other actions. |
| AC45 The Scottish Government will commission BISSR 2019, following discussion with members of Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS). |
Complete The Scottish Government has worked together with SAGRABIS to agree a specification for the 2019 Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR) data collection. Survey work is anticipated to commence in February 2020 with a final report due in September 2020. |
| AC46 The review of Personal and Social Education (PSE) in schools and ELC settings will be published by the end of the year. It identifies a number of recommendations to improve and enhance PSE delivery for children and young people. The Scottish Government will work with key stakeholders to implement the recommendations within an appropriate timescale. |
Complete The final PSE review report was launched on 23 January 2019. The Scottish Government then developed a joint working agreement with Education Scotland colleagues that was put in place by June 2019. Education Scotland identified leads to deliver the recommendations that, in turn, enabled the commissioning of an overarching Implementation Group which will be in place shortly. The recommendations will inform our continuous work programme to strengthen delivery of health and wellbeing education. |
| AC47 Guidance on improving outcomes for children and young people from travelling cultures will be published before the end of 2018. We will take forward a plan of actions alongside the guidance to support implementation and draw attention to wider resources which are about culture and tradition of travelling families to support schools understanding of the culture. |
Complete – Business as usual An SG funded National Development Officer took up post with the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP) in Summer 2019 and is working across Scottish Local authorities to build capacity, in a sustainable way, for supporting Traveller children and families. |
| AC48 We will be working collaboratively with partners across the education sector to actively explore what more we can do to encourage uptake of ELC /Further Education/Higher Education for the Gypsy Traveller community. |
Ongoing The Scottish Government launched a joint action plan Improving the Lives of Scotland's Gypsy/Travellers 2019-2021 on 9 October 2019. This includes a number of high level actions around education under the ‘Improving access to Public Services’ section. Officials are working with Education Scotland, STEP and COSLA to finalise a delivery plan to drive the actions. |
| AC49 Education Scotland are currently working on the development of a second Inclusive Education online module which will be available early 2019. |
Complete The Inclusive Education module was submitted for scrutiny by partners on the 14th November 2018 with feedback received in December 2018. A number of amendments were requested and these have been completed. The module is now finalised and available via the Open University website: https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/view.php?id=3359 |
| AC50 The Scottish Government will undertake a review of the statutory guidance – ‘Conduct of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood Education in schools (2014) to ensure that it covers issues to support pupils wellbeing, including the issue of sexual harassment and inclusion. We will form a steering group to review the guidance and update it appropriately. The first meeting will take place by the end of January 2019. The guidance will provide all school staff with clear advice on how to support pupils experiencing sexual harassment, as well as supporting schools to adopt inclusive practices for all protected characteristics. |
Complete The steering group was formed at the start of 2019. Sub-groups have met and have informed an early draft of the revised guidance. The Core Review Group met in May and July 2019 to consider the draft of the new teaching guidance. A large stakeholder event is being organised to bring together all of the sub-groups and discuss a near final draft of the guidance. Once views have been collated a version will be sent to Ministers for review and consideration for public consultation (see AC84 in Annex A). |
| AC51 We have committed to implement a range of recommendations to support LGBTI inclusive education across Scotland. These include recommendations to improve practice and guidance for education staff and to increase awareness of LGBTI issues. They will ensure that all children and young people feel included, that their voice matters, that they are an important part of a school’s ethos and culture. The delivery of these recommendations will be monitored via the action plan. |
Complete – Business as usual An Implementation Group met for the first time on 17 January 2019, and several more times throughout 2019. The review of RSHP statutory guidance to update with relevant LGBT guidance began in March 2019. An Action Plan was agreed, and work has begun on delivering recommendations earmarked for completion in Phase 1. The Implementation Group continues to work well and to take forward a joint approach to delivering the recommendations. Education Scotland has recently commenced a review of existing resources, and the Group has agreed an engagement process with young people. This is now a core part of Scottish Government and Education Scotland’s work to strengthen LGBT inclusion across the curriculum. |
| AC52 We have made a commitment to introduce counsellors in all secondary schools across Scotland as part of a range of actions taken across the Scottish Government to improve the services for children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing. |
Complete Scottish Ministers and CoSLA Leaders agreed on the distribution of the £60m package of funding (£12m in 2019/20 and £16m thereafter) to support the introduction of access to counsellors in every secondary school in Scotland. The agreement was reached at the CoSLA Leaders meeting on 30 August 2019, and also included agreement on a suite of aims and principles to assist local authorities in implementing the service. Chief Executives of all 32 Local Authorities were written to by Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport advising them of the joint agreement on funding distribution and the aims and principles. |
| AC53 We have also committed to recruiting an additional 250 school nurses by 2022. |
Ongoing We expect 50 students to commence training in 2019/20 academic year with intakes September 2019 and January 2020. A School Nurse Implementation group has been established. |
| AC54 As part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge, the Care Experienced Children And Young People fund was introduced in August 2018. Funding of £33m over 3 years is being provided to authorities to support improvements in educational outcomes for care experienced children and young people. National guidance, developed between Scottish Government, COSLA and ADES, requires that the use of the funding is jointly agreed by the local authority Chief Education and Chief Social Work Officers. We will monitor use of this funding throughout 2019 and identify and share good practice through the National Improvement Hub and RICs. |
Complete – Business as usual Over £8m funding was assigned in financial year 18-19 and up to £12.2m funding has been assigned in the financial year 19-20 to local authorities with the aim of improving educational outcomes for care experienced children and young people, aged between 0-26, with the overarching aim of closing the poverty related attainment gap. Usage for the first year (18-19) has been monitored through a review of the Authority reporting on interventions and outcomes using the fund with feedback presented through the Attainment Adviser networks. |
| AC55 An assessment summit will take place in 2019 to enable SG to work with academics, stakeholders and partners to reflect on the BGE assessment model and the place of SNSA within this. |
Complete An assessment summit took place in Edinburgh on 11 September 2019 and was attended by around 200 delegates, including practitioners, headteachers, local authority staff and regional improvement collaborative leads. Practitioners and academics held workshops and discussion sessions, allowing delegates to share good practice in planning curriculum and assessment and consider how approaches could be strengthened further. Details have been published and can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-assessment-summit-september-2019/ |
| AC56 Education Scotland will work with practitioners to develop and publish a professional learning resource that supports high quality play-based learning across the early level of Curriculum for Excellence by December 2019. This will feature existing good practice from across Scotland. |
Ongoing Education Scotland is continuing to work with practitioners to create the resource. Work is being taken forward to share practice, highlight the benefits of play pedagogy, and to support self-evaluation. A framework to support settings in further developing their practice in this area is also in progress. Progress remains on track for publication in December 2019. Communication to raise awareness of the resource will follow in the new year. |
| AC57 Following the publication of the national strategy for school libraries in September 2018, an implementation group has been established. This group will begin implementation of the 20 action points in the strategy which are designed to support the improvement in literacy and numeracy, boost attainment across the curriculum, support health and wellbeing, foster inclusion, and enable opportunities for family learning. The group will meet 4 times in 2019, and the strategy will be implemented over the next five years. |
Ongoing Progress has been made against several of the aims of the strategy in 2019, notably through the launch of a Professional Learning Community for school librarians on GLOW, and continued funding through the School Library Improvement Fund of projects aligned to the strategy’s aims. Progress and monitoring will continue in 2020 with the Implementation Group focusing on headteacher and pupil engagement, and continued promotion of the strategy. |
| AC58 The Scottish Government will publish guidance for all early learning and childcare providers in December 2018 on how to access local outdoor space and how to set up an outdoor nursery experience. We have provided £860,000 of funding to Inspiring Scotland to work with eight local authorities to increase and improve their outdoor learning, which will include the establishment of two outdoor nurseries. |
Ongoing Out to Play, practical guidance for creating outdoor play experiences in early learning and childcare (https://www2.gov.scot/Resource/0054/00544754.pdf) was published on 21st Dec 2018. Hard copies of Out to Play have been distributed to all registered ELC and Out of school care settings. Education Scotland is creating a page on the NIH to support this. Inspiring Scotland continue to work with local authorities in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Midlothian, West Lothian, Highland, Argyll and Bute, South Ayrshire and North Lanarkshire with progress being reported quarterly and have agreed to widen their support to a number of additional local authorities. |
| AC59 Education Scotland will carry out a national thematic inspection across of a selection of early learning and childcare settings and schools focused on mathematics. The findings will be used to identify what is working well and what needs to improve. As part of the inspections, HM Inspectors will visit a sample of schools and have discussions with a range of stakeholders during the spring of 2019 and findings will be published in autumn 2019. |
Complete 40 schools and early learning centres were visited by Education Scotland inspectors between January and June 2019. The findings from this review were published on 2 December and can be found here https://education.gov.scot/media/uc1dcdic/multiplying-skills-adding-value-full-report.pdf . |
| AC60 There will be an independent review of the approach to P1 assessments (which help inform the professional judgement of teachers on achievement of a CfE level) within the context of the NIF. The review will be asked to provide conclusions and recommendations by the end of May 2019. |
Complete The report on the Independent Review was published on the Scottish Government website in June 2019. It was accepted and presented to Parliament by the DFM on 11 June 2019. The DFM concluded that P1 SNSA would continue, however the report’s recommendations for improvement would be implemented. These were published in the form of an improvement plan in August 2019 and the actions are set out in Annex A. A revised statement on the Purpose and Use of the national standardised assessments was published at the end of August 2019. |
| AC61 A P1 practitioner forum has been established, led by Professor Sue Ellis. The forum is a place for engagement and discussion on the issues facing standardised assessments in a play based early years curriculum. It will provide insight and practical advice to teachers, schools and Scottish Government by May 2019. |
Ongoing The P1 practitioner forum met 4 times in 2019 and produced a report with recommendations to the Scottish Government in April 2019. The recommendations were accepted, considered as part of the Independent Review and were included in the Improvement Plan in August. The P1 forum was restarted in October 2019 and will meet 5 times during 2019/20 moving around the country to reach as many practitioners as possible. It will consider a range of issues including improving early level literacy and numeracy teaching, assessment and play based pedagogy, and improved support and communication on the national standardised assessment for practitioners. |
| AC62 To ensure further improvement in levels of service delivery, SDS is working with schools to ensure young people receive their entitlements under the Career Education Standard. |
Complete – Business as usual SDS hase established far reaching mechanisms (service offer, learner engagements, CLPL support, online support etc.) to support schools and authorities to improve the participation measure and career advice information, and guidance to all learners including those learners with DYW identified characteristics (i.e. care experienced, disabled, black and minority ethnic groups and those affected by gender segregation/stereotyping). This also includes support for the implementation of the Career Education Standard 3-18. These will ensure that children and young people will continue to receive the support they require in this area as the DYW programme progresses and moves into its next implementation phase beyond 2021. |
| AC63 To ensure further improvement in levels of service delivery, SDS is using the SPA to ensure young people are aware of the different pathways available to them as they progress through school. |
Complete SDS has established far reaching mechanisms (service offer, learner engagements, CLPL support, online support etc.) to support schools and authorities improve the participation measure and career advice information and guidance to all learners including those learners with DYW identified characteristics (ie care experienced, disabled, black and minority ethnic groups and those affected by gender segregation/stereotyping) . This also includes support for the implementation of the Career Education Standard 3-18. These will ensure that children and young people will continue to receive the support they require in this area as the DYW programme progresses and moves into its next implementation phase beyond 2021. |
| AC64 Education Scotland will continue to review how best they can work together with staff across RICs to better share practice, skills and expertise in assessment and moderation. Education Scotland is planning to hold a number of events in 2018/19 to continue to provide effective support to improve the consistency and effectiveness of moderation of teachers’ professional judgement further. |
Complete Education Scotland delivered a series of events in Local Authorities and in RICs on assessment and moderation delivering key messages for improvement and sharing good practice . |
| AC65 The Scottish Funding Council outcome managers will be working closely with colleges throughout 2019 to embed the enhanced DYW related principles within the Outcome Agreements- including the expansion of the vocational offer in schools. |
Complete Guidance for college Outcome Agreements 2020-21 to 2022-23 was issued by SFC on 7 October 2019. The role of colleges in embedding activity to support the principles of the DYW Programme, including expansion of a vocational offer at senior phase in schools, is set out. The Guidance asks colleges to prepare a DYW Progress Report which outlines how they are addressing the DYW aims - report progress, evidence impact and identify next steps. Colleges are asked in particular to comment on school-college partnership planning, senior phase vocational pathways, employer engagement, and work-based learning. SFC will use the Reports to evaluate how far the change is embedded across the system and what the impact is for students. SFC expects to receive a draft report from all colleges by 31 January 2020. Final reports are due with final OA documents on 30 April 2020. |
| AC66 The Scottish Government has put in place an overarching set of KPIs for the DYW programme of activity. Officials will work with the DYW Employer's Forum, to put in place revised KPIs for the next Financial year (2019-20). |
Complete Four new KPIs were developed following consultation with Regional Groups, Employers' Forum, Education Scotland, SDS and SG policy, aiming to measure engagement between employers and young people, education/employer partnerships, support for the apprenticeship family and support in providing young people with work experience placements. KPIs have been rolled out and agreed with the Regional Groups. Reporting mechanisms (highlight and KPI reports) were also reviewed and revised to streamline the process. Guidance was sent to the groups on 31 May 2019. |
| AC67 A new Health and Wellbeing Census, covering children based in publicly funded schools from late primary through to secondary schools, will cover a wide range of topics and themes in relation to the Health and Wellbeing of children and young people. The first census will take place in the 2019/20 academic year, and every four years thereafter. |
Ongoing Work is ongoing in reviewing and finalising the content and coverage of the 2019/20 Health and Wellbeing Census, in order for each local authority to go ‘live’ with their own Census starting in the early part of 2020. |
| AC68 By August 2020, Education Scotland will prepare professional learning resources for school staff, based on the findings from the National Report. |
Ongoing The literacy and numeracy team have a plan in place to develop the professional learning resources. The numeracy team have consulted with assessment coordinators and both teams have consulted with stakeholders. |
| AC69 We will also provide £600,000 of funding over the next two years through the Outdoor Learning in Nature Fund for up to 16 projects in nurseries, schools and community groups across Scotland. All the projects involve working with schools and nurseries to help children from our most deprived areas spend time in nature. |
Complete The £600,000 Outdoor Learning in Nature (OLIN) Fund launched in March 2018 with the aim of supporting more young people to have regular, frequent, structured and progressive outdoor learning experiences. Funding was awarded to 16 projects in the first round and a further seven in the second round projects in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee. The Fund has now closed, but has exceeded its target of 100 schools involved. |
| AC70 The Scottish Government will publish a Learning for Sustainability Action Plan by summer 2019. |
Complete The Learning for Sustainability Action Plan was published in June 2019. It aims to ensure that all children and young people can experience their curricular entitlement to Learning for Sustainability by focusing action around:
|
| School Improvement | |
|---|---|
| SI01 Education Scotland will support leaders and practitioners to develop their skills in providing professional learning for others through the regional improvement collaboratives which is focused on learning, teaching and assessment in and across curriculum areas and sectors. |
Complete Education Scotland have offered support to every Regional Improvement Collaborative and have delivered sessions in all 6 regional improvement collaboratives (RICs). |
| SI02 Education Scotland will promote collaborative practitioner enquiry in and across services and regions to support leaders and practitioners to drive innovation and improvement in learning and teaching. |
Complete – Business as usual A new cohort started the teacher leadership programme in August 2019. Over 200 teachers have been recruited with regional induction days taking place in late August. During 2020 Education Scotland will enhance the offer available through the Teacher Leadership Programme to provide additional support to teachers engaging in the programme (see TP87-89 in Annex A) |
| SI04 Education Scotland is committed to working with local authorities and schools through regional improvement collaboratives during 2017/18, to help them further develop the use of data to continually raise attainment and achievement and close the poverty related attainment gap. |
Superseded This duplicates the entry for AC13, so is to be superseded and monitored under AC13. |
| SI05 We refreshed and released updated guidance on managing school exclusions ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2’ in June 2017. We plan to undertake a review of ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 1’ in January 2018, with the aim of publishing findings by October 2018. |
Complete Revised guidance was published in June 2019. |
| SI08 Education Scotland will continue to support the effective use of funding to raise attainment and close the poverty related attainment gap. |
Complete – Business as usual In addition to working with their link local authorities, Attainment Advisors have begun to support appropriate regional collaborative plans where there is a focus on equity. This is enabling wider sharing of their expertise. |
| SI11 We are also exploring options through UK legislation to enable the sharing of data by DWP and HMRC to allow local authorities to identify eligible families. This should assist with increasing registrations of ELC for 2 year olds. |
Ongoing Scottish Government has received confirmation from UK Government that they will progress drafting the necessary legal gateway to allow data sharing. This is subject to UK Government and UK Parliament timescales. |
| SI12 We will remove mandatory unit assessments for National 5, Highers and Advanced Highers on a phased basis over a three-year period from school year 2017/18. This will reduce workload for teachers and young people. |
Complete – Business as usual This action has now been completed with the removal of mandatory unit assessments taking place for National 5 in 2017/18, Higher in 2018/19 and Advanced Higher in 2019/2020. We will continue to monitor the implementation of these revisions. SQA have issued communications material to centres keeping them informed of the changes to Advanced Higher. The interim measure of Recognising Positive Achievement (RPA) is also being removed from session 2019/20 (as announced by DFM in October 2018) as one of the first steps to improve the credibility of National 4 within the suite of pathways available through the Senior Phase. This has been recommunicated to centres by SQA. |
| SI13 From January 2017, we will work with teachers and local authority colleagues to gain a clear understanding of Curriculum for Excellence achievement of a level data and senior phase assessment data available through Insight. Using this data we will work together to drive improvements in learner outcomes at local level, particularly through the Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative. |
Complete – Business as usual As of the 2019 release, the Curriculum for Excellence achievement of a level data have been designated as Official Statistics. The BGE Reference Group and Insight Project Board have been merged to form a single benchmarking board with a remit to provide strategic input and advice across the improvement tool portfolio. The Scottish Government officials responsible for the Insight and the BGE Benchmarking tools are now part of a single analytical team under a common management structure, to facilitate closer working and establish data linkages. All of these developments will enable greater use of the range of available data to drive improvements in learner outcomes. |
| SI14 Throughout 2017, we will intensify our programme for reducing workload in schools based on ideas contributed by teacher associations and other partners in education. Inspection teams will continue to challenge unnecessary bureaucracy and offer practical assistance to schools and local authorities including supporting the use of school improvement planning to tackle bureaucracy by June 2017. |
Complete – Business as usual Education Scotland continue to challenge unnecessary bureaucracy within schools and local authorities, particularly in areas such as planning and reporting. |
| SI17 Developing the Young Workforce will continue to be a focus of inspection and review activity across all sectors. In school year 2016/17 there will be a specific focus on how well the Career Education Standard (3-18) and the Work Placements Standard are being implemented. |
Complete – Business as usual Evidence on how well the Career Education Standard and the Work Placement Standard are being implemented continues to be gathered and discussed within relevant inspections. These data are regularly reviewed, analysed and shared with relevant colleagues. |
| SI19 We will extend the reach and impact of the Attainment Advisers, through regional alignment, to promote collaboration and joint delivery across local authorities from October 2016. Using the data available from the Framework, the Attainment Adviser team will work directly with schools where they can make the biggest difference to accelerate efforts to close the gap. Educational leadership of the programme will be extended through a new Chief Adviser role. |
Superseded – duplicates AC35 31 Attainment Advisors are now in post and working directly with their link local authorities and the RICs to deliver the recently developed Maximising Progress five point plan. The Attainment Advisor for Argyll & Bute will start in January 2020. Until then the authority is being served by an existing experienced AA who knows the authority well. An Education Officer post has been created and filled. This is to support effective communication, analysis and synthesis of evidence and reporting. The Chief Adviser role is no longer considered necessary. |
| SI23 Working in partnership with local authorities and partners to develop the shape and composition of the RICs. We will ensure that the experience of current and emerging partnership working informs the establishment of RICs. |
Complete All 6 RICs are established and have core teams in place, with their remit informed by assessment of existing collaborative working. |
| SI24 Provide a clear vision and framework within which effective school level collaboration can take place. We will work with partners to develop this framework and support development of resources and tools to support collaborative approaches in the classroom. As part of the inspection process, Education Scotland will look at how schools and establishments are working collaboratively with others and we will share evidence about what works. |
Complete Following initial review work, further focused engagement took place in early 2019, with a view to ensuring that the key drivers relating to effective school-level collaboration were identified and where appropriate built into the wider Education Reform programme. An outline to take forward further work with Education Scotland over the 2019/20 academic year has been prepared. Proposals seek to embed the key drivers and contributors to school-level collaboration into the wider Education Empowerment reforms. Working in partnership with local government, Regional Improvement Collaboratives and Education Scotland, we will ensure that our education empowerment reforms strengthen and support collaborative working across the system. This includes extending the reach, accessibility and impact of collaborative working across school, local, regional and national levels (see SI64 in Annex A) |
| SI25 Support schools and establishments to work together in a learning journey cluster to develop a 3-18 curriculum offer, support transitions and clearly focus on outcomes. We will also support schools and partners in working to support transitions to a positive destination as part of their wider learner journey. |
Superseded This commitment was linked to SI24 and will now be delivered through that activity and through further development of RIC support to schools (see SI64 in Annex A). |
| SI26 Working with Education Scotland and the Care Inspectorate to develop a single shared inspection model for early learning and childcare and a commitment that each institution will only be subject to a single inspection per cycle. |
Superseded Education Scotland, the Care Inspectorate and the Scottish Government have agreed to defer further development of a single shared inspection model for early learning and childcare (ELC) until after the expansion of funded ELC has been fully implemented. |
| SI28 Developing an approach to funding that truly empowers schools, and provides the framework of support which schools need, based on the outcome of the consultation. |
Ongoing New revised Devolved School Management guidance, co-produced with local government, was published in June 2019. Local authorities are currently implementing the guidance, which requires them to prepare revised Devolved School Management Schemes for their authority, and these new Schemes are due to be in place by April 2021. |
| SI29 Around a quarter of 2 year olds are now eligible for funded ELC through the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and through subsequent secondary legislation which commenced in August 2015. There is now a dedicated national project on the 2 year old offer within the Scottish Government expansion programme to provide support to local authorities and make links across the programme. The programme will last up to, and beyond, August 2020. We aim to improve uptake by ensuring the 2 year old offer is appropriate and appealing for eligible children and their families. |
Ongoing Work to promote awareness and increase uptake of the 2 year old offer is well underway. We are working with UK Government to establish a legal gateway to allow for data of eligible families to be shared with local authorities. We have worked with 9 local authorities with the Children and Young People Improvement Collaborative on improving uptake and addressing barriers to the offer in their areas, with improvements being shared nationally at the end of November at their annual learning event. We are developing further opportunities to share this learning. We are working across Scottish Government to ensure we are making the most of cross/joint messaging e.g. with those eligible for Best Start Foods and who may access the Money Talks Tea. We have created content on the Parent Club website that has been messaged tested with the parents of eligible 2 year olds in mind. We are looking to establish an online community to share best practice and guidance around 2 year olds. |
| SI30 Education Scotland will continue to provide support to the RICs. |
Complete – Business at usual Education Scotland delivered a series of events in Local Authorities and in RICs on assessment and moderation delivering key messages for improvement and sharing good practice .In addition to working with their link local authorities, Attainment Advisors have begun to support appropriate regional collaborative plans where there is a focus on equity. This is enabling wider sharing of their expertise. 11 of the 15 actions in Early Learning and Childcare Quality Action Plan have now been delivered with the remaining well underway Actions that have been delivered include: publication of a national induction resource; development of directory of continuous professional learning opportunities; a learning and development course for school leadership teams on what drives quality in early learning and childcare; and strengthening of the ELC content on the Education Scotland National Improvement Hub. |
| Performance information | |
|---|---|
| PI02 From February 2017, we will roll out training in the use of the standardised assessment tool to equip teachers with the necessary data literacy skills to identify areas for improvement. |
Ongoing Introductory phase training for staff using the Gaelic Medium National Standardised Assessment system (Measaidhean Coitcheann Nàiseanta airson Foghlam tron Ghàidhlig) is now available and additional training modules, including on the use of MCNG data will be available shortly once the Gaelic language version has been finalised. |
| PI05 We will publish a draft information ‘dashboard’ covering the broad general education by summer 2017, making detailed performance information available to teachers and local authorities. |
Complete The BGE Tool was made available to local authorities and schools in 2018. During 2018 and 2019, Professional Advisers provided dedicated support to schools and local authorities to enhance their understanding and usage of the data within the BGE tool in a local context, and to gather feedback from users on the use of the tool, ideas for refinements to the tool, and suggestions on what kind of learning opportunities would be most useful. |
| PI12 The suite of Professional Standards managed by the General Teaching Council for Scotland are currently being revised and both digital and data literacy will be given greater prominence in revised versions to be published in 2020. The evaluation framework will be used for the accreditation of all new ITE programmes and for the reaccreditation of existing ITE provision. |
Ongoing The Review of Personal and Social Education, published in January 2019, included a specific recommendation that the standards for professional registration should be updated, as appropriate, to ensure the importance of personal and social education is recognised as a skill expected of newly qualified teachers. Additionally, Scottish Ministers accepted the recommendations of the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group in November 2018, which are intended to support improvements across education to embed approaches to tackling prejudice towards LGBTI young people. This will include the targeted learning and support for ITE teachers and qualified teachers which the GTCS Standards can help to support. The GTCS are currently consulting on a proposed amendment to the professional standards, however the Scottish Government will not be providing a formal response to the consultation. We will engage with the GTCS following the close of the consultation to discuss the associated recommendations in the Review of PSE and the LGBTI Inclusive Education report |
| PI13 The Knowledge Mobilisation Study, which looks at how educational practitioners are engaging with research, is now complete. The report from the study and policy recommendations coming from it will be published in early 2019. |
Complete The Knowledge Mobilisation report was published in August 2019: https://www.gov.scot/publications/knowledge-utilisation-mapping-study-scottish-education-system A report explored how Scottish educational practitioners engage with research and the factors that support and hinder ability to make best of use of research evidence. A working group to take forward the recommendations is planned for early 2020. |
| PI14 A survey of secondary school headteachers will be undertaken, which will help develop a more comprehensive understanding of senior phase curriculum models and implementation. The final report from the project is due in May 2019. |
Complete The Senior Phase: Headteacher Survey report was published in September 2019: https://www.gov.scot/publications/senior-phase-headteacher-survey/ The report outlines the findings from an online survey of secondary school headteachers exploring their perspectives of implementing Senior Phase of Curriculum for Excellence. |
| PI15 A literature review of primary-secondary transitions has been carried out. The full report of that review and research findings report will be published in early 2019 |
Complete Report was published on 12 February 2019: https://www.gov.scot/publications/primary-secondary-transitions-systematic-literature-review-research-findings/ |
| PI16 Early work is underway on a long-term project to develop a new index of social background, which is aimed at creating individual level data (as opposed to area-based) which allow more targeted and effective intervention for disadvantaged pupils. |
Ongoing SG analysts have had a productive meeting with HRMC analysts regarding the feasibility of data sharing agreements for income and benefits data, and will continue to liaise and develop further. |
Contact
Email: Judith.Tracey@gov.scot
There is a problem
Thanks for your feedback