Today Smith writes:
‘I call up some teachers and parents and ask them if they’ve seen the new report on the Higher results. Yes, they’ve seen it, and no, they’re not surprised. They tell me about class sizes, and staff shortages, and the effect it’s all having on the kids. But they also tell me something interesting about how it might impact on the Scottish elections. My advice to the Government would be: sit up and pay attention because this is definitely going to affect you.’
‘I call up some teachers and parents’
You have to laugh. How many we wonder? Four or five? Less?
I know I keep doing the patronising Uni lecturer thing but, hey, it’s not good enough Mark. You need more than that even for the kind of journalism practised at the Herald. Have you thought of looking for some statistics to make your work evidence-based? It’s the latest thing.
Here’s how you do it. Remember before the election when you were all blaming the SNP for Scotland’s terrible Pisa results? I bet those same teachers and parents were fizzing then.
Well on 4th December 2019, the pollster Opinium asked a bigger sample than yours:
‘Which party so you trust on Education?’
And 56% said SNP, 36% said Conservatives, 7% didn’t know. The others got zero.
https://www.opinium.co.uk/political-polling-4th-december-2019/
But, but, even better, there was an election where parents and teachers had the chance to make the SNP sit up and pay attention. How did that go? The SNP won more than 80% of the seats? Oh, what could that mean, I wonder? Don’t they care about the Pisa results? I know academics don’t much but surely Jackson Carlaw’s opinion counts for something?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Yup. Mark gets PAID to scribble this bilge……Seashells, Wampum….who knows?
Better than working though. I blame the Editor.
Once upon a time, the Glasgow Herald was a newspaper.
Hard to believe nowadays, eh?
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Gavin, he’s produced worse before. “Why The Saltire Makes me Cringe” the Herald 2013.
Obviously the Herrod likes this kind of thing. It gave up being a news paoer long ago!
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“I call up some teachers and parents “, is that the best he can do , how did he decide who they would be , Tory’s on a membership roll I’ll bet ! .
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How did he know they had read the report? How many did he have to call before he found ones who had read it?
This was clickbait journalism pure and simple. Look at the on-line Herald on any given day and the stories that attract the most comments are the ones about the Scottish Government and/or SNP. Any story about Labour can hardly make it into double figures when it comes to comments. So skew the headline and increase the comments and the ad revenue
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Finding and then checking out facts on public policy and its implementation in Scotland is not really that hard or time consuming … or shouldn’t be for trained journalists. And with practice they would find that it gets easier and faster – and surely will bring greater professional satisfaction from better informing their readers!
I didn’t go behind the registration/paywall for The Herald but do wonder if its journalist tested the views of its secret sample of parents and teachers against some facts? Based on past record, perhaps not but others might be interested. A recent National Statistics Publication for Scotland, dating from December 2019, provides information to lay alongside The Herald’s ‘evidence’.
Source: https://www.gov.scot/publications/summary-statistics-schools-scotland-no-10-2019-edition/pages/5/
This provides a wealth of data on school staffing, pupil numbers and class sizes across publicly funded schools in Scotland, at the aggregated national level and at the level of local authorities. Here are some highlights given not to claim that all is just wonderful but to provide useful context for sensible, serious debate.
Over the year to 2019 for the primary plus secondary school sectors combined:
– teacher numbers increased by 288 to 52,247
– pupil numbers increased by 4,738
– the pupil teacher ratio (PTR) was 13.6, the same as the past two years.
In primary schools in the year to 2019:
– there was an increase in the number of teachers
– there was a decrease in the number of pupils
– this resulted in a reduction in PTR to 15.9, from 16.1 in 2018
– the average class size for pupils in primary schools was 23.5, unchanged since 2016.
In secondary schools in the year to 2019:
– the number of pupils grew at a faster rate than the number of teachers
– this resulted in an increase in the PTR to 12.4, from 12.3 in 2018
– (Data on class sizes in the secondary sector are not collected as class size varies widely between different subjects.)
It is interesting to drill down into class size data for Primary Schools. It is important to recall that legislation limits class sizes to 25 for P1 pupils and to 30 for P2 and P3. The data show that in 2019 the number of pupils in classes of 26 or more was just 267, a reduction from 511 in 2018. In 2019, there were 11 classes across Scotland with 26 or more pupils and containing at least one P1 pupil. This compares to 19 such classes in 2018.
Looking at average class sizes for primary school pupils since 2013, the data show that:
– for P1 the average in 2019 was 21.0 – stable since 2013
– for P2 the average in 2019 was 23.9 – stable since 2013
– for P3 the average in 2019 was 24.7 – stable since 2013
– for P4 to P7 the average in 2019 was 25.9 – this varied between 25.5 and 26.0 since 2013.
Interestingly, the percentage of P1-P3 pupils in classes of 18 or fewer varies widely between local authorities and years. Comparing 2019 with 2013, 18 out of 32 local authorities have seen an increase in the percentage of their pupils in classes of 18 or fewer, albeit minor shifts in some cases but substantial in others. At the same time there have been dramatic falls in the percentage of primary pupils in class sizes smaller than 18 in a few places, for example in East Dunbartonshire and Fife. There emerges a picture of marked variability within a system decentralised to local authority control.
I’m sure that all involved would wish to see more teachers and smaller classes across the board in Scottish education but in a resource strapped national context – where tough trade-offs between different public service demands need constantly to be made – a sensible question for a journalist would be why the marked variability on some metrics between different local authorities?
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Thanks for this broad range of evidence.
The research evidence with regard to class size and attainment is rather nuanced. At the senior levels of Scottish secondary schools, there is no correlation between class sizes and attainment. Since the highest levels (i.e. the percentages attaining the highest grades) of attainment tend to be in secondary schools serving areas of low Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation. These schools have a high rate of students continuing into Fifth and Sixth Years, so classes are generally larger. These schools also tend to have a wider range of subject choices, including subjects which across Scotland have relatively few numbers of students. Even in the low SIMD schools the numbers of students is relatively low and to staff such classes, class sizes in subjects like English Mathematics, Geography, etc, tend towards the maximum.
However, in the early years of primary school, particularly those serving areas of high SIMD, low pupil teacher ratios have greater levels of attainment. So, Head Teachers of such primary schools will tend to deploy more teachers to the early years (P1 and P2), with a consequence that class sizes in P6 and P7 will be larger.
It is not so much the pupil/TEACHER ratio that is important, it is the pupil/ADULT ratio. By ‘adult’, I mean staff such as classroom and special educational needs assistants. And most of these classroom assistants are outstanding and establish warm, trusting, humane relationships with children, often providing for some children the kind of constructive adult relationship that some lack at home. (Please note, I do not imply neglect by parents; a few are neglectful, but there are several reasons why some parents cannot provide the kind of attention most children take for granted). Since, in terms of costs, between 2 and 3 classroom assistants can be provided for the cost of the wages of ONE teacher, then, providing no teacher is required to work in excess of contractual hours or to teach classes above the contractual maxima, it is of greater value to provide more classroom assistants rather than ADDITIONAL teachers.
There is substantial evidence in support of this from various parts of the world, as well as from Scotland. When she was a Labour policy ‘wonk’, Wendy Alexander was well-acquainted with this and always spoke of pupil/adult ratios. One of the outstanding successes of the Labour Government of 1997/2010 was ‘Sure Start’, which poured money into early years. This was genuinely redistributive. Of course, as soon as the Tory/LibDem coalition came in in 2010, they began dismantling this rapidly and restored the redistribution of investment to the historic arrangement of deploying the buk of school funding to the senior years of secondary schools, in which the middle classes are disproportionately represented.
As ‘austerity’ has continued since 2010, and schools’ budgets have been squeezed, the teacher unions have ensured that their members’ conditions have been sustained at the expense of non-teacher staff in schools. The ‘pupil premium’ introduced by the Scottish Government by increasing Council Tax bands and hypothecating the revenue directly to schools offers the opportunity to offset the malign effects of austerity.
Personally, I would have restricted the pupil premium to nursery and early years, with limited amounts allocated to secondaries and mainly to those in schools serving areas of high SIMD. However, since the money was coming mainly from the more affluent sections of society who were moved into higher Council Tax bands, these groups had to be mollified by some of their cash going to the schools serving their children (since not all affluent families send their children to private schools – and all credit to them!!!)
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The positive effect of small class sizes in the early years also depends on the training of the teachers in the methods for small class teaching. There is some evidence that reducing class sizes is more likely to be effective when accompanied by professional development for teachers focusing on teaching skills and approaches.
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Wow, thanks for the breakdown in data stewartb. On the variations in class sizes in different authorities – did this have anything to do with the number of rural areas? (Sorry, can’t link to site on this device, and I’m too lazy to use a different one!). We used to have some primary schools with just one or two children in them – it used to be they had to keep the school open as long as one child was attending – so sometimes parents would inconveniently keep their child in a rather empty school in the hope new families would arrive (or if they new a young family would be using it soon). Apparently they are just closing schools anyway now. Big problem in rural communities where depopulation is a problem – you can’t attract new people if there are no schools in the area, in general. Anyway, if a primary school only has e.g. Twenty pupils, you aren’t going to get very big class sizes. (But there will be one teacher shared between them – dunno how that affects the stats!)
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Most of the very small class sizes are in the sparsely populated areas and these are mainly in a few Council areas, although some more densely populated Councils have some remote villages.
A few years ago, the SG introduced some extra hurdles to get over if an authority wished to close very small schools, such as ones on islands because of the impact on the viability of the community.
However, it has been proving increasingly difficult to get teachers for such schools (and similarly for GP practices, district nurses, etc.) although it always was difficult. For a long time, there were regulations against married women primary school teachers and, married women or women in relationships form the majority of the teaching force, fewer women are prepared to move to such areas unless there is suitable work for their partners.
There is some statistical evidence that children in such primary schools attain at lower levels than similar pupils in more populous areas. Fortunately, when they go to secondary schools, which have many more pupils, these children mainly ‘catch up’
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The marriage bar was lifted in 1944. Quite some time ago.
Phillipa Whitford gave a good talk a few months ago in which she pointed out that doctors from the EU seemed to be particularly keen to work in rural areas as GPs. She quoted her own husband as an example. He had been a GP on Arran I think but there was no work for her in her specialist area so eventually had to return to the mainland. A bit of a reversal from earlier times.
Church Ministers how have similar problems because their wives now have their own careers and are not prepared to run the various church groups that used to be the responsibility of the Minister’s wife. Needless to say when the Minister is a women her husband or partner wont be fulfilling that role either.
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Thanks Alasdair! Well, the lower attainment could probably be put at the feet at the mostly completely loony ‘head’ teachers of these small schools – they had absolute power and little oversight, so whatever peculiarity or obsession they had, the pupils, sometimes for generations, would be subjected to. Extremist religious dogma could be a bad one, political affiliations affecting favouritism, unpleasant punishment styles etc. I’m not joking either. I assume things are much better now.
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I think you would have to go back a century or more, probably more, to find the situation you describe and even then there was oversight of the schools perhaps not in the form we see today but it did exist.
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Ah right, I guess all my friends and family, and me, are lying then.
I shouldn’t have mentioned it.
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