Privately-educated Alex Massie of the Times with more fake news on Scotland’s state schools

Professor John Robertson OBA, former schoolteacher, education lecturer and Associate Dean (Quality Assurance) Faculty of Education, UWS

Alex Massie of the Times and Spectator, today claims:

Scotland’s schools are failing, but it doesn’t have to be this way

He’s right. It doesn’t have to be this way because it isn’t. Massie knows little of anything but of education, even less.

Massie was educated at St. Mary’s School, Melrose, Glenalmond College in Perthshire and at Trinity College Dublin but offers no detail of degree subject or classification. Given the kind of guy he seems, a first would have been mentioned.

What he doesn’t know:

From Literacy and numeracy standards reach record high, published December 10th 2024:

The proportion of pupils achieving the expected level in literacy and numeracy across primary and secondary schools has reached a new high, officials figures show.

For numeracy, a record 80.3% of pupils across P1, P4 and P7 reached expected levels, while S3 also reached a new high of 90.3%. For literacy, achievement is also now at a record high in both primary (74%) and secondary (88.3%).

The attainment gap between young people from the most and least deprived areas meeting standards in literacy has also reached a new low, according to the latest Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence levels 2023-24 (ACEL) statistics.1

In England, on 9 July 2024, for 11 year-olds [P7]:

[Only] 61% of pupils reached the expected standard in all of reading, writing and maths, up from 60% in 2023. This is below 2019 attainment, where 65% of pupils met the standard.2

Direct comparison with education in other countries is not always reliable but had this stark contrast [32% better] operated in the opposite direction, with England at 80% and Scotland at 61%, you can be sure our media would be all over it.

What has made Scotland’s success possible after 17 years of SNP rule?

While there will be other factors, the ratio of pupils to teachers is recognised by researchers and in common sense, to be crucial.

In Scotland, as of 10 December 2024, there was a teacher for every 13.3 pupils.3 This ratio has been in the range 13.6/1 to 13.2/1 for six years.

In England? a teacher for every 18 pupils, 5 more, – 36% worse.4

Sources:

  1. https://www.gov.scot/news/literacy-and-numeracy-standards-reach-record-high/?s=03
  2. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/key-stage-2-attainment-national-headlines#:~:text=In%202024%2C%2061%25%20of%20pupils,of%20pupils%20met%20the%20standard.
  3. https://www.gov.scot/publications/summary-statistics-for-schools-in-scotland-2024/
  4. https://www.gov.scot/publications/pupil-projections-implications-teacher-resourcing-needs-scotland-education-workforce-modelling-research/pages/4/

Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) with my regular column on media coverage at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/

The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116

About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brown_(Scottish_activis

5 thoughts on “Privately-educated Alex Massie of the Times with more fake news on Scotland’s state schools”

  1. He will, probably, have had a blether with Lindsay Paterson who seems to be doing the rounds bad mouthing Scottish education, with risible catastrophic claims.

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  2. At a very basic level, there is something fundamentally suspect about relentlessly taking a complex, multi-faceted aspect of public policy and service delivery – one that a majority rely on daily for the crucial task of educating our children and grandchildren – and seek to exploit people’s natural concerns in this way.

    It is not a binary matter – it is NOT ‘all is good in Scotland’s education system’ or all is ‘very bad’. It never has been and, intuitively, never will be – anywhere!

    It is not a binary – a ‘knowledge-based curriculum’ should be in place but the importance of ‘knowledge’ in the curriculum is denied within Scotland’s education system. Proponents of the former position would seem to have us believe it’s ‘black or white’, ‘all or nothing’!

    And it’s not cut and dried – that Scotland’s PISA ranking is an indication of a ‘very bad system’ and England’s ranking of a ‘very good system’. Even in PISA’s own terms – on a statistical basis – it’s not so cut and dried. And nothing about an educational system and its societal context is quite so simple.

    Candidly, the efforts of Massie and his ilk come across as examples of agenda-driven gaslighting. Hopefully, few reasonable people with any sort of direct, recent experience of education provision in Scotland will read, far less be influenced by, the Times/Spectator article. Hopefully, any that do read this kind of stuff will see the purpose for what it is – part of a sustained attempt to have the SNP defeated in elections. And why? Because of its track record in government on education? Aye right!

    But will the mainstream news media continue to amplify negative contributions about education in Scotland – without context, without perspective, without honest comparative analysis? I am supremely confident that they will!

    See: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2025/01/22/comparison-of-educational-performance-across-uk-at-odds-with-labour-party-spokespersons-claim-of-failure-in-scotland/

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  4. “Scottish students have been among the top performers in global competences, which measure their capacity to interpret worldviews, to engage effectively in interactions with people from different cultures, and to act for collective well-being and sustainable development” OECD report 2021

    Wales and N Ireland have followed Scotland in implementing a curriculum more fit for the world now rather than relying on the traditional curriculum favoured by Eton and Oxford attending politicians which creates a ruling class and worker drones.

    Changing a long established curriculum has its risks and performance measured against traditional criteria may appear worse. However, countries scoring highly in key subjects such as maths are often those favouring rote learning, a narrow curriculum, long hours (including homework) and a stressful focus on exams all of which contribute to stressed and unhappy students, something not always measured in school/pupil attainment scores. I am proud that Scotland is still in the above average category for traditional subjects as well as building up the skills and attitudes more relevant in today’s world AND doing this for all students rather than a select group. Not perfect, never will be, but always striving to improve

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