Professor John Robertson OBA, PhD, MEd and four other PG awards, BA Hons Dissertation on the integration of special needs pupils, former schoolteacher, education lecturer, senior lecturer, head of department, quality assurance associate dean, professor and research ethics chair, 1975-2016

See that cv list there? It didn’t come easy. It means that after 50 years, I know stuff, I really do.

James McEnaney, ‘high school English teacher for unspecified time and nine years as an English and Communication lecturer in a Glasgow further education college‘, seems to think we don’t really know what’s happening in schools and that, like that bloody cat, it could be alive and well or deid depending on when or who has a look. Has he been reading too much of that ‘magic realism’ genre?

He doesn’t have a scoobie.

We have the facts.

Here they are again:

Scottish education sees several signs of attainment gaps narrowing

The one-year attainment gap has widened but the far more important longer-term trend is: Most disadvantaged attainment level more than doubles in only 12 years

Scotland closes attainment gap, hits record literacy and numeracy standards, 32% above England, after maintaining 36% more teachers

Research – school achievement higher and attainment gaps far smaller in Scotland than in rest of UK

Research – school achievement higher and attainment gaps far smaller in Scotland than in rest of UK

Attainment by 16 year-olds – Scotland’s schools performing far better than those in other parts of UK and an extra 30 000 pupils benefit each year

James, it’s an F, do not resubmit.