Tag: education

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Major comparative study by respected London-based Nuffield Foundation revealed higher educational achievement across the board in Scotland’s senior schools (16-18) than in other parts of the UK

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The Nuffield Foundation’s finding are entirely welcomed across education, considered useful and trusted on the basis of its transparent and rigorous methods. Many prominent educationist see Pisa as a destructive force narrowing and distorting curricula. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goin Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair From Comparing inequality and outcomes across post-16 education in the UK, published in August 2025, utterly ignored at the time. Since the formal introduction of … Continue reading Major comparative study by respected London-based Nuffield Foundation revealed higher educational achievement across the board in Scotland’s senior schools (16-18) than in other parts of the UK

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No credible researcher into pupil attainment, values the Pisa tests but Lindsay Paterson is wheeled out again to praise, utterly ill-informed, England’s dodgy results

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Professor John Robertson OBA, for nearly 40 years a schoolteacher, a teacher education lecturer, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance, research methods lecturer, PhD supervisor and Faculty Research Ethics Chair The Holyrood podcast Politically Speaking is owned by the Tory, Lord Ashcroft. He owns the Holyrood magazine too. They currently have Prof (rtd) Lindsay Paterson on to tell you plainly that Scotland’s falling Pisa scores are the consequence of devolution and SNP policies and that England is doing better. Help Talking-up Scotland keep goin Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 I’ll repeat our, utterly mainstream in academia (proper that is) … Continue reading No credible researcher into pupil attainment, values the Pisa tests but Lindsay Paterson is wheeled out again to praise, utterly ill-informed, England’s dodgy results

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Unionist Socialist Workers Party member tells Bella Caledonia readers that Scottish firefighters ‘cannot take any more cuts’ but forgets to mention fires down by 35% yet staffing down by only 18%

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Call that a wildfire crisis? See this: Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Bella Caledonia is great, nearly all the time. They have a lot of high quality writing, often putting our more prosaic percentages and line-graphs stuff in the shade but, every so often, show considerable political naïveté or lack of concern, platforming attacks on the Scottish Government which can only damage the wider movement – if you can’t run a…how can you run a country? Two days ago they had the above from an SWP member on behalf … Continue reading Unionist Socialist Workers Party member tells Bella Caledonia readers that Scottish firefighters ‘cannot take any more cuts’ but forgets to mention fires down by 35% yet staffing down by only 18%

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When will BBC Scotland hire an education correspondent that can read published peer-review research revealing how Pisa reduces creative work and can weaken later learning

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Quick as you don’t like, BBC Scotland‘s ‘Education Correspondent’, with barely a thought it seems, is taking the latest Pisa data on reading all-too-dimly. Who is she? Lucy Adams at the University of Glasgow -She studied for an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow between 2006 and 2008. This is an interesting part of her background because creative writing can strengthen narrative skill, precision of language and the ability to bring lived experience vividly onto the page. She also completed a … Continue reading When will BBC Scotland hire an education correspondent that can read published peer-review research revealing how Pisa reduces creative work and can weaken later learning

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Two leading academics cast doubt on England’s supposedly better Pisa scores as their sample is revealed to be skewed toward high achievers by schools gaming the system again

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To put it plainly, based on the reading of two prominent academics in England, the sample from English schools is light on the percentage of pupils with special needs. This echoes the problems of representativeness in the English sample in 2022 (more below) when the results were ‘asterisked’ with a serious warning after almost being fully excluded. There is no history of such gaming or bias in the other 3 UK nations. Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 The above from the Times Education Supplement‘s analysis of the Pisa test … Continue reading Two leading academics cast doubt on England’s supposedly better Pisa scores as their sample is revealed to be skewed toward high achievers by schools gaming the system again

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No credible academic uses the Pisa scores and proper tests show real progress in Scotland’s schools

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Here’s a short video version: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2026/03/10/short-video-on-englands-pisa-scores-are-based-only-on-a-tiny-selective-sample-of-higher-achieving-schools-making-paul-okanes-sad-desperate-attempt-to-claim-they-are-better/ ‘Pisa tests fail to recognise what’s important in education and should be ignored’ https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/pisa-tests-fail-recognise-whats-important-education-and-should-be-ignored OECD and Pisa tests are damaging education worldwide – academics https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/06/oecd-pisa-tests-damaging-education-academics Too few students from England took part in the study – meaning the results could be up to eight points too generous, as more higher-performing pupils took part.  https://schoolsweek.co.uk/pisa-2022-rise-in-maths-but-warning-over-inflated-results/#:~:text=But%20the%20country’s%20performance%20is,caution%20on%20interpreting%20the%20findings. I could go on with quotes about Pisa but the above three give a flavour of just how useless they are. Only politicians use them and do … Continue reading No credible academic uses the Pisa scores and proper tests show real progress in Scotland’s schools

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Do you ever get fed up with us reporting how after 19 years without LabCons just about every public service in Scotland has been protected by the SNP? Now it’s our well-regulated RAAC ‘which can easily last 50 years, and should be able to carry on for several decades after that’

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 BBC Reporting Scotland Down today are back in Aberdeen, meeting folk who should really be suing the engineers who did the report upon which a mortgage lender lent them money to buy their RAAC council house, at a knock-down price thanks to the Tories and Labour back in the 20th C., before the SNP put an end to the taxpayer rip-off scheme in 2016. They interview a young man who has clearly played poker before and likes it there, he says. ‘Make me an … Continue reading Do you ever get fed up with us reporting how after 19 years without LabCons just about every public service in Scotland has been protected by the SNP? Now it’s our well-regulated RAAC ‘which can easily last 50 years, and should be able to carry on for several decades after that’

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Minimum wage shame list reveals Scottish firms significantly more likely to pay staff minimum wage than in other parts of UK

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Top story at BBC Scotland Business and front page on the BBC Scotland News site but barely mentioned across other BBC sites, ‘Minimum wage shame list reveals Scottish firms that failed to pay staff.’ Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 From BBC Scotland today: Fifty firms in Scotland have been revealed on a UK government list naming and shaming employers that failed to pay staff minimum wage. Three of the companies topping the list in Scotland – including North East bakers Murdoch Allan & Son – each owed more than … Continue reading Minimum wage shame list reveals Scottish firms significantly more likely to pay staff minimum wage than in other parts of UK

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Funding education ‘for the good of society’ but ‘whose society?’

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 By Alasdair Macdonald Within the pre-school and school sector, funding per capita allocations increased as age groups increased. So, allocations to pre-school organisations were less than those for primary and, these, in turn, were less than the allocations to secondary. And, within secondary, these were even greater for senior secondaries compared to junior secondaries and for students in Fifth and Sixth Years, the two years after the school leaving age of 16. Students opting to continue beyond the statutory minimum leaving were disproportionately from … Continue reading Funding education ‘for the good of society’ but ‘whose society?’

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Scotland has 21% more to spend on each school pupil but 24% less to spend on each undergraduate than England? Harvard Researchers would say ‘Good, good!’

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Help Talking-up Scotland keep going Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 From the Higher Education Policy Institute yesterday and echoed in reports from Universities Scotland and the NUS: How Scotland has 21% more to spend on each school pupil but 24% less to spend on each undergraduate than England. This is all much more important than it might initially sound. Policymaking in Scotland is shaped by the size of its relatively small polity, meaning the political class is tighter and universities have more direct engagement with their political overlords, at least compared to England. This … Continue reading Scotland has 21% more to spend on each school pupil but 24% less to spend on each undergraduate than England? Harvard Researchers would say ‘Good, good!’