Tag: learning

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Carole Ford again – some maths teacher, some educationist

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On Debate Night, Reform UK’s Thomas Kerr claimed that nearly 400 000 ‘voted for us.’ It was only 365 000, not so near. Then, ‘educationist’ and former head and maths teacher but a former parliamentary Lib Dem candidate too, Carole Ford, converted that 400 000 into ‘three quarters of a million‘ (750 000)! Rusty? Earlier Ford had repeated her trust in the OECD/Pisa tests which some suggest reveal a decline in standards in Scotland. which are sat right across developed countries, the OECD countries. Scotland’s standards have been on the slide since about 2004. Ford was a Heidie in Kilmarnock … Continue reading Carole Ford again – some maths teacher, some educationist

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Scotland avoids large classes and lack of support staff found in England to have ‘created a barrier to inclusion’

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In the Guardian today: Lack of specialist staff hinders support for Send children, teacher survey finds – National Education Union poll finds 89% feel class sizes in England are too big to be ‘properly inclusive’. Oversized classes and inadequate staffing levels are hindering teachers’ capacity to support children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send), according to a large survey of state school teachers in England. Nine out of 10 (89%) of the 10,000 teachers who took part in the poll by the National Education Union (NEU), before its annual conference in Brighton which starts on Monday, said class sizes … Continue reading Scotland avoids large classes and lack of support staff found in England to have ‘created a barrier to inclusion’

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Scotland’s teachers biting the hand of the ‘best friend they could have’ and even Jack McConnell’s Labour think tank director says ‘Scotland’s teaching unions must be broken’

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON In the long-time Labour-supporting New Statesman, by the long-time critic of the SNP and Director of Lord Jack McConnell’s ‘Enlighten’ think tank, Chris Deerin writes: Scotland’s teaching unions must be broken The country’s education system needs radical reform.You can always rely on the EIS. The Educational Institute of Scotland, the country’s largest teaching union, has for decades been the main block to effective reform of the nation’s schools. Its instinctive belligerence and obstructionism are key reasons that educational … Continue reading Scotland’s teachers biting the hand of the ‘best friend they could have’ and even Jack McConnell’s Labour think tank director says ‘Scotland’s teaching unions must be broken’

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Wrong! There are 6 505 fewer pupils yet 63 more teachers to keep Scotland’s pupil/teacher ratio the best by far in the UK

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON Rehashing a story from one of their December 2025 front pages, the Herald’s Garrett Stell (‘Originally from North Carolina’), has the above headline based on an apparent fall in teacher numbers from 2022 to 2025. I’m not going to check. It’s not important. Much more important, he doesn’t seem to know about the ratio between teacher and pupil numbers. I’ll resist the temptation to do my Appalachian accent. You’ll see above, in the official figures, that pupil numbers … Continue reading Wrong! There are 6 505 fewer pupils yet 63 more teachers to keep Scotland’s pupil/teacher ratio the best by far in the UK

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Labour Government promises to halve the attainment gap by 2062 [!] for all pupils while SNP Scotland has already achieved a new low, in 2024

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Please Support Talking-up Scotland at:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/support-talking-up-scotlandClick on the above.Or direct bank transfer at Sort Code 08-91-04 Account – 12266421 Name – JOHN ROBERTSON All over BBC UK [England] today, this message: The government says it plans to halve the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers in England by the time children born in this Parliament finish secondary school. It’s another one of those promises you might like to ask an 11 year-old to answer these questions: 2044 and 2062!? Meanwhile, from the Scottish Government’s Literacy and numeracy standards reach record high report in December 2024: The proportion of pupils achieving the … Continue reading Labour Government promises to halve the attainment gap by 2062 [!] for all pupils while SNP Scotland has already achieved a new low, in 2024

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Scotland’s schools narrow attainment gaps across the board and ‘most deprived’ 14/15 year-olds make major strides in literacy

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From Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels, 2024-25 published on 9 December 2025: The statistics also provide information on the gap in attainment between pupils from the most and least deprived areas of Scotland: For literacy, there was an increase in the proportions of primary pupils (P1, P4, P7 combined) that achieved the expected level, from both the least deprived and most deprived areas with a larger increase in the most deprived areas. As a result, the gap reached its narrowest ever level of 19.4 percentage points. For primary numeracy, the gap narrowed to 16.6 percentage points, which was … Continue reading Scotland’s schools narrow attainment gaps across the board and ‘most deprived’ 14/15 year-olds make major strides in literacy

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Literacy and Numeracy at record highs in Scotland’s schools

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Support Talking-up Scotland -In this election year in Scotland, the 90% pro-Union media and their sponsors in the opposition parties will do everything they can to undermine the pro-independence parties. Thought vastly outnumbered, we will do our very best to counter their lies and get you, every day, the true stories and the sources of evidence to prove them. Help us if you can at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-get-the-facts-for-you From the National Standardised Assessments for Scotland National Report for Academic Year 2024-2025, published today, we can see the one year results but no trends. This is a classic example of a task where … Continue reading Literacy and Numeracy at record highs in Scotland’s schools

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Factcheck – 70% pass rate in S4 mathematics – Someone who actually knows something about educational research scoffs at fake ‘commission’s education arm’

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Professor John Robertson OBA, , former schoolteacher, education lecturer, head of department, Associate Dean (Quality Assurance), Research Professor, research methods tutor, Masters and PhD supervisor, multiple peer-reviewed international research author, Faculty Research Ethics Chair I have more detail on the above ‘research’, front page this morning and 35th by this afternoon. The only story that has sunk faster is that on the Labour MSP and the paedophile. I’ve already clarified in my previous post why you should be wary of ‘The Commission on School Reform, the education arm of the independent think tank Enlighten.’ Who on earth do they think they are? … Continue reading Factcheck – 70% pass rate in S4 mathematics – Someone who actually knows something about educational research scoffs at fake ‘commission’s education arm’

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Scotsman ‘newspaper’ front pages incompetent, mendacious, self-important, sub-standard researchers to undermine Scottish schools

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Professor John Robertson OBA, , former schoolteacher, education lecturer, head of department, Associate Dean (Quality Assurance), Research Professor, research methods tutor, Masters and PhD supervisor, multiple peer-reviewed international research author, Faculty Research Ethics Chair The above is on the front page of the Scotsman, based on a report by the far from ‘independent‘, pompously self-styled Commission on School Reform (neither royal nor government just invented) and fronted by the notorious Carole Ford with, as always, party-affiliation hidden, and at the end evidence of Pisa-data which no respectable published educationist will ever use. Note – I’ve put all my ‘stuff’ there … Continue reading Scotsman ‘newspaper’ front pages incompetent, mendacious, self-important, sub-standard researchers to undermine Scottish schools

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The Scotsman’s ‘top academic’ wheeled in to savage Scottish schools again is mere ‘bean counter’ with no experience of teaching in schools, teacher ‘training’, leadership or research into anything other than assessment data

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Professor John Robertson OBA, retired Research Professor, Faculty Research Ethics Chair, Associate Dean for Quality Assurance in Education, Head of Department of Curriculum Studies (30 staff), Senior Lecturer in Educational Technology, Lecturer in Education, School Teacher (Primary), PhD, Master of Education Professor Lindsay Paterson is in the Scotsman again, as he often is, to cast doubt on the competence of Scottish teachers to assess their own pupils continuously as opposed to his preferred snapshot exam method. Once more he returns to the Pisa scores he loves to use to mark us down. He is, to my knowledge, the only serious … Continue reading The Scotsman’s ‘top academic’ wheeled in to savage Scottish schools again is mere ‘bean counter’ with no experience of teaching in schools, teacher ‘training’, leadership or research into anything other than assessment data