Tag: teaching

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The real news – The SNP era sees massive increases in attainment by looked after children with three times as many passing at National 5 and eight times as many at Higher

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In the Herald today, under a frankly creepy image: Scottish Labour has accused the SNP of “breaking The Promise” after new figures showed the attainment gap between looked-after children and their peers has widened in recent years. Looked-after children are young people in the care of their local authority, including those in foster care, residential care, kinship care or some children living at home under formal supervision. How many times have I pointed out that not one credible, peer-review published educational researcher, across the globe, cares about attainment gaps. They care about improvements within disadvantaged groups over time. They know that the middle … Continue reading The real news – The SNP era sees massive increases in attainment by looked after children with three times as many passing at National 5 and eight times as many at Higher

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‘Two decades of havoc’ – Here’s what a real, current, international expert ON EDUCATION knows of the PISA testing loved by Scotland’s only user, Lindsay Paterson

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By stewartb It’s not that hard to find educationalists internationally who are either sceptical or straightforwardly negative about the OECD’s PISA rankings. This from one ‘expert’ in a peer reviewed journal: Zhao, Y. Two decades of havoc: A synthesis of criticism against PISA. J Educ Change 21, 245–266 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-019-09367-x Abstract: ‘The Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) has become one of the most influential forces in global education. The growing influence has been accompanied by growing criticism. For nearly two decades since the first round of PISA was conducted in 2000, the global assessment program has been roundly scrutinized and criticized by education … Continue reading ‘Two decades of havoc’ – Here’s what a real, current, international expert ON EDUCATION knows of the PISA testing loved by Scotland’s only user, Lindsay Paterson

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The Herald’s ‘senior 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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The Herald today has: I’ve lost track of how often I’ve felt the need to deal with Prof Paterson, Scotland’s only regular rentagobprof across Scottish and English MSM, always ready to tell everyone that education in Scotland is in decline and worse than elsewhere and, to my knowledge, only fan of Pisa data. He is, to my knowledge, the only serious educationist publishing in peer-review journals who thinks the Pisa scores are of any value at all. I’ll come back to Pisa scores below but first and perhaps explaining his odd attachment to them: Why is Paterson not an expert … Continue reading The Herald’s ‘senior 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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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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Top History Professor says ‘All of my students must use AI’ – Me too!

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Regulars will have noted that TuS has been making increased use of AI in the last year or so and getting some criticism of that. I understand why many are concerned but my view is that this is another technology, like those before, we must master, a ‘tiger we must ride.’ Famous last words perhaps but we humans didn’t get where we are, on top because we are the meanest SOBs on the planet, just to let our own technology replace us. If we, crucially, educate or young to use it carefully, it can massively enhance their lives but when … Continue reading Top History Professor says ‘All of my students must use AI’ – Me too!

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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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England’s Pisa scores are based only on a tiny selective sample of higher achieving schools making Paul O’Kane’s sad desperate attempt to claim they are better than Scotland just another under-educated failure from Scottish Labour

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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 Paul O’Kane Labour MSP and former head boy, seems delighted to be suggesting that Scotland’s schools education system is worse than England’s, with the above, from those other head boys at the IFS. Paul and the lads at the IFS are clearly out of their depth here. There’s something important in the actual figures from the OECD, in this table: See the wee asterisk there? What does it mean? Notes: Values that are statistically significant are marked in … Continue reading England’s Pisa scores are based only on a tiny selective sample of higher achieving schools making Paul O’Kane’s sad desperate attempt to claim they are better than Scotland just another under-educated failure from Scottish Labour

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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