Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No52
Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No52
Newsletter Themes: books, education spending, and the SUE spring conference
A couple of weeks ago our Parent and Supporters Group Coordinator, Kate Deeming, wrote about the need to identify good books for children to read because schools were sometimes failing to do so. This week we hear from Fotini Hamplova on her one-woman campaign to promote inspiring children’s books. Fontini tells us about her list and explains how and why she compiled it.
Over the next few months, SUE is planning to do some serious research on education in Scotland. We want to establish a clear picture of what is happening across the country – what is being taught, and how well it is being taught. We hope, with your help, to produce a substantial independent review of education changes and standards, which can then be used to hold politicians to account in the run-up to the general election. We welcome any input from our readers on this subject. Is there a shortage of science teachers in your area? Has your school changed its methods of assessment? Are your children being taught gender ideology or critical race theory? Do you know how your child is performing? Is your Parent Council active or defunct? Mail us on info@scottishunionforeducation.co.uk.
We will kick off this research project with a series of articles looking at statistics. A teacher, Julie Sandilands, writes about public expenditure on education; it’s a good place to begin the discussion about what we are paying for in education and what is being left out.
Meanwhile, in England, the debate about religion in schools and religious education has made the news: the Barclay Primary School in Leyton, East London, has been attacked for stopping children from wearing pro-Palestine badges and symbols to school, and the head of the Michaela Community School in North West London appeared at the High Court because the school is being sued for its ban on prayer rituals. In both cases the schools seem to be acting in the best interest of the school as a whole and are refusing to bow to pressure from a minority group to allow something that is likely to be divisive or disruptive.
Religion in school is a controversial issue. Recently, we learned that the Tron Church in Glasgow has set up an independent Christian school in one of their properties in the West End, because parents of a dozen children were so frustrated by school policies and standards that they had decided to opt out of the state-led education system. Schools should not be alienating the parents because of their religious beliefs, and it makes sense to celebrate the key events that are celebrated by the occupants of any school. However, headteachers are entitled to set rules that allow for the consensual running of the school. SUE is keen for parents and the wider community to hold headteachers to account on the quality of education they are providing, but divisive campaigns like those being run in London and led by activists should be strongly resisted.
Below, you will see that we have set the date and place for our annual get-together as Saturday 9 March in Glasgow – please put this in your diary now. We want to gather as many of our subscribers as we can to talk about how we can improve Scottish education.
Penny Lewis, Editor
Finding Good Books
Fotini Hamplova belongs to that species that we all thought was extinct – she is a happy housewife. Before she met her husband, she used to have a crush on C. S. Lewis. She also has a doctorate in Ancient Philosophy, specialising in Socratic education.
Our eldest son has an exceptional love for books. As soon as he could sit up, he would sit next to the bookshelf and chew on the books of the lowest shelf. As soon as he had the necessary motor skills, he was spending his time looking through them. He is ten now, and he spends hours each day reading. I didn’t want him to be reading unprofitable books, and so I felt it was important to supply him with worthwhile literature.
I quickly realised how difficult it is to find good books for children in today’s Scotland. I tried taking him to the local library. It depends where you live, of course – some librarians keep better collections – but I wasn’t satisfied with what I found there. Many of the books were works of propaganda pretending to be stories. They are inundated with untruthful ideological positions that harm children by forming in their minds a false model of the world.
Others are bad books in the sense that they are overly mundane. They may have something clever about them, but they have nothing deep or beautiful within their pages. They have nothing in them to nourish the thirsty soul of a child. The language they use, the artwork, and the story itself often have a feeling of casual about them – like a plastic Happy Meal toy. There is no evidence that the authors of such books put their best selves into writing them. These books harm children because they bore their souls to death. Children’s time is precious. They are looking to know, and it is our responsibility to show them the goodness and beauty that give life its essence.
I soon realised that there is a crisis happening. Books are everywhere, they are promoted in every corner of our life, and yet most of them are not suitable for giving to a child. And yet, throughout history, thousands of excellent children’s books have been written. It seemed to me that these jewels are being hidden from view, disappearing behind masses of junk that we are piling on top of them.
I started putting a lot of effort into finding ‘the good books’ for our children. I dug them out of ‘throwaway’ piles at bazaars, and I spent endless hours researching them online, or picking them out of second-hand shops or from people’s personal collections.
Indeed, I found a great number of wonderful books. I also realised, however, that it takes a lot of time and dedication to identify which books are worth reading. Especially today, when propaganda is cleverly worked into books of every genre, it is nearly impossible for families to find, without excessive dedication, profitable books for their children.
The thought of children around me unwittingly immersing themselves in bad books made my heart weep. For this reason, I decided that I would make my list of good books available to other families. I made a website that is basically an archive of curated books that can truly enrich young minds. I list books for children from infancy to the age of 20. I only list good books there. I do not waste any time criticising bad books. The purpose of the list is that anyone who wants to get a book for a child can go there, search according to age or category of interest, and find a list of books where each and every one has something particularly wonderful about it. You can choose any of the books there to read, and you can trust that it will be a good book.
I only include books that contain truth and beauty. I have listed over 400 books, and yet there are hundreds still that I would like to add one day. I work on the project whenever I have a free moment, so I expect it will take me a lifetime to complete it.
You can find the list here:
https://www.searchgoodbooks.com
I hope that you will find it useful. I have a dream that one day we will honour our children by giving them the best works that we are capable of producing, filled with our love and our respect for them.
Public expenditure and value for money
Julie Sandilands is an English and business teacher who worked in several secondary schools in Fife until 2017. Now based in Cumbria, she works as a private tutor teaching children both in and out of mainstream provision.
In 2022–2023, public expenditure on education and training came to just over an eye-watering 10 billion pounds, representing 9.4% of total expenditure. This is a substantial investment, as noted by Humza Yousaf in his recent SNP conference speech: ‘We’ve invested in our schools, with more teachers and higher spending per pupil than anywhere in the UK.’
Source: https://www.gov.scot/publications/government-expenditure-revenue-scotland-2022-23/pages/5/
He is absolutely correct; they certainly have, but the burning question is this: does this investment represent value for money? Not according to Luke Sibieta, IFS Research Fellow, who reported in April 2023 that despite Scotland spending more per pupil than in the rest of the UK, over a long period, ‘the educational outcomes have continued to disappoint over the last decade’.
This colossal investment doesn’t just include the fixed costs of providing the infrastructure for a functioning system; it incorporates a wide range of what could be termed ‘added-value projects’, for example generous funding to third-party, influential activist organisations such as Time for Inclusive Education, or large-scale initiatives, namely the Scottish Attainment Challenge, aimed at ‘improving outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty’.
‘Closing the attainment gap’ is a political mantra used to help justify the Attainment Challenge and secure for it one billion pounds of government funding. However, as pointed out by Barry Black, simply throwing money at one aspect of a multifaceted problem is not the answer, and any return on this investment, as the following data show, simply hasn’t happened.
Source: https://data.spectator.co.uk/education.
In fact, one of the key messages in the 2021 report by Audit Scotland is that ‘Progress on closing the gap has been limited and falls short of the Scottish Government’s aims’.
You would, therefore, hope that such limitations would warrant a comprehensive investigation to determine exactly how and where the one billion was spent: an action that might help to assure taxpayers that such unacceptable wastage of their hard-earned money will never be repeated.
The long-term decline in Scottish education, as frequently reported, has been going on for well over a decade, and government decisions during the Covid era, while continuing to have some impact, cannot be entirely to blame. The latest dismaying PISA results are indicative of continual failed policies, and, as Lindsay Paterson highlights, ‘despite the Scottish policy attention on narrowing inequality, the actual gap is getting worse’.
One of the strategies employed to try to close the attainment gap and elevate the Scottish education system back to world-class status was the appointment, in 2016, by the then first minister Nicola Sturgeon, of the International Council of Education Advisers (ICEA). This group, made up of experts from both the UK and overseas, was set up ‘to advise Ministers on how best to achieve excellence and equity in our Scottish education system’. The original term of appointment was two years, but seven years, three reports, and £266,871.20 in travel and accommodation expenses later, the Council continue to meet for their two-day conferences.
In their third report, published in November 2023, the experts focus on seven strategic areas. For example, regarding strategic area two (curriculum, pedagogy and assessment), the panel recommend a reduction in ‘the amount of external assessment so that teachers will have more space and time within the curriculum for innovative pedagogies, deeper learning, knowledge application, and skills development’. Is that the way to propel students in Scotland to the top of the global leaderboard? Fewer formal qualifications in favour of skills? Also, what methodology will be used to accurately measure and report specific skills in a credible way that will equate to a positive educational outcome? In a recent Sunday Times article discussing why Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) has so far failed to deliver said ‘excellence’, Keir Bloomer, an original architect of CfE, is quoted as saying, ‘The problem is we did not make sufficiently clear that skills are the accumulation of knowledge. Without knowledge there can be no skills.’ The article also quotes parents unhappy about low standards and teachers unhappy with vague and unhelpful documentation. That’s an awful lot of unhappiness without even asking students how they feel!
Whether any of the ICEA’s recommendations in reports one (2016–2018) and two (2018–2020) have actually improved standards and outcomes in Scottish education is debateable, and despite a recent change in personnel at the top, their input looks set to continue.
In her statement to the Scottish parliament on 7 November 2023, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, Jenny Gilruth, commented on the value of their latest report:
The third report from the International Council provides a strong focus on improving teaching and pedagogy.
The report also helpfully synthesises the recent reviews that we’ve heard about. Recognising there are significant commonalities and that now is a time for implementation, improvement and reform.
Is this an admission on behalf of the SNP of their failure to deliver a world-class education system during their 15 years of tenure, despite record levels of investment? Will the next round of planned ‘implementation, improvement and reform’ prove to be a better investment than the last?
Time will tell, but the world is watching. Perhaps future international assessment indicators such as Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), in 2027, and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), in 2026, following the announcement by Humza Yousaf that Scotland would rejoin, will not only provide useful benchmarks but will also make plain whether the money spent on added-value projects, including exclusive panels of experts, can be viewed as money well spent.
In the meantime, I’m left wondering whether any gold nuggets (I’m thinking over a quarter of a million quid might buy a fair few) past, present or future from the ICEA, could be formulated over Zoom, without jetting in the attendees from the four corners of the globe. Still, nice work if you can get it!
SAVE THE DATE!
Scottish Union for Education (SUE) Conference, Saturday 9 March, Central Glasgow
Linda Murdoch and Simon Knight, Conference Organisers.
One year ago this month, SUE was launched to involve parents, grandparents, teachers, and anyone else who cares about the state of Scottish education to have their say about the ideological and other attacks that have reduced it to a shadow of its former reputable self. Over the past 12 months, SUE supporters have taken the fight to our opponents, and in doing so have not only gained a fair amount of media attention but also a considerable range of valuable knowledge and experience to help us in our endeavour to make Scottish education the powerhouse it once was. This conference is an opportunity for our supporters and friends alike to share what we have learned and renew our commitment to fight for our children’s education. Join us! More information about the event will follow presently.
News roundup
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight
https://archive.is/BATu9 Janice Turner, Head teacher Katharine Birbalsingh must win against Islamic bullies. For the sake of many Muslim parents, Michaela academy can’t lose a vexatious court action over a ban on prayer rituals. 19/01/24
Claire Fox, The Lost Boys: searching for manhood. A powerful new film on the dangers of gender ideology should be watched by everyone. In a guest post, the film’s co-writer, Gary Powell, explains why it needs to be seen. 15/01/24
Frank Furedi, A Reply To The European Parliamentarians Supporting The Subversion Of The Continent’s History. Why has the European Parliament Voted To Support A Crusade Against The Past? 27/01/24
https://archive.is/2024.01.26-225145/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/26/four-year-old-boy-joins-church-school-as-girl/ Louisa Clarence-Smith, Boy, 4, allowed to join Church of England school as a girl. Ministers pledge to intervene after parents claim the child’s sex was hidden from classmates, who were traumatised to learn the truth. 26/01/24
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/25547760/labour-teaching-white-privilege/ Georgina Bisval, Labour’s idea to teach ‘divisive white privilege’ in UK schools could spark bitter conflict in classrooms like in the US. Left-leaning councils in the UK have already attempted to put CRT on the curriculum. 27/01/24
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/01/28/how-muslim-identity-politics-colonised-education/ Tim Black, How Muslim identity politics colonised education. From Batley Grammar to Michaela, schools are being besieged by religious hardliners. 28/01/24
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