Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No101
Themes: declining expectations in primary schools, and the new gender ideology in the LGBT guidance for schools.
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For our Substack 101 we can borrow George Orwell’s so-numbered room, a room where your worst fears are manifested, which brings us on to one of the themes of this edition, which is the depressing state of Scottish education.
This of course does not relate to all schools and all teachers, but the story you’ll read below from a parent is becoming all too familiar.
As if to prove the point, I was talking to a high-school teacher recently about the first-year class she was trying to teach. While talking about the increasing desire to retire so as not to deal with what she sees happening in her school, she mentioned that half the pupils have additional support needs.
Julie Sandilands has written about this issue here, furthermore, talking to this teacher, we find evidence of the problem, a problem that has resulted in her finding first-year high-school pupils unable to even spell their name correctly.
In this case, the concern she raised was what she described as autism socialisation. This was meant, I think, as a general concern about additional needs labels, but also specifically about what she believes is a situation where parents are reaching for medical and therapeutic labels for their own children, in a way that has become endemic in Scotland and indeed the UK.
Once children are labelled in this way, and these labels are adopted by schools, what could be called ‘autism education’ results in sinking expectations for a growing number of children, perhaps especially working-class children, while the expectations of children themselves similarly decline.
There may well be other reasons for declining standards in primary schools, some of which we see below, but this is a problem that our educational establishment appears unable to engage with, let alone resolve.
Tragically, the process of labelling increasing numbers of children with therapeutic and medical categories appears to be turning the problems of everyday life and the difficulties of learning into an unresolvable issue that is likely to have serious implications for the current generation of children.
Challenging this therapeutic culture is one of the tasks that SUE aims to tackle.
The dreaded ‘red pen’
Paula Ford (name changed) is a parent of four children, who, like parents across Scotland, simply wants her school to educate her children. But she has watched over time as basic aspects and standards of literacy and numeracy have seriously declined.
I am a mother of four children well spread out in ages (31, 23, 16 and 11).
In 2021 I made the decision to move my two youngest to another school.
I was getting really frustrated at the lack of learning, especially with my youngest daughter.
Lucy is a little girl who never stops. She competes at gymnastics and horse riding, she was in three theatre groups, she plays the piano, she is always singing. So why can’t she spell four-letter words? Or why doesn’t she know her times tables? After all, she was just a year and a bit away from high school.
I made all the excuses. Well, I thought, maybe it’s to do with Covid? That seems to get the blame for everything.
She came home from school with a story she had written, with a big ‘Well done’ and gold star at the end. I thought, has this teacher even read this? No red pen in sight! Parents’ night was coming up. Great, I thought – I’ll speak to the teacher. I took the story. ‘Wasn’t it good?’ he said. ‘No’, I said. ‘It is awful – where’s the red pen?’ He replied, ‘We don’t use red pen as it can upset the kids.’ I asked, but how do they know the spelling is incorrect? His reply was ‘Spelling’s not that important.’ I followed on with, said who? Who made that decision? I was told, ‘That’s just the way it is.’
Next, I asked about the times tables. I was told, ‘We don’t do them anymore as the kids are not all at the same level.’ I replied, surely if they all recite them together, they will get to know them. Everyone needs to know the times tables. Again, I asked for the person’s name so I could speak with them, only to be told, ‘That’s just the way it is.’ But who decided?!
I still don’t know.
I came out of the school and really felt angry. As a frustrated parent, who do I go to? I was sad not just for Lucy but for every kid being let down by our education system.
I spoke to clients at work, who recommended another school; it was over 30 miles away. It’s a private school. We checked out the costs. It’s a lot of money, but what choice do we have? She deserves an education.
Lucy didn’t want to leave her school; she loved her friends. We persuaded her to have a look. We made an appointment and met Mr Smart, head of the junior school. I was armed with my list. Do you use red pen? He looked at me with a slight smile. ‘Yes’, he said. And how about times tables? ‘Yes, we do times tables.’
I already knew this was the school for her; I could feel it from the moment I walked in. The children’s happy smiling faces we passed. And there was a lovely warmth about everyone we met. Lucy decided to go for a week. Then she joined a week later. First week’s spelling test, 9/10 – and there was the red pen with the corrections. She wasn’t upset; she ran and got a piece of paper, wrote the word out 10 times, and said, ‘I won’t get that wrong again.’
The mindset is so different. We could do to franchise it. The public sector would learn a thing or two. This new school is not some fancy new building. It’s old and has history and character; they are fundraising for new sports facilities as the ones they have are really old, but they can produce sports stars and West End actors.
She has started senior school this year and is still at that school. I see her growing every day, learning so many things. It was the best decision we have ever made – so much so that a few months after she moved, we moved her brother too.
Scottish government once again throws open the classroom door to gender ideology and LGBT activists
Dr Jenny Cunningham is a retired paediatrician who worked in Glasgow for 30 years.
The Scottish government’s newly published Guidance on LGBT Inclusive Education (2024) shows how thoroughly some of its education policies are being dictated by LGBT activists. The government has given the green light to these lobbying organisations to go into schools and influence pupils and teachers directly. This was previously demonstrated with the government’s Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools: Guidance for Scottish Schools (2021), which was effectively a reworked LGBT Youth Scotland document (see SUE’s critique of that guidance [1]).
In the case of the guidance on LGBT Inclusive Education (LGBT-IE), it has been Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) that has wielded unprecedented influence over policy and cemented its control of its implementation.
The TIE campaign was launched in 2014 by two men, both Scottish independence supporters and LGBT activists, with the demand that LGBT-inclusive education be embedded in the Scottish school curriculum. At the 2017 SNP Spring Conference, a resolution was passed calling on the Scottish government to set up a working group to take forward the TIE pledges, ‘to tackle prejudice towards LGBT young people throughout the education system’. And in April 2017, the government, in conjunction with the TIE campaign, duly established the LGBT Inclusive Education Working Group.
This group developed a suite of 33 recommendations and reported these to Scottish ministers in November 2018 [2]. From a two-man campaign, TIE became a charity in 2022 and secured a government grant of £380,900 [3]. Its founders became employed directors and three teachers were employed, allowing TIE to spin out its influence over the implementation of the Working Group’s recommendations.
So what is the justification for LGBT-IE?
‘LGBT inclusive education refers to an educational approach of integrating the teaching of LGBT themes into the learning pathway from early level to the Senior Phase [...] in order to proactively address prejudice and prejudice-based bullying. Central to this, is ensuring that themes related to the lives, histories, and experiences of LGBT people are included across curriculum areas.’ (p. 3) [4]
There are seven LGBT-IE Learning Themes to be incorporated throughout the Curriculum for Excellence (p. 5):
Understanding the Equality Act 2010, the UNCRC and human rights
Identifying prejudice, discrimination, and bullying (including homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia)
Recognising and challenging gender stereotypes
Diverse families, including LGBT parents and siblings
Celebrating diversity and difference
History of LGBT equality movements
LGBT past and present figures and role models
The ‘educational approach’ includes ensuring ‘educators’ in all local authority schools, early learning and childcare providers complete a national learning course (managed by TIE on behalf of the government).
The government launched a central platform for LGBT-IE (lgbteducation.scot) containing all teaching and curriculum resources, including the LGBT Inclusive Education Implementation and Evaluation Toolkit (p. 8). TIE manages the platform on behalf of the Scottish government.
The guidance stresses that LGBT-IE can help schools fulfil their responsibilities under the Equality Act (2010) and its Public Sector Equality Duty by giving, ‘[a]ppropriate consideration of protected characteristics – including sexual orientation and gender reassignment in curriculum development and delivery’ (p. 3). Hereby, the LGBT activists get carte blanche to promote gender ideology in the whole Curriculum for Excellence, not just in the Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) curriculum.
Why should addressing prejudice and prejudice-based bullying be singled out for LGBT pupils particularly? Why not disability-inclusive education? Do issues of prejudice and bullying of overweight pupils or faith groups not warrant an inclusive approach?
Well, first, they are not the preoccupation of LGBT activists, nor are they influential enough in government working groups.
Second, it is argued that ‘[h]omophobia, biphobia and transphobia are continuing issues within education settings, and LGBT learners report feeling excluded from or underrepresented in their learning pathways. Research continues to show LGBT learners experience high rates of bullying and prejudice.’ (p. 4).
What is this research evidence?
The LGBT Inclusive Education Working Group Report to the Scottish Ministers references two particular pieces of ‘research’: LBGT Youth Scotland’s Life in Scotland for LGBT Young People (2018), which is discredited in the SUE document referred to above (pp. 11–12); and TIE’s Attitudes Towards LGBT in Scottish Education (2016).
This survey is even more questionable than the LGBT Youth Scotland one (which had a sample size of only 486). The TIE survey, carried out by means of a self-selected online questionnaire, had 287 respondents, of whom 98 self-identified as heterosexual. Quite apart from the tiny sample size, respondent-driven sampling cannot be generalised to a wider population because of the likelihood of bias. Nevertheless, TIE and the government do precisely this, accepting it as good coin to justify elevating LGBT-inclusive education and inserting it into every aspect of the Curriculum for Excellence.
And here is the rub.
Whereas parents who disagree with the RSHP curriculum (especially its sexualisation of young, prepubescent children and its promotion of transgender ideology) can withdraw their children from RSHP lessons, parents will not be allowed to withdraw them from LGBT-IE.
This is because ‘[l]earning related to LGBT inclusive education is part of the broader curriculum and will be included across curriculum areas’. Resources and information regarding learning content and outcomes can be shared with parents and carers. This can support an understanding of ‘the purpose of LGBT inclusive education [...] which should be connected to school values and form part of a broader ethos of providing an inclusive education about all of the protected characteristics.’ (p. 9)
So, there is no parental defence against this aspect of LGBT ideological indoctrination in Scottish education.
References
1. Transgender ideology in Scottish schools: What’s wrong with government guidance? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bei_RpeJHl_-CMjmtOGx-hyPLMS4dK2V/view
2. LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group Report to the Scottish Ministers (2018. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/independent-report/2018/11/lgbti-inclusive-education-working-group-report/documents/lgbti-inclusive-education-working-group-report-scottish-ministers/lgbti-inclusive-education-working-group-report-scottish-ministers/govscot%3Adocument/00542171.pdf
4. Guidance on LGBT Inclusive Education, Scottish Government (2024) https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/advice-and-guidance/2024/12/guidance-lgbt-inclusive-education/documents/lgbt-inclusive-education-guidance/lgbt-inclusive-education-guidance/govscot%3Adocument/lgbt-inclusive-education-guidance.pdf
News round-up
A selection of the main stories with relevance to Scottish education in the press in recent weeks, by Simon Knight.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/01/21/what-really-motivated-axel-rudakubana/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1ZjHVZXsfjIQ6vcGnMnvySF0jBLwp8AUHX9u9MH7MwgKundYpL1jAZ8sY_aem_ifY44t68Axsm7HDX38QcLg Luke Gittos, What really motivated Axel Rudakubana? This looks less like a terror attack and more like an act of murderous self-pity. 21/01/25
https://freespeechunion.org/banished-from-history-scottish-education-chiefs-axe-the-word-slave-from-exams-to-decolonise-curriculum/ Frederick Attenborough, Banished from history! Scottish education chiefs axe the word ‘slave’ from exams to ‘decolonise’ curriculum. 19/01/25
https://archive.is/Nawb7 Ella Whelan, Parents will lie (and pray) to escape sink schools. Many kids are now taught that the past is a foreign country, one which they cannot and should not relate to. 23/01/25
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/the-left-must-realise-that-donald-trumps-gender-views-strike-a-chord-with-voters-4958884 Susan Dalgety, The left must realise that Donald Trump's gender views strike a chord with voters. 25/01/25
Frank Furedi, Why Getting Rid Of The World Health Organization Is A Benefit To Humanity’s Well Being. Since its inception WHO has politicised public health and has been in the forefront of undermining traditional Cultural Norms. 26/01/25
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gp19n111vo Nick Triggle, Child mental health crisis: Better resilience is the solution, say experts. 07/01/25
https://archive.is/3wOon Poppy Wood, Everyday stress is being wrongly labelled as mental health issues, say majority of GPs. Most doctors think normal reactions to life’s stresses and strains are being mistakenly seen as medical problems, poll shows. 26/01/25
https://archive.is/oqdjf Simon Johnson, SNP takes teachers out of school for ‘racial microaggression’ training. Scottish Conservatives dub policy, which removes staff from classrooms for three days each, ‘complete farce’. 17/01/25
https://archive.is/ws4cf Tom Slater, The dumbing down of Oxbridge. 26/01/25
https://unherd.com/newsroom/blame-schools-for-rise-in-child-gender-dysphoria-diagnoses/ Joan Smith, Blame schools for rise in child gender dysphoria diagnoses. 25/01/25
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