Scottish Union for Education – Newsletter No120
Themes: The destructive force of ‘inclusion’, have your say in the EHRC consultation on single sex spaces, and the new big brother guidance on home schooling in Scotland.
PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK by donating to SUE. Click on the link to donate or subscribe, upgrade to a paid subscriber or ‘buy us a coffee’. All our work is based on donations from supporters.
As mentioned in our previous substacks, here is the letter you can send to Edinburgh Zoo about their transgender training programme.
Last week, Dr Gillian Evans looked at declining quality of education in Scottish schools via the government’s ailing Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).
It is worth looking at how addressing this deficit is overshadowed by the SNP’s regular self-soothing that it is providing, at least, a ‘rights-based’ and ‘needs-led’ education system. Education Scotland, which seems to focus less on subject knowledge, teaching or assessment; reports instead on how its policies are; ‘underpinned by a set of values aligned to social justice and commitment to inclusive education’.
Inclusive in this context, means embedding subjective political beliefs (now termed ‘values’) and controversial identity politics into the curriculum, assisted by ‘inclusive’ lobbies writing lesson material which parents do not get to see.
Inclusive also refers here to modern educational philosophy centred on ‘child-led’ or ‘well-being’ education. At its heart, is emphasis on teaching being ‘needs-led’; which has little to do with the rights of children to quality education, but therapeutic lingo which wants them to learn about how they feel too much of the time (note to policy makers; if you want to be ‘child-led’ – children aren’t interested in this).
More broadly, ‘inclusivity’ has become a problem, particularly as a stand-alone ‘value’ or policy to be followed by default in society, at any cost. This has brought with it a threat to boundaries which have little democratic mandate and which interest groups manipulate easily.
That it took a landmark legal decision in the Supreme Court to tell us that ‘woman’ refers to ‘biological female’, exposes the Achilles heel of our pathological embrace of being ‘inclusive’. When it comes to the law – ‘gender identity’ smoke and mirrors tactics of the trans lobby fell flat in the end, because ‘inclusion’ cannot contort facts, even if it does trip up politicians.
The public still witness a ludicrous conundrum in the minds of leaders over something as simple as biological sex. The trans lobby spent years engineering this for us as it operated behind the scenes – misleading schools and workplaces for example, over what ‘inclusion’ meant; ‘avoidance of binary language’ for schools (‘boy’ and ‘girl’) being one of their gems – with schools often dutifully complying without a shred of discernment.
In Scotland, the SNP has still not removed its activist-shaped ‘transgender guidance’ for schools, despite the malign influence of ‘gender identity’ ideology in education, as outlined in last year’s Cass report, and following the recent Supreme Court ruling.
This week, it is reported that Sandie Peggie, is suing the Royal College of Nursing for refusing to represent her in her case against NHS Fife Health Board. In light of the recent Supreme Court ruling, many will be watching this and the ongoing case surrounding the right to single sex changing rooms.
Political leaders have lost their way in an era dominated by career-lobby groups, who hold boundaries to ransom under ‘inclusivity’. When in doubt, leaders rely upon ‘inclusion’ and the rainbow flag; now really just a white flag to signal acquiescence to the trans lobby machine.
Inclusion becomes a form of political paralysis. It is, as author and sociologist Frank Furedi argues, a refusal to make necessary moral judgements.
Historically, ‘inclusion’ was a specific set of projects, originating in America, to address poverty as a barrier to some children accessing school. It also embodied the end of segregation of children with disabilities from mainstream school, and separate schooling for black and white children, pre-civil rights era. These were important breakthroughs and for our understanding of discrimination.
Inclusion if it is now to be a default value, can only hold meaning alongside its exclusionary counterpart, in other words; we must have strong enough limits to know when something is not in the public interest, and when the inclusion argument has fallen into the wrong hands.
We invite readers to take part in the EHRC consultation regarding interim updated guidance on single-sex spaces, following the Supreme Court ruling. It offers interested parties the chance to state their views. This is an important chance for the public at last, to have their say.
Continuing with ‘inclusion’, within the separate context of school disciplinary policy in Scotland, it was reported recently that violent behaviour in schools is on the rise. Schools are under pressure from government not to exclude pupils. The crisis has culminated in teacher strikes – revealing perhaps a deeper problem of adult authority. As author Joanne Williams puts it:
‘Teachers who do not stand up to badly behaved pupils, but stand outside schools holding placards, make abundantly clear their own lack of authority.’
This is not to undermine what teachers are going through, but signals that school leadership teams are unable to identify an institutional problem.
In separate reports, Scottish school exclusions are at a record low which in light of increasing unmanageable pupil conduct, is not good given the impact on other children.
A blanket approach to inclusion subverts the need for senior leaders to make decisions first based on pupil safety and then individual case merit. If we are to continue with inclusion, teacher authority must be scrutinised at the same time as poor conduct. This is not about authoritarianism – but the ability to create order and clear expectations and it requires a robust culture of authority to be instilled at the top.
There is avoidance on the part of unions to talk about teacher authority and why it may be weakening under contemporary ‘well-being’ educational ethos. Widespread ‘low level’ but persistent disruption in classes, highlighted in teaching union surveys, become restricted to debate around ‘lack of resources’ or an ‘explosion in pupil needs’, rather than poor behaviour as something which is more often than not, something learnt.
Inclusion and ‘well-being’ diverts us now to frame poor conduct as neurodiversity or an ‘unmet need’. I would suggest that the unmet need in question – is the unwavering authority of the adults in the room. This is not a SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) matter, and our avoidance of looking at authority is why everyone calls instead quite wrongly, for widening diagnosis of SEND. This is a crisis of educational philosophy that has crept away from adult-led expertise, boundaries and knowledge-rich schooling.
Poor behaviour is usually about an absence of boundaries (and subliminal request for them). As policy makers place less importance on strong disciplinary subject knowledge in education at the same time, pupils pick up on what is becoming a mundane, non-engaging curriculum amidst chaotic classrooms.
Even in our insistence on offering pupils schooling based on their ‘needs’, we have missed the point – that quality education and the reassurance of adult authority, are those needs.
Finally, SUE Member Simon Knight this week looks at new government guidance on home schooling in Scotland, which offers the friendly hand of government surveillance to parents daring to stray from our troubled schools.
Rachel Hobbs, Guest Editor
Educator and SUE analyst
Home education guidance
Simon Knight has a PhD in Education from the University of Strathclyde. He has been working with children and young people in a variety of social care, youth work and school contexts for 35 years.
In January this year, the Scottish government published its review of guidance for Home Education. This guidance is provided for local authorities and parents, and defines the duties and obligations on both parties when it comes to children being educated at home, for whatever reason.
For the past few years, there has been a developing war on homeschooling and I was fully expecting a further salvo from this new guidance. In England, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is currently being debated in Parliament and it does contain much of the same. For example, it contains plans to increase surveillance of families who choose to home school by the creation of a national register. Parents seeking to remove their children from state schooling will have to notify their local authority, which opens up the increasing potential for permission to be refused.
Parents who choose to home ‘school’ their children are often perceived to be on the fringe of society. This is true if we consider the respective numbers. In Scotland, last academic year, there were around 700,000 children in primary and secondary education with only 2,222 being schooled at home. But this number has increased by over 40% in the last two years. So, the trend in terms of parental choice, is certainly towards educating at home.
The impact of Covid lockdown measures on school attendance is generally separate to this pattern, in that there has been a widely discussed collapse in school attendance. So, there are wider drivers behind this trend; away from state schooling to home education. These can be located in a more generalised lost confidence in, and an increasing suspicion of, state schools.
Standards in Scotland have been plummeting, disruptive and violent behaviour is widely reported to be sky-rocketing and trust in some curricular areas is certainly wobbling. This last concern is hardly surprising when we consider the way in which the Scottish curriculum now incorporates a highly contested ideology for all subjects. Not a great track record for political incumbents who have held the reins of Scottish education for nearly 20 years. No wonder parents are voting with their feet.
This revised guidance was planned well before recent high profile cases which significantly raised suspicion of parents who choose not to send, or remove, their children from school. The new legislation in England is framed – at least in part, as a safeguarding response, particularly to the murder of Sara Sharif. When it becomes law, parents in the South will no longer have an automatic right to home educate if their child is subject to a child protection investigation or under a child protection plan.
The new Scottish guidance already contains such overt measures, explicitly stated and exemplified in paragraph 3.21. However, homeschooling is legal and protected by the Scottish Education Act of 1980 and the Standards in Scotland's Schools Act of 2000. This position is highlighted and reinforced in the opening paragraphs of the new guidance. In paragraph 1.3 ‘The choice to provide home education is a legitimate choice, alongside the option of sending a child to school.’ And in 3.1 ‘Parents/carers may choose to home educate their children for many different reasons. Parents/carers do not have to give a reason for choosing home education when requesting to withdraw their child from school. Any reason given should have no bearing on whether or not consent is given, as the authority's interest lies in how the parent/carer intends to educate their child, not their reason for doing so.’
The tone of the guidance is consistently supportive of parents. It strongly encourages engagement and dialogue between local authority staff and parents, so that the child’s education remains the focus and priority, but home schooling is not contingent on such engagement. There is even a ‘the customer is always right’ tone to many of the areas, 5.3 ‘Local authorities should, as far as practicable, ensure that officials and staff who may be the first point of contact for a potential home educating parent/carer, e.g. answering telephone enquiries, understand the right of a parent/carer to choose home education, and that home educating in of itself is not a ground for child protection concerns. Local authorities should aim to ensure that parents/carers are provided with accurate information from the outset.’
So, the overriding tone and gist is one of partnership, cooperating and support to parents in Scotland who choose to home educate their children. And this is to be welcomed.
Now, for those regular readers of the SUE substack; for me to be glowing at the latest Scottish government dive into our personal lives, you may be concerned that this author has been partaking of the whacky baccie. And it was a question that, on reflection, I asked myself, ‘Why might the tone of this guidance be so supportive of parents, running diametrically counter to much else occurring in Scottish education establishments and wider society?’
Well, the welcoming smile of the latest home education guidance, is in fact the confident grin of the tiger. In Scotland, the public is already so enmeshed by the tangled controlling web of law, that our public ‘servants’ can relax in knowing that their ‘subjects’ are under their velvet paw.
Some of you will recall an ill-fated skirmish referred to as Named Person. In their attempts to ‘get it right for every child’ (GIRFEC), conspicuously awful by the abject failure to close the so call attainment gap for any children, the Scottish state tried to impose a compulsory state guardian on parents for each of their offspring. A measure that would have been potentially helpful if it had been a voluntary one, but one that was entirely divisive in its compulsory nature. It would have officially created a fissure between the interests of children, and those of their parents- you know, the grown-ups who actually love children.
Paragraph 5.13 triggered me so much, I was dazzled by the tiger’s gleaming teeth. And was hardly reassured by 5.14’s, ‘As for all children, young people and parents/ carers, there is no obligation to engage with a named person and it is important to emphasise that non-engagement is not in itself a cause for concern.’ A clear doff of the cap to the UK Supreme Court proof readers, but you instinctively know don’t you?
Such is the embedded nature of the separation of parent’s and child’s interests, for basically everyone, that we don’t question, or frequently even notice, the philosophy of division ingrained with children’s rights, the UNCRC - now incorporated into Scots law. This guidance waits all the way till paragraph 1.4 to insist that parents who are home schooling are expected to adopt a children’s rights approach. And from there on, the UNCRC, like the deceiving shimmer of, impossible-to-hoover-up spilled glitter, imbues the entire document with the civil servant, social worker or education officer’s wagging finger, reminding parents that their reach will now fully extend into homes.
As schools become places governed by social justice activists, home educators, especially those who are not ‘on message’ are likely to be treated with an increasing level of suspicion, and once again we are likely to see a growing tension and division between parents and the education elites.
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.glasgowtimes.co.uk/news/25186516.lgbtq-safe-space-centre-opened-glasgow/ Sarah Hilley, LGBTQ+ 'safe space' centre could be opened in Glasgow 25/05/25
https://archive.is/Ju7JV Lucy Burton, British schools are teaching young boys to aim low. Behaviour of young men is ‘a defining issue of our time’ – solving it starts in the classroom 26/05/25
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-still-in-thrall-gender-35272536 Douglas Dickie, SNP still 'in thrall to gender zealots' as Minister told to explain trans funding intervention. EXCLUSIVE: Kaukab Stewart and Shirley-Anne Somerville personally intervened to ensure Stonewall and LGBT Youth Scotland were both eligible to be handed taxpayer cash 25/05/25
Joanna Williams, The Kids Ain't Behavin’. Poor behaviour is a problem in schools but it will not improve by teachers going on strike 27/05/25
https://archive.is/6KTiv Ella Whelan, The nanny state still thinks it can raise kids better than their parents. Sure Start wasn’t just child care, it was social engineering 26/05/25
Joanna Williams, Parents, not the EU, should decide what kids can do online. Calls for a Europe-wide ban on children’s social-media use are an attack on parental rights. 29/05/25
https://archive.is/SCnE1 Andy Maciver, Scotland's educational establishment is betraying children and economy 30/05/25
https://archive.is/SKkNS Andrew Doyle, Is the ‘woke’ movement really over? 01/06/25
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-five-stages-of-victory/ Helen Joyce, The five stages of victory. A handy guide to tracking how gender ideologues are coping 01/06/25
https://archive.ph/2025.06.01-195046/https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/racism-re-education-shaky-foundations-mlhz2hwwz Libby Purves, Racism re-education has shaky foundations. Suggesting only white actors needed to attend an anti-oppression course was wrong — but the whole set-up is misguided 01/06/25
https://archive.is/pNOhL Gareth Roberts, End of the rainbow: Pride’s fall can’t come soon enough 30/05/25
Support our work and upgrade to paid
Thanks for reading the SUE Newsletter.
Please visit our Substack
Please join the union and get in touch with our organisers.
Email us at info@sue.scot
Contact SUEs Parents and Supporters Group at psg@sue.scot
Follow SUE on X (FKA Twitter)
Please pass this newsletter on to your friends, family and workmates.