August 2024. We provided evidence to the Education, Children and Young People Committee at the Scottish Parliament, ahead of their consideration of this Bill.
Background
During the Covid pandemic, our office was actively involved in discussions on the cancellation of SQA exams and the Alternative Certification Model used in 2020 and 2021 (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/coronavirus/exams-and-assessments/). This included supporting our (then) Young Advisors to give evidence to the Education and Skills Committee in March 2021 (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/news-and-stories/young-voices-at-the-scottish-parliament-our-young-advisers-session-with-the-education-and-skills-committee/). Their evidence highlighted not only concerns about the experiences they had, but also about Scotland’s overall approach to examinations and assessments.
One of our conclusions was that the approach taken to the ACM and to the SQAs lack of communication with children and young people was, in part, caused by a culture which failed to acknowledge children as both rights-holders and as key stakeholders in the SQA’s provision of qualifications. This resulted in a lack of attention to children’s views, a failure to provide opportunities for children to participate in decision-making and at times a failure to communication directly with children.
A number of education reviews have taken place in the years since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, Professor Mark Priestley undertook a rapid review of the National Qualifications Experience in 2020 and Professor Ken Muir made recommendations on the future of Education Scotland and the SQA.
“Fundamentally, my recommendations place children, young people and those teachers and practitioners who support their learning more firmly at the heart of the education system. Unashamedly, they place them and their interests ahead of those organisations that make up the educational infrastructure.” – Professor Ken Muir (https://www.gov.scot/publications/putting-learners-centre-towards-future-vision-scottish-education/)
What our current Young Advisors told us about exams this year
We met with our Young Advisors in July to discuss wider issues in education and were able to spend some time with those who sat exams this year, discussing their experiences. This session was during the school holidays and 13 attended. 5 took part in the conversation about exams.
Our Young Advisors told us about their experiences of exams. They described the run up to exams as “awful” and high pressure. In addition to SQA exams, some also experienced two sets of Prelims during the year. In some cases they were tested on material they hadn’t yet learned. They felt that it was more a test on memory and ability to write rather than the subject material, especially for subjects like art.
Several of our Young Advisors had experience of more than one exam on the same day. This made for a very long day and they were worried they did less well on the second exam. For those allowed extra time as a special accommodation this meant either no break between exams or a very late finish.
They raised concerns about provision of support to children with additional support needs for example children missing out on support and special accommodations due to having no formal diagnosis; extra time in exams being missed.
The Young Advisors also had some suggestions for improving exams and assessments. They thought that portfolio pieces or an investigation should be part of assessment in more subjects. And they thought that it should be possible to study a wider range of subjects into the Senior Phase.
What our current Young Advisors told us about the Bill
We also discussed the proposals in this Bill with the whole group. In particular, we asked them for their views on the proposals to increase children’s participation in the governance of the new Qualifications Scotland. They strongly supported the need for children and young people to be listened to and felt that this was not the case with the SQA.
They were critical of the proposals for the Learner Interest Committee, particularly that it was possible that the majority of people on the Committee would be adults (and that it was possible there would be no children). They also felt strongly that disabled children and those with ASN should be represented and that children and young people should be supported to participate. They thought there should be something like (our) Young Advisors Group set up to influence the SQA’s fundamental workings.
“Most children and young people would feel better in a space only for children and young people” – Young Advisor
They also thought that both schools and the new QS should do more to speak to individual children and young people taking exams – for example by schools asking how they found the exam (some schools did this already) or holding a focus group afterwards and that being passed on to QS.
The Young Advisors were sceptical about the potential for the new QS to be different from the SQA, particularly given that most leadership positions will be filled by existing SQA staff.
Priorities from children and young people
We have extensively consulted with children and young people across Scotland over the last year, to understand what their priorities are. The need for education reform is one of top issues raised with us, regardless of where and what type of group we are meeting. While we do continue to hear comments about SQA, very few talk to us about agency reform. They are focussed on how they experience education on a day-to-day basis. We hear more about homework, what things the curriculum covers, course choice, exam stress, bullying, access to support, levels of anxiety, school buildings and other issues. Children and young people want to see fundamental change, particularly to the way they experience secondary education. In order to fulfil children’s rights to an education which develops them to their fullest potential, this Bill must be the first of many steps in a programme of reform.
Specific proposals
Effecting culture change
The need for substantial culture change has been a theme of both the various reviews into education over the last five years and discussions around incorporation of the UNCRC in Scotland. It is also an inherent part of Curriculum for Excellence.
It is unclear whether the changes proposed will effect that culture change in the new Qualifications Scotland.
Culture change will need in-depth, regular participation work with children; most importantly children’s participation must have an impact on what decisions are made. We continue to be disappointed that children’s UNCRC Article 12 rights are spoken about in terms of hearing views – Article 12 also includes an obligation for children’s views to be given due weight and General Comment 12 makes it clear that Article 12 is a right to participate, not just a right to be consulted. There is no detail about how children will be involved in the governance of the new Qualifications Scotland.
Respect for children’s rights also requires consideration of the full breadth of children’s rights in the UNCRC. Consideration of the best interests of children (Article 3) and the principle of non discrimination (Article 2) are particularly relevant, as is Article 13 on the right to information. In terms of the right to education this must include both Article 28 and Article 29, the latter is particularly important in terms of changing culture across the education system.
Yet this Bill contains no requirement for the new body to have regard to the needs, interests, views or rights of children. We would welcome an amendment to require this, on the lines of the requirement in Section 7 to have regards to children in Gaelic medium education.
Learner Interest Committee
We find the proposals for the Learner Interest Committee disappointing in their lack of ambition. As currently drafted the Bill would permit the Learner Interest Committee to include no children at all. In his review, Professor Priestley called for “the development of more systematic processes for working with and engaging young people, as stakeholders and rights holders in education” (https://www.gov.scot/publications/rapid-review-national-qualifications-experience-2020/). Yet these proposals appear to embed existing power relationships rather than creating a child-friendly mechanism to put children at the centre of decision making, as called for by Professor Muir. These proposals simply slot children into an adult-centred governance structure in a way which is tokenistic and risks creating a forum that silences children rather than empowers them.
We have some concerns about the use of the term “learner” throughout the proposals and indeed more broadly in education. We acknowledge that a proportion of those doing SQA qualifications in Scotland are adults, but the majority are children. There is an inherent risk that, through the use of terms like learner, the status of children as rights holders under the UNCRC may be diminished. Securing the involvement of learners, will not secure the involvement of children unless this is specified.
It is also important to ensure that a diverse range of views and experiences are reflected, including children (and adult learners) with additional support needs, care experienced children, those attending colleges, home educated children and those in rural areas.
There is an extensive range of research available on participation models which are child-friendly and effective in ensuring that children are able to influence decision making in line with their rights under Article 12 of the UNCRC (as articulated in General Comment 12). In our frequent discussions with Scottish Government officials around appropriate ways to ensure children’s participation in decision making, we continue to make it explicitly clear that adding children to adult-dominated committees is not appropriate. Instead, resource needs to be invested in creating a child-friendly model along the lines of Audit Scotland’s Inform 100 group (https://www.youthscotland.org.uk/news-article/audit-scotland-and-youth-scotland-launch-inform-100-to-engage-young-people-in-public-services/ ) and the Inclusion Ambassadors (https://childreninscotland.org.uk/inclusion-ambassadors/).
Learner Charter
We welcome the intent behind the Learner Charter but again the use of the word learner in section 10 of the Bill means that the opportunity to guarantee children’s involvement in the development of the Charter has been lost. We would welcome an amendment to section 10 to require Qualifications Scotland to work with children and young people when developing the Charter.
HMIE
Whilst we support the proposal for HMIE to be reinstated as an independent body we are disappointed that the opportunity to embed children’s rights and views in the new body has been missed. As with other aspects of education, children have a right to participate in school inspections at both a local and national level. For example, we would welcome statutory guarantees that children will be involved in governance arrangements for HMIE and requirements for engagement with children and young people as part of school inspections. We would also support children being given the opportunity to participate in inspections, along the lines of the role played by the Care Inspectorate’s young inspection volunteers. This would require a commitment of resource to properly facilitate participation, which is not visible in the financial memo accompanying the proposals for any of the agencies.
As with the proposals for the Learner Interest Committee at Qualifications Scotland, there is no guarantee in the Bill of representation of children in the governance arrangements of HMIE, although as a public authority, the Inspectorate will have a duty to act compatibly with the UNCRC. In section 35, membership of the Advisory Council is only required to ensure that it is “representative of the interests of persons like to be affected by the Chief Inspector’s functions”. In section 36, the Chief Inspector is required to consult on the Inspection Plan with Scottish Ministers and the Advisory Council, as well as “such other persons as the Chief Inspector considers appropriate”. This is despite these sections being highlighted by the Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment (https://www.gov.scot/publications/education-scotland-bill-child-rights-wellbeing-impact-assessment-crwia/documents/ ) as “strengthening the role for the voice of children and young people”. We would welcome amendments to these sections to explicitly achieve that aim.
HMIE also play a role in inspecting aspects of school life beyond education. Inspections currently include consideration of the school’s inclusion and child protection policies. This is an important part of ensuring that children’s wider rights are respected within schools. We have been raising concerns for some time over the lack of guidance and monitoring of the use of restraint and seclusion in school and would welcome additional attention being paid to this. The Bill’s proposals for annual reports to parliament from HMIE could help to address this.
Finally, HMIE will play an important part in implementing incorporation of the UNCRC in Scottish schools. We have already undertaken some work with HMIE staff to build their expertise in children’s rights and hope to continue to work with the new body on this.
Appeals
In 2020 and in 2021, we raised concerns over the approaches taken by SQA on appeals. We have called for a fair, children’s rights-based appeals and extenuating circumstances processes, at no cost to candidates and on a no-detriment basis. We also argued that appeals should be based on a range of evidence of attainment (https://www.cypcs.org.uk/resources/sqa-consultation-2021/). This would ensure a level playing field for children who are affected by ill health or other extenuating circumstances on the day of the exam or during the school year and will also provide flexibility to properly reflect the attainment of groups of children affected by extenuating circumstances. We believe this should be the case even outwith the context of significant disruption to learning caused by the pandemic.
Future reform of Qualifications and Assessments
At the time of writing the Scottish Government has yet to respond to the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment (the Hayward report), more than a year after its publication. We are concerned at reports in the press that suggest some of the recommendations of the report may not be taken forward. The Independent Review was very clear about the importance of changes to qualifications and assessment in the Senior Phase. This reflected the recommendations of previous reviews, including those by Professor Ken Muir, by Angela Morgan and the OECD review of Curriculum for Excellence, which highlighted a disconnect between the intentions of CfE and the exam system.
The Independent Review also laid out a framework for qualifications that will equip children and young people for the 21st century (https://www.gov.scot/publications/future-report-independent-review-qualifications-assessment/). Recent reports around dual presentation of children for both National 4 and National 5 qualifications in S4 further illustrate the problems with the current qualification system.
Whilst the reforms introduced by this Bill will address some of the key recommendations in Professor Muir’s review, it will not achieve the changes needed to Scotland’s approach to qualifications and assessments. Professor Hayward, the OECD and Professor Muir were clear that broader change, including significant culture change, is needed. Our Young Advisors views also reflect this. Children across Scotland have asked our office to prioritise work on education reform. They want an education system which helps them all to develop to their fullest potential, and at the very least does not actively disadvantage them. Agency reform is not the priority issue they talk to us about. We therefore hope that this Bill is only the start of a process of education reform.