By Graeme Logan
Interim HM Chief Inspector of Education in Scotland
LIKE many others in my profession, I became a teacher to help children achieve their potential and have the best possible chances in life. I was particularly keen to make sure that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds have the same chances of success.
In more than 20 years in education, I believe we have a once-in-a-career opportunity to make this breakthrough. We have a shared national endeavour to close the attainment gaps in our schools, with a focus on the poverty-related attainment gap. I have had the privilege of providing educational leadership to the Scottish Attainment Challenge and have been struck by the renewed focus and energy in every school on defining what this agenda looks like and the action being taken to address it.
“Closing the gap” is a shorthand expression for all of our work to interrupt the cycle of deprivation and the impact it has on children’s progress and achievement but this does not mean all young people achieving the same outcomes. We achieve different things at different levels. We want to remove a stubborn pattern between lower attainment and living in poverty.
At school level, particularly in primary schools, we need to make more use of data to ensure that we target resources and close any gaps. We should not fear data and we should use it to focus improvement activity. As Professor John Hattie, the leading education researcher, says: ”We need to use data as a treasure hunt for what’s working, not a witch hunt for what’s not.”
The new data on children’s achievement of Curriculum for Excellence levels shows some interesting trends. For example, some schools seem to make good early progress with many children achieving national standards in literacy and numeracy by the end of Primary 1 (80-90 per cent) but this progress is not always maintained and by primary seven in a few schools this drops as low as 20-30 per cent. More effective action is needed to monitor this closely and intervene quickly to ensure that early gains continue over time.
The outcomes of the educational governance review provide an opportunity to strengthen further the national endeavour to close the attainment gap. For the first time, teams of educationalists from a range of organisations will work together in regional collaboratives to support improvement in schools. These teams will work alongside schools to help them to implement the changes needed to close attainment gaps, led by a regional director.
We need the best educational leaders for these roles. For many senior educationalists this would be a dream job: getting to focus on improving the curriculum, learning, teaching and children’s progress day in, day out without a remit of other responsibilities, which is the challenge for many senior local authority officers at present.
As a senior leader in Education Scotland taking up the role as Interim HM Chief Inspector, I work with partners to ensure our organisation fulfils its potential and our enhanced remit arising. We are in a privileged position, working daily with teachers and learners.
We will use the learning and evidence to share good practice and drive improvement through our contribution to the regional collaboratives.
We must also focus on the educational rationale and benefits of this new level of collaboration rather than sap energy out of the system, fixating over structures or engaging in a turf war. We need to move quickly to establish collaborative teams; this is about culture and capacity, not structure. As the quote says, the children cannot wait.
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