‘One parents’ night a year not enough for coasting schools’

IMPROVING the way teachers communicate with parents is key to driving up educational attainment in Scotland’s schools, it has been claimed.

Bill Maxwell, chief executive of Education Scotland, said evidence had shown schools that provide regular updates on pupil performance were doing better than those relying on parents’ evenings once or twice a year.

The former head of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education said better leadership from headteachers and more communication with parents was vital to help address the problem of “coasting” schools.

He also stressed the importance of a new regime of Professional Update, dubbed “teachers’ MoTs”, a scheme of review and development for teachers currently being developed by the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

Mr Maxwell said there were few critically under-performing schools, but said “substantial numbers are coasting”.

Asked how best to tackle the problem, he said: “Strong leadership from the headteacher, but also very strong engagement with the local community. We need a strong effort to engage with parents and that can be done through some quite simple mechanisms. There are schools who do regular reporting to parents every six to eight weeks often in positive terms about how their child is doing.

“We need regular feedback not just once or twice a year when the parents come into the school for a chat.”

He also expressed concern that pupils from the most deprived backgrounds were continuing to fall behind, with those from the most advantaged backgrounds up to 13 months ahead in their ability to solve problems and up to 18 months in terms of “expressive vocabulary” by the time they entered primary school.

Sue Ellis, an expert in literacy and language in the Department of Childhood and Primary Studies at Strathclyde University, said studies had shown improving the way reading is taught could “mitigate” the effects of deprivation.

She said: “There’s potential in Curriculum for Excellence for developing a literacy strategy which seriously makes a difference to the lives of the poorest children in our society.

“But it’s not just a social-class issue, there’s a huge swathe of kids that are not reading. Socio-economic status is a big predictor, but other kids are not doing as well as they might.

“It’s not necessarily about the way it’s taught, but the way it’s presented. Giving children more choice over what they read can be hugely productive.”

Lindsay Paterson, professor of education policy at Edinburgh University, added that reading, particularly reading fiction, was “depressingly absent” from the new curriculum.

He said: “Reading is key to everything. You have to build up reading in lots of different ways. All the evidence shows that if children don’t enjoy reading, they’re never going to acquire the full power of language.

“The most important thing for a child in terms of how they do at school is background, but then it’s the teachers. Some teachers do fantastic things, but there are others who are coasting. It’s not a disaster at all, but it could be a lot better.”

He added that there were also issues about how well primary teachers understood the subject matter they are teaching, particularly in science and maths, with one recent study showing teachers’ knowledge of maths being that expected of pupils aged around 12.

Education Scotland’s assessment led to calls for more investment in early years learning, with Save the Children calling for a “pupil premium” in the most deprived areas to improve attainment.

Douglas Hamilton, head of Save the Children in Scotland, said: “Although the education system delivers well for the majority, it fails the poor. Children who grow up poor are more likely to leave school without qualifications and have much lower employment chances – perpetuating this cycle of poverty.

“To break this chain of underachievement, children from the poorest homes must be given high-quality additional support.

“Evidence shows that by 22 months, a child’s chance of success has already been heavily influenced by their social class. Engaging parents with their children’s learning, particularly in the home, is key to raising their performance and the Scottish Government should introduce schemes to support this.”

Education Scotland said research indicated Scotland was still performing reasonably well internationally, with graduates making up 34 per cent of the population, on a par with the UK average and way above the level in Turkey, which at 14 per cent is bottom of the scale in the developed world.

In reading and science Scotland was above average, but in maths it was just above average behind countries such as China, Singapore and Finland.

But Drew Morrice, assistant secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), said many teachers would be upset at the impression that many schools were “coasting”.

He said: “The vast majority of teachers are working extremely hard, often in very trying circumstances, facing severe budget cuts and doing the best they can.

“People who say they are ‘coasting’ are misrepresenting a hard-working profession.”