Plenary, 20 Sep 2001

Meeting date: Thursday, September 20, 2001

Official Report 731KB pdf

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Schools (Assessment)

The next item of business is a debate on motion S1M-2236, in the name of Jack McConnell, on effective assessment in Scotland's schools. I invite those members who wish to take part in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons.

Effective assessment is at the heart of good learning and teaching and of best professional practice in our classrooms. I welcome today's debate and the opportunity to outline our plans.

Educational assessment should tell us whether the learner has learned what was intended and, if not, what needs to be done about that. It should also tell us whether the class or the school—or even the whole system—is achieving continuous improvement through the standards that we want to be achieved.

Accurate information leads to action: action to stretch children further; action to support learners when they need help; and action to improve the quality of provision and practice in schools.

Assessment is important for everyone—for pupils, teachers and parents, for education authorities and for the Executive. That is why I want to put improved assessment at the top of the education agenda. The measures that I will outline are designed to ensure that Scotland has a coherent and effective system of assessment that is clearly focused on promoting progress and learning.

The chamber has already had debates on the new national qualifications. As members know, I am determined to ensure that any unnecessary administrative burdens associated with those assessments are removed. The national qualifications task group is acting on that issue as a priority.

Today, I have published a consultation document on whether there is a need for radical change to assessment models in the new national qualifications. The responses will allow us to take careful account of what stakeholders tell us and to ensure that any changes are carefully thought through before decisions are taken.

For the earlier years, we have consulted widely on the options for change that were set out in the "Review of Assessment in Pre-School and 5-14", which was produced by Her Majesty's inspectors of schools. The responses showed that teachers, parents and managers in education recognise the need for improvements in assessment but prefer to build on existing good practice rather than go through yet more radical change.

There was wide agreement that assessment and feedback are at the heart of effective teaching and learning and that we trust our teachers to judge how well pupils are learning. Our teachers are well placed to make those crucial judgments. I do not propose to take those important professional responsibilities away from teachers by imposing a new system of regular, externally marked, fixed-point written tests. I do not want 60,000 seven-year-olds from throughout Scotland all to sit quietly in rows taking the same tests on the same day of the year, nor do I intend to go back to a secretive education service where information about children's progress never left the school and rarely got to parents.

Information collected must be used effectively and promptly to inform action. Therefore, the Executive will continue to publish information about performance and will explore with stakeholders the best ways of analysing and presenting that information in order to ensure that those who achieve continuous improvement are recognised and that bald statistics do not make good schools look like failures.

We will make the argument about publishing statistics part of our platform on another day, not today. For the avoidance of doubt, however, what the minister has just said is a complete refutation of the story—some might call it a campaign—that The Scotsman has been running for standardised national primary testing.

I share the commitment of The Scotsman to improved assessment and higher standards in Scottish schools. I hope that it will be convinced by my arguments and proposals today.

Assessment provides information and feedback not only for the Executive and education authorities but for teachers, pupils and parents.

Whatever happened to the Labour party's commitment to replace or supplement league tables of raw examination marks or test results with some measure of added value that would give a fairer and more objective reflection of the actual educational improvement that has taken place in schools, such as those in deprived areas, in which teachers often achieve heroic results?

That is exactly what I meant when, a moment ago, I said that I wanted to discuss with stakeholders the best ways of analysing and presenting the information to ensure that those who achieve continuous improvement are recognised and that bald statistics do not make good schools look like failures. We intend to move forward on that point.

Quite frankly, the current collection of assessment initiatives in our education service astonishes me. There are transition records from pre-school to primary 1, from primary 7 to secondary 1 and from school to work. There are personal learning plans, records of needs and individual educational programmes. There is the progress file, which has replaced records of achievement. There are different report cards in nearly every school, which are sometimes incomprehensible for parents, especially when children move from one school to another. There are also national qualifications, national tests and the assessment of achievement programme.

Members may be confused, but so are most people—particularly parents and, occasionally, teachers. We do not need any more new initiatives; we already have plenty. Each one has its advantages, but we do not need so many different approaches. I am determined to simplify the system.

We intend to develop a single coherent system that encompasses the best elements of all those initiatives. As a parent, I know the importance of the school report card. Already, steps are in hand to improve the pre-school to P1 transition records. We will look at best practice in the design and content of report cards across Scotland and consider this year the introduction of guidance on reports for parents and pupils. Reports should be easy to administer and as helpful and informative as possible.

I recognise that if head teachers, education authorities and others are to exercise their responsibilities for continuous improvement, they need accurate information about pupils' collective progress and attainment. At present, we collect information that can be used for monitoring in various different ways. For example, teachers provide education authorities and the Executive with information about pupils' attainment of five-to-14 levels in reading, writing and mathematics. That information is backed up by national tests and is summarised by the Executive in the annual five-to-14 survey of attainment. The Executive also runs the assessment of achievement programme, which, over a three-year rolling programme, reports in some detail on achievement of five-to-14 levels for a sample of P4, P7 and S2 pupils in English, maths and science. I propose that those approaches to monitoring will be streamlined into a single integrated system.

Although we will continue to rely on schools and the professionalism of teachers to provide information about pupils' attainment, I want teachers to get focused support and improved second-generation national assessments, which will be developed from the current national tests, to confirm their judgments and improve consistency across Scotland.

At present in Scotland, there are national tests in reading, writing and mathematics only. I propose to investigate the possibility of extending the next generation of national assessments to science. I also plan to shift the focus of the assessment of achievement programme so that, as well as the knowledge and concepts for each year's subject area, it includes attention to the core skills of literacy, numeracy, information technology, problem solving and working with others. We will confirm our plans following further discussion with stakeholders.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. When a minister makes what is, in essence, a statement of new initiatives, it is normal for Opposition spokespeople to be provided with information on the statement. Mr McConnell has always extended that courtesy in the past, but will you note that that has not happened on this occasion? This has been a statement of announcements, but without the courtesy of providing a copy of it to the Opposition parties.

That shall be noted.

One minute we are criticised for having information all over the press before making statements and the next minute we are criticised for not making information public. I do not think that anything has been said today that I have not said regularly over recent weeks. It is important that, in the chamber today, we comprehensively debate the need to improve assessment in Scotland's schools. That is why I am touching on all these different subjects.

I will continue to use the assessment of achievement programme to monitor, for a sample of Scottish pupils each year, national levels of attainment and changes in attainment levels over time. In order to strengthen monitoring arrangements, I will link the AAP to the annual survey of five-to-14 attainment.

I intend to establish a unified bank of national assessments that teachers and the Executive can draw on for the new national assessments and the AAP surveys. We will use the AAP results each year to validate and confirm the reported results of national assessments by schools.

We will act on the results. Today, I am publishing the results of the 2000 survey of mathematics. I am happy to say that the results show a significant improvement in the attainment of pupils at P4, P7 and S2 since the previous survey in 1997 and an overall improvement since 1988. Most pupils in P4 are now reaching level B, the target level for their stage. That is welcome news and reflects the hard work that has been going on in our schools.

However, at P7 and S2, attainment is still well below target levels. Teachers and pupils will need to sustain and improve on the welcome rise in attainment in order to achieve more satisfactory standards. The survey results show that we need to pay particular attention to the learning of low attainers in mathematics in S1 and S2. They also show that, at S2, boys are underperforming at level E. We will build on the results and we will work to improve maths provision in our schools. We will use the monitoring to make a difference in our education service.

Finally, I want to touch on the need to explore ways of making the best use of information technology to support all aspects of assessment. We will explore the possibilities of providing teachers with electronic access to banked national assessments through the national grid for learning. There have been interesting developments in that area in the UK and across Europe, and we will need to take full account of the expertise that is available elsewhere. Education authorities and schools have already been exploring ways of electronically storing pupil records and results—again, we need to build on that experience.

In all this, we need to involve stakeholders in pulling the threads together. We will therefore shortly establish an action group to take the proposals forward.

Assessment matters. It improves learning and teaching and leads to continuous improvement in the classroom. We will develop a single coherent system that encompasses the best elements of the current initiatives. We will examine good practice and introduce guidance on report cards and parental information. We will integrate the five-to-14 survey of attainment and the assessment of achievement programme. Finally, we will establish an action group of key stakeholders to take forward the proposals.

Albert Einstein had on the wall of his office a sign that read:

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

We want to ensure that everything in Scotland's schools that is counted does count, and that what cannot readily be counted nevertheless counts in other ways, so that every child can be supported to reach their full potential. I am sure that the votes after the debate will show that we all share that goal.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises the importance of effective assessment in schools as a means of improving learning and achievement and supports the Executive's plans to create a coherent system of assessment for Scotland; further recognises that the best way to achieve this is by (a) ensuring that the monitoring and reporting of pupils' progress is done in a consistent way throughout the school years; (b) supporting teachers to make sound judgements about pupils' learning and parents to be involved with their children's development; (c) improving national monitoring of achievement in key areas, and (d) bringing together diverse approaches to record-keeping and reporting in a single, integrated framework, and supports the Executive's plans to involve stakeholders in carrying forward these proposals and to introduce a simpler, more streamlined approach which is effective and easier for teachers, parents and pupils to understand.

The motion is comparatively unobjectionable. I say "comparatively" because it contains one thing that my party will have to consider before we decide whether we can support it.

What we heard from the minister was far from unobjectionable, however. It was a typical, Jack McConnell, new Labour, managerial, spun speech. When challenged on the new announcements that he was making, he claimed that they were not new announcements but reannouncements. We are very familiar with reannouncements from Labour ministers, but either these are new announcements or they are not. If they are new announcements, notice should have been given of them; if they are reannouncements, the minister is conning the Parliament and the people of Scotland.

This all came together with an action group. Surprise, surprise—another action group, another task force. The only surprise in the minister's speech was a quote from Einstein—that was certainly unexpected. However, as the Executive is doing the opposite of what the quote calls for, it just proves that Einstein and Jack McConnell are not like minds.

Undoubtedly, there is a need to assess educational achievement or attainment. Indeed, the motion seems to regard assessment as a means of improving by monitoring. No one would take exception to that. However, there is the pertinent question of how much assessment is required and whether it is necessary to take the watch to pieces all the time just to find out whether it is working properly.

My objection for a long time has been that the burden of assessment has been growing and growing. The evidence for that arose during the inquiry into the Scottish Qualifications Authority. Mr Jenkins is wise in education matters and drew our attention to the difficulty. It was obvious that in the higher still programme, for example, the level of assessment completely overwhelmed the purposes of the courses. The real question about assessment is what level it should be.

I regret that the Executive is not going to produce the long-promised green paper on education. That paper would have asked some of the important questions, such as what an assessment is, how it should be levied and how much we require. As that is not happening, the debate is being closed down. We may have an action group, but action groups come and go. We do not have a proper debate about the level of assessment.

The motion worries me—I am always nervous of things that Mr McConnell stands behind—because, on the surface, like Mr McConnell, it appears eminently reasonable, but it might have hidden elements that reveal it to be a Trojan horse. Perhaps that hidden element lies in the third bullet point of the first published version of the motion. It may be—I asked the question in an intervention and I regret that Mr McConnell would not give a straight answer—the introduction of national primary testing in a form that Scotland has already rejected twice.

I see that Mr McConnell is shaking his head. If he is prepared to make that absolute commitment as I asked him to earlier, I would be a much happier man.

Mr McConnell indicated disagreement.

Mr McConnell chooses not to stand, so I remain concerned that that is the problem that we face.

Will the member give way?

Does Brian Monteith have the answer? How surprising.

I have a question. Can the member tell us when a test is national and when it is not?

I have to say that Mr Monteith and Einstein are also not like minds. If Mr Monteith does not recognise what national primary testing means, or why there were objections to it when it was proposed by his more liberal friend Mr Forsyth, I am not going to enlighten him. I want a system of education that our young people not only benefit from but enjoy. I want a system in which the pressure is not so great that it crushes the enjoyment from the process.

Listening to young people and their parents in Hamilton during the SQA inquiry, I was struck—as, I think, was Cathy Peattie—by the young people's suffering at the pressure that they felt, largely because of the level of assessment that they had to go through.

We need to debate the level of assessment, starting from the simple premise that it should not increase. It should be reduced and we should make an effort to allow people to enjoy education more. As our concise amendment suggests, we should recognise that

"the core activities of teaching and learning remain the priorities for our education system."

In recent years, there has been a growing tendency—pushed initially by the inspectorate and pursued by all manner of education administrators—to think that the purpose of education was assessment. There was a belief that the whole purpose of educating young people was to allow them to be checked to see how far they had got. That is not the purpose of education. That is why we need a green paper such as the one that the minister is not bringing forward. We need to debate the purpose of education, and we need to decide the purpose of education for Scotland in the 21st century. However, I am absolutely certain that the purpose of education is not assessment.

Accordingly, the motion as amended would be acceptable to me, because it would mean that we were saying, "All right, there has to be assessment in schools, and I will give the minister the benefit of the doubt on national primary testing." However, the motion contains a lot of meaningless verbiage, such as the endless references to stakeholders. There are so many people holding stakes in Scotland that I am surprised that we can get into it.

The reality is—[Interruption.] Mr Frank McAveety has made some sort of witty remark, but I am afraid that the chamber missed it. The reality is that we must focus on learning and teaching as the core activities of education. If, when he sums up, the Deputy Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs accepts the amendment in my name, the SNP will support the motion. I look forward to hearing what the Tory amendment means. I warn Mr Brian Monteith that, at the first sign of his usual divisive approach to education, I will be happy to confirm that we will not touch it with a bargepole.

I move amendment S1M-2236.1, to insert at end:

", whilst ensuring that the core activities of teaching and learning remain the priorities for our education system."

Forgive me if I believe that Jack McConnell, the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs, must every day feel like Phil Connors, Bill Murray's character in the movie "Groundhog Day". A morning does not seem to pass without Jack McConnell waking up to announce that he has adopted yet another commonsense Tory education policy. The radio alarm goes and he appears on "Good Morning Scotland" encouraging uniforms in schools. The next day he is removing the targets for school exclusions. The next day he is devolving greater power to schools in choosing the curriculum. All of those policies are welcome. Most surprising of all, there was the introduction of a single coherent system of evaluation—what we all know as testing—which undoubtedly, whatever Mike Russell says, will be on a national basis.

Of course, I welcome the minister's announcement today and, in attempting to amend his motion, I give notice that we support the motion in full. Assessment recognises that pupils benefit from discovering their own strengths and weaknesses, it benefits teachers by revealing what further work is required, and it helps parents by informing them of their children's progress and whether a greater challenge or additional help is needed.

There can be, and must be, debate about the nature of tests and the extent to which assessment can be simplified. That would be welcomed by the Conservative party and, I am sure, by all parties. However, let us not forget that today's announcement represents a significant and humiliating climbdown by the Labour party. That must make many of its members uncomfortable, not least those members—many of whom are not in the chamber—who sit in the Scottish Parliament. Who voted for a motion to repeal testing in 1991? Why, John Home Robertson, John McAllion, Henry McLeish, Mike Watson and Jim Wallace of the Liberal Democrats.

"Seldom can a measure have been more subject to wilful misrepresentation and misguided hostility than the proposal for national testing in our schools. I am sure that the House will agree that some testing is beneficial for individual pupils and their parents and for those concerned with judging the effectiveness of schools. Children's strengths and weaknesses need to be diagnosed and assessed so that appropriate steps can be taken. Parents want to know how their children are developing against a broadly agreed, objective yardstick. A measure of the progress that a school is making with pupils should form an important part of any system of assessing a school's performance."—[Official Report, House of Commons, 15 April 1991; Vol 189, c 119.]

Those are fine words, which surely this chamber must accept. They were the words of Michael Forsyth in 1991.

Michael Forsyth?

Michael Forsyth, that liberal whom Mike Russell knows so well.

What do parents say about testing? I quote one parent, who put the matter succinctly:

"It is all very well to say"—

of his son—that he is

"competing against himself. Great. But he is not competing against himself when it comes to getting a job and then has got to wake up to the rude discovery that he is only pretty good in his own terms but not by anyone else's standards."

In 1989, Michael Forsyth said:

"The results from the assessment of achievement programme in Scotland show clearly that there has been a decline in performance in mathematics and English over the past five years. When I read data that show that in primary 7, a total of 22 per cent. of children cannot divide 630 by 10, I am convinced that our proposals to bring testing into the curriculum and to introduce testing have the support of parents, if not of Opposition Members." —[Official Report, House of Commons, 1 February 1989; Vol 146, c 294.]

Yet, earlier this year, Wendy Alexander told us of the appalling number of young adults who today suffer literacy and numeracy difficulties. How many of those young people would be better off today had the testing to identify those difficulties been available at an earlier age? Who were the politicians who deprived them of those tests for purely ideological reasons? The reasons were ideological because those politicians, in their speeches, explained their support for assessment but would not support what was being proposed.

Fred Forrester, who until two years ago was the depute general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said only a few weeks ago:

"The compromise we agreed was unsustainable. I am now absolutely convinced that we must create some reliable and above all objective way of measuring pupils' attainment at ages 5 to 14. There is nothing authoritative to indicate how children are doing until they are 16. That seems to me extraordinary. There should be an objective way of measuring children's progress."

Mr Forrester added:

"I believe now that if we don't aspire, we don't achieve. To aspire, we need to be competitive."

I remind members—

Will the member give way?

Certainly.

I am surprised that the Tory education spokesperson knows so little about what happens in classrooms. There is regular testing in primary classrooms. That testing is made both subjective by the teacher and objective by the testing evidence. That happens, but if Mr Monteith and Fred Forrester do not think that it happens, they should go to a primary classroom and see it happen.

I have seen it happen. I put my children through state education; I saw their report cards. I knew which tests they sat and how those tests were administered. Clearly, the testing needs to be reviewed, as Fred Forrester said, because we do not have a systematic programme in which it is possible to measure any one child against another across the nation.

I want to follow up on Mr Monteith's experience. In what exact ways was the information that was provided to him, as a parent, inadequate? What did it not tell him and what could he not compare?

The information that I was not given was the results of the tests. That is the failing of the system that I have witnessed. Information is not available to parents in the manner that I think it should be.

I must move on, but I have said that I believe there is a need for proper debate about the nature of the tests. I would happily enter into such a debate.

Where does the minister's statement leave the SNP? The SNP spokesperson, Mr Russell, clearly took exception to me labelling the SNP as "educational dinosaurs" in The Times Educational Supplement; I see that from his reply in the letters column.

I always respond.

Indeed.

If we regard the SNP as the dinosaur of the education movement, that is because its much-vaunted policies—even reducing primary class sizes—require the removal of parental choice. What we see, and welcome, from the minister is the introduction of greater parental choice and information.

I referred earlier to "Groundhog Day", and I will continue the analogy. Phil Connors escaped from groundhog day by changing every aspect of his day, so that he became a selfless individual. The minister, to escape his ideological straitjacket—his surreal world—must adopt fully our policies, leave St Mary's Episcopal Primary School in Dunblane alone, and selflessly devolve to Scottish teachers and parents. Only then will Jack McConnell escape from the world where big government knows best.

I move amendment S1M-2236.2, to insert at end:

"and considers that the Executive should strongly encourage all publicly funded schools to participate in the new assessment system."

The Liberal Democrats are happy to support the motion and, indeed, to support Michael Russell's amendment, which makes an important point about the need to ensure that assessment must not become an end in itself and must not be allowed to get in the way of real teaching and learning. Proper assessment instruments are an integral part of the teaching and learning process.

I am no great fan of the national tests that we have experienced in recent years. Those tests exist, as Michael Russell said. The terms of the motion make a logical and clear case and outline the rationale for having a coherent system of assessment that genuinely informs parents, teachers and pupils about performance and progress, and informs, in a wider sense, the teaching and learning programme that will be followed by the pupil when assessment results are evaluated.

I welcome particularly the commitment in the final part of the Executive's motion, which promises to introduce a

"simpler, more streamlined approach which is effective and easier for teachers, parents and pupils to understand."

It would be a worthwhile achievement if that could be managed throughout the school years, from five to 14 and on to the complexities of higher still.

I warn the minister that that will not be easy. The present system is incoherent and unclear. For example, from the ages of five to 14, the classifications start with A at the bottom and go to F at the top. We then jump to standard grade, for which 7 is the bottom grade and 1 is the top. However, intermediate 1 is lower than intermediate 2. At higher, A is a good pass and C is a poor pass. I have probably made mistakes in describing the system, because it is utterly confusing, incoherent and unclear.

The system is also unreliable. The national tests are held in schools and do not make it easy to obtain coherent and reliable information to be transferred at the transition points between primary and secondary education. The tests are interesting, but the results are not consistent or reliable, for various reasons. The tests have a subjective element and can be delivered in different ways.

The tests are impractical. If I had an English class, I would have to give it four tests—two on reading and two on writing. The tests take 50 minutes, but the time that I have to teach the kids is 40 minutes, except when the class has a double period, which lasts 80 minutes. After 50 minutes of a double period, I would have only half an hour in which to teach. I would be supposed to deal with only half a dozen kids at a time—those who were ready to take the test—and the rest of the kids would be left alone. The system is impractical. Administering four tests would take four weeks of the best teaching time that I had, because there would be no alternative, unless I bent the rules, which I would. The system gets in the way of teaching and learning.

The recording system is complex, the transfer of information is difficult and the quality of information varies. The consultation process that Jack McConnell talks about has been important, and will be important as we proceed with the programme that he outlined today. I hope and believe that the minister will take into account teachers' professionalism and that he will take parents and teachers along with him.

Apart from the problems with the system, assessment itself requires consideration. Measuring achievement is not the only aim. There is a danger of allowing ourselves to talk about the tests as though they are for achievement only, as Brian Monteith did. We must not get into that mindset. Different kinds of assessment exist—diagnostic assessment, formative assessment, which tries to improve skills through assessment, and summative assessment, which is a test of achievement. At every stage, we must be clear about what we are assessing, the purpose of the assessment and what we will do with its results. We must ensure that our assessment instruments are valid, that they measure what we think that they measure and that they are reliable, so that they produce consistent results when applied at different times and in different places.

The minister will know that I do not like league tables that are based on exam performance, because people take bigger messages from the results than the results can legitimately carry. People make wholesale judgments about schools and pupils on incomplete information and on a misunderstanding of what an assessment has done and its limits.

We need the information that the assessment system gives us. We must be sure of the validity of the information that the assessment instruments provide. We must not distort the information that is provided and we must use the information positively. I await the details of the reforms that the minister proposes—I am not signing a blank cheque. If the minister can deliver the reforms that are outlined in the motion—including what is said in the final part of the motion—and what is said in Michael Russell's amendment, we will have done Scottish education a massive and important service.

I welcome the minister's statement. The system is failing some children because we are failing to pick up the signs early enough. That means that special educational needs are not identified and addressed quickly. Different systems of assessment are in place and they do not work well together. Change is needed, and the proposals recognise that. They seek to modernise the assessment process to ensure that it is a coherent part of our overall strategy.

Assessment should not be put in place simply for its own sake. It should benefit children and assist those with potential difficulties. Assessment should maximise our children's academic, social and vocational attainment. It must take account of the child's starting point and be sensitive to their social background, school environment and other relevant factors.

Assessment is not a replacement for other means of determining a child's progress in education. The proposals seek to bring together the diversity of existing systems. They seek to simplify the assessment system so as to produce a balanced approach—one that takes account of the views of parents, children and teachers. Assessment helps us to get a better picture. It will continue to do so.

How education is used depends on our philosophy of education, which is important. We want to use a child-centred approach to deliver a streamlined, comprehensive system that supports the child to make a seamless progression through his or her school years.

Pupil involvement is needed in the process of monitoring learning and of setting personal targets. That is central to the child's progress in the education system. Research has confirmed the value of involving pupils in their own development. Pupils learn better and faster when they are involved meaningfully in the process of assessment and positive feedback.

I believe strongly in the idea of personal learning plans. The Executive's proposal to introduce such plans for all children by 2003 should go a long way to addressing an existing educational deficit. By assessing progress, we can identify how best to support and structure a child's learning.

Academic performance is not the only measure of a child's ability. The new qualifications are designed to encourage and reward the five core skills of communication, numeracy, technology, problem solving and working with others. However, as Ian Jenkins said, assessment should not be an undue burden in the classroom. It should assist and not get in the way of the learning plan.

I welcome the minister's commitment to simplifying assessment and reducing the work load of teachers and lecturers. That will allow teachers to teach without a constant eye on the next assessment. Children, teachers and parents will welcome the proposals.

When I trained as a teacher, there was no preparation for assessment. We took advice instead from the principal teacher and used the common sense that we gained from previous experiences. We got on with the job. It was all very homespun but, after a fashion, it worked. I recall a report that a primary 7 teacher made on one of the pupils at my school, which noted that the pupil "Has difficulty with reading and writing. Misbehaves all the time. Unfortunately attends every day."

We are not looking for that kind of assessment, but I am sure that Jack McConnell recognises our need for a form of assessment that provides continuity. In a sense, assessment has become discontinuous.

Jack McConnell spoke of the administrative burden on teachers. Although I recognise that that is the case, I will focus on the emotional burden that is produced by the business of assessment. That burden is caused by the responsibilities of being a teacher, the career structure and the anxiety about how the head teacher feels about an assessment. What if it is not as successful as it was in the previous year? All of those stresses produce anxiety.

As I have been out of the game for some time, I consulted a few experienced secondary teachers to give me a handle on the issue. They talked of how grade analysis produces an enormous pressure to perform and to produce the highest possible grades for all pupils. That is perfectly worthy at the level of the individual pupil, but when it becomes the main driving force behind how a head teacher, or the public, perceives a school, it creates pressure on staff.

What I am about to say probably refers to only a few. Teachers are so conscious of the pressure on them that some teachers—and parents—go overboard in their efforts to ensure that pupils do well. For instance, a pupil's work might suddenly improve, obviously as a result of outside help. A teacher might refuse to sign a guarantee that the work was that of the pupil. Sometimes that guarantee is signed by somebody further up the system. Pupils are seldom prevented from sitting exams. Some teachers spend inordinately long periods perfecting classwork for external assessment. Folios are sent back to pupils with written instructions on them about what should be added to improve the pupil's chances. There are instances of whole classes with similar phraseology in essays—hardly likely to be caused by collective psychic skills. In other words, the teachers are passing the exams for the pupils.

That is the result of huge anxiety. The pressure on staff to compensate for or counter a pupil's lack of sense of urgency or diligence is immense. At standard grade there is pressure to help pupils to obtain a 2 instead of a 3 so that they can take the higher the following year and help to create good statistics for the school.

I understand why those things happen and the anxieties that are involved. Jack McConnell has talked about recognising the professionalism of teachers. In that context, where teachers feel driven to do that kind of thing, it is important that Jack McConnell, and the system at large, reinforce the professionalism of teachers and enable teachers to say to people, "This is where your child is at. We have done all we can do and we can go no further, short of manipulating the facts."

The key to good education is to interest pupils by entertaining, challenging, matching demands to capabilities, confidence building, exciting, involving and informing. Too much assessment stultifies those necessary aspects of education. Any measure that allows more and better teaching is to be welcomed. To put it in the words of a teacher to whom I spoke a couple of nights ago, "It is better to teach than to assess."

How it all comes flooding back as we listen to tales from former teachers around the chamber. We have heard a great deal of common sense, which has been drawn from members' practical experiences.

My experience of primary education is a bit further back than Mr Russell's, but as a parent and teacher I was always conscious that the parent who was not a teacher sometimes struggled to make sense of what was reported. That was brought home forcefully to me by a primary school assessment for my older son. It listed a series of categories of attainment and had a set of boxes: above average, average and below average. The report consisted of a series of ticks and a signature. From that, the parent could tell whether their child was average—but in relation to what? That class? That school? To what standard? What does that tell the parent? Is the child succeeding? Is he flourishing? Is he making good progress? It was impossible to say.

That was many years ago, and much good practice has evolved since then. Much has changed under the five-to-14 curriculum, but the essence of the minister's point this afternoon remains valid. However they are graded and whatever labels are attached to them, an A grade here and an A grade there can mean very different things. In my time as a parent and a teacher it was clear that there was no objective standard of how a child was performing academically until preliminary examination time in fourth year, when there would be real exams, which were marked to real standards and which would be broadly comparable with the experience in other schools. Those would be a reasonable indicator of likely performance in O-grade and then standard grade exams.

That was wrong. It was a system in which teachers assessed all the time, for their own purposes and their own diagnoses. They knew how pupils were doing but parents did not. Parents did not have confidence and certainty. That is why all the reporting and information that can be given is so important. It is why parents must know what the report actually means. They do not want to be told that their child is above average. If the child is in a school that the parent knows performs below average—for whatever reasons, such as the ones Mr Canavan offered or those that are built into the curriculum or the teaching practices—it means nothing to be told that a child is above average. They need to know what that means in relation to a definable standard.

The hostility to national testing that existed previously has, to some degree, been worn away by experience although, as Mr Jenkins pointed out, the bureaucracy and artificiality of much of the testing has been resisted as a discontinuity in good practice. That is why what the minister said today about offering schools item banks for assessment and allowing them to select and draw down examples for their own use is encouraging. If assessment is properly built in, it will meet the needs of the school, the teachers, the pupils and the parents, and there will be a virtuous circle. If we can attain that, there is no reason why we should not progress consensually.

Points about the publication of exam statistics have arisen during the debate. I am acutely aware of those points, because I taught latterly in what could be called a middle-class magnet school. Part of the magnetic attraction was the publication in the local papers of exam statistics, which encouraged many parents in the area to believe that, if only they removed their child from one school and sent him or her to another, a golden academic career would suddenly lie before them. As members will appreciate only too well, that simply was not and could not be the case.

However, I warn against the temptation to withdraw information. Information is given and it means something. Sophisticated analyses are made of comparative exam results. Education authorities and schools use information for their own diagnostic purposes. The answer is not to withdraw information from parents and to deny them basic facts, but to educate parents better in understanding what the statistics mean and to make the diagnostic possibilities of the information more widely available. That will allow people to make better choices of schools and of subjects, and to form a better understanding of how children and schools are performing.

This afternoon's debate has been encouraging. I applaud the Executive's efforts and I hope that we are now able to build in a more effective system of assessment and reporting—we must never forget the importance of reporting.

In his speech, I heard Jack McConnell say "count" at least six times in the last three sentences, so he is clearly counting on something. This is an education debate, and it is appropriate that we go away this afternoon having learned something, so I want to tell members that 240 is 1,099,511,627,776. Members can check that if they wish. That number is also 1,048,5762 and 1,048,576 is in turn 1,0242. That is very interesting, but is the square root of next to nothing of use to anybody, except as a party piece?

That bad!

At least I can count on Mr McAveety's support and at least my party piece is factual and correct. Much of the measurement that we have been talking about has, to be frank, been of no use. Brian Monteith brought the spectre of Michael Forsyth to the party so, if he does not mind, I shall read a quotation about Michael Forsyth from The Scotsman of 5 June 1996. This is what George Robertson, who really knew how to do arithmetic and went to another place for much more money, had to say about Michael Forsyth. He said:

"You are going to get another bloody nose. You came back with the same old idea and you are going to get the same message from the Scottish people: ‘We don't want these failed ideas'."

What was George talking about? He was talking about plans for testing in primary schools. We continue to feel that that is not going to be helpful.

Will Stewart Stevenson give exact details about what he understands was meant by that testing in private schools, which the Labour party was so against?

Testing is testing. I am a little uncertain about exactly what Sylvia Jackson's question is. I was talking about primary schools and the introduction of testing in S1 and S2. That is what was proposed in 1996 and that is what George Robertson was commenting on at the time.

I have undertaken a little bit of teaching over the past year, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. However, it was in a university environment. I wondered why I was enjoying it so much, so I talked to some people who teach in the secondary school system. I discovered that their time is overwhelmed by administration, much of which concerns testing. They find much of it confusing, and the speeches of members who were directly involved in secondary school teaching have been interesting in that regard.

National testing carries a risk in any event. I cite another educational metaphor. The first law of genetics is that the more highly optimised a species is for an environment, the more adversely it is affected by another environment. A national scheme, rather than one that is based on the skills and talents of teachers in their own areas, taking into account their own needs, is liable to produce unsatisfactory results.

My final point for Jack McConnell is on information technology. I spent 30 years working in information technology, so the minister might be surprised when I say that we should be cautious about automating processes by using IT in schools. However, I urge him to consider piloting very carefully any new systems that are introduced, because ill thought out, underdeveloped or under-researched IT systems can increase the work load rather than save effort.

I welcome this opportunity to debate the subject of effective assessment in schools. What the minister has outlined today represents a sensible, balanced approach that recognises the importance of having a reliable system of assessment and testing, not for its own sake but as a means of identifying when more support is needed to progress every child's learning. That is essential.

The SNP's amendment insists that

"teaching and learning remain the priorities for our education system."

I doubt that many members would disagree with that proposition, although I believe that the SNP's amendment is implicit in the motion. Nevertheless, I welcome the Scottish National Party's consensual approach on the subject.

I cannot, however, commend the approach of the Tory amendment. Its terminology still smacks of the coercive, inflexible approach of what I hope was the last Tory Administration in Scotland. It attempts to conceal that party's predisposition to centralised diktat, but it fails. Mr Monteith—who has now left the chamber—did not hide his Jurassic traits. He made an ideological claim that the minister's plans equate to the resurrection of Michael Forsyth's attempts to introduce national tests common to all schools for each age group. Those claims are completely false. The Labour-led Executive's plans are designed to encourage learning and to support all children in making the most of their gifts, both personal and intellectual.

I am a bit puzzled. As we do not have a national curriculum and the Executive does not want to have the power to direct schools to the extent that Mr Butler is assuming, what is wrong with encouraging schools to participate in the new assessment system?

There is nothing wrong with encouragement. I always encouraged my pupils to do their best. I am talking about the Tory party's failed policy of adopting that tactic or strategy. I am disappointed that Mr Tosh asked that question, because he talked much good sense—in contrast to his front-bench colleague, Mr Monteith.

I welcome the recognition of the need to simplify the process of data transmission between schools, pupils and parents. That is fitting, effective and right. I also welcome the intention to consult on longer-term issues connected to internal and external assessment.

I am reasonably content with the constructive, flexible approach regarding five-to-14 assessment. As a former teacher, I am especially pleased that the Scottish Executive believes that effective testing for the five-to-14 syllabus must continue to be based on the professional judgment of teachers. I accept that there is a need for the provision of more sharply focused advice, support and materials. Such local flexibility is vital as it allows the teaching professional to exercise discretion and informed judgment. That judgment will inevitably be a bit subjective. I do not believe that there can ever be an objective test that will tell us about each and every pupil—that is a phantasm and a nonsense.

Ian Jenkins made a good point when he called for a more coherent and articulated system of assessment. We are talking about assessment of all types, which is one of the many things that Mr Monteith and the Tory party do not understand.

Real education is not about the destructive labelling of pupils. It is about the constructive development of each child's personality and intellect, which is a laudable objective. I believe it to be the objective of all progressives in the Scottish Parliament.

I will speak only for a couple of minutes, because much of what I was going to say has been said by others.

I recommend that the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", by an author and thinker called Robert Pirsig. I read it as a teenager and believe that it is a great book. It is about a chap who takes his son across America on a motorcycle and philosophises about all things in life, including education and the role of exams and assessment. His conclusion is that exams are not particularly good for education because pupils take their eye off the ball and do not spend enough time trying to acquire an all-round education. I am not suggesting for a second that we should scrap tests and assessment, but the philosophy is interesting. I will send the minister a copy of the book.

The SNP takes the right approach by giving the motion a cautious welcome. However, I must point out that, because my partner who is a teacher brings home marking every night from school, I am aware that there is already continuous assessment in our schools, to an extent. We must not become obsessed with tests because, at the end of the day, the quality of education is what is important. At the moment, some teachers are working with rationed jotters and pens in schools that are falling apart. In such circumstances, it can be difficult to deliver quality education. That must be our No 1 priority; we should not become diverted by assessments and exams.

In our education system, the lack of specialist teachers as a result of cuts is causing a tremendous problem. Art, music, drama and other such subjects that allow pupils to develop their confidence and express themselves have been cut. Quality of education should be a priority for the minister, but that is being hampered by some of the policies that are being pursued.

Primary education is the most important stage in a child's development. We must ensure that children do not find themselves getting put down again and again if they get bad results during continuous assessment.

I ask members to remember that assessments and tests are part of an overall package and should not be considered to be the top priority.

During the debate, I was reminded of a book that once fell on me when I was cleaning out a school book cupboard. It was a grammar primer from 1820, and the preface said:

"Standards of grammar are not as good today as they used to be."

That reveals the fact that every generation develops significant myths about education.

It strikes me that, unless we understand why we are where we are at the moment in the modern debate about assessment, we cannot progress. That is why I welcome the minister's commitment to a flexible approach to assessment. It punctures dramatically the new mythical history that Brian Monteith and his ilk peddle, which tries to claim that the announcement is a repetition of former Conservative policy. There are substantial distinctions between what Jack McConnell and the Executive have announced and what was going to be imposed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which was resisted by all sectors. Those proposals were resisted not only by teachers, who are protective of their professional understanding of assessment, but by parents and young people.

I will conclude my point and then Murdo Fraser can perhaps make an intervention as a new peddler of the Tory myth.

It strikes me that we use assessment as a tool for the improvement of the individual. The problem with the Tory approach—perhaps Murdo Fraser will enlighten us on this point when he makes his intervention—is that it is an enforced centralised view of assessment.

I now welcome a contribution from the Tory front-bench spokesman elect on education.

Does the member accept that the opposition to Michael Forsyth's testing proposals in the early 1990s was a purely political campaign? It had nothing to do with what was best for education. It was a party-political Opposition campaign because the proposals were Conservative proposals.

The problem with myth is that we start to believe it. The proposals were not resisted only by politicians. If the opposition had come from the mighty sword of George Robertson, the question would be understandable. The reality is that the proposals were resisted because the wider Scottish community did not consider that they were relevant to the community's experience of Scottish education and the way in which we wished to develop it.

I digress from some of the key points that I was going to make, but I thank Murdo Fraser for giving me the opportunity to get back to some old language.

The proposals were tied in with the opting-out of schools and the issue of making schools competitive in the educational framework. The impact of those together is the reason that the proposals were resisted. Teachers and schools have been undertaking assessment for a considerable time anyway. The opposition to the proposals was based on developing the opportunity to address the needs of the individual, rather than the centralised view that the Conservatives peddled.

I welcome the fact that Mr McAveety has drawn attention to the word "competitive" and I remind members that Mr Monteith used that word four or five times in his speech. I am sure that Mr McAveety noticed that. Does he accept, as I do, that competition might be part of education, but it is not the reason for education?

I concede that point because I have a liberal view of education, similar to Michael Russell's. [Interruption.] That is "liberal" with a small L. I would hate to think that it was a capital L.

The other Tory myth that Brian Monteith has peddled is that ideas such as discipline and school uniforms are Tory philosophies. If we look through the pre-war records of school boards, we see that the commitment from trade unionists, co-operatives and socialists was always to ensure that such ideas were features of schools. The other commitment, which Tories tended to ignore when they were voted on to school boards, was to give youngsters the opportunity of access to income to get the uniform that was essential for their schools.

I will concentrate on two crucial points that the minister made. One is the recognition that, as well as the core issues of academic performance, about which people care, understanding how to work with others is important. On any understanding, in the modern economy, most employers recognise that that skill is as important to their assessment of the suitability of an individual as are core matters such as numeracy and literacy.

The other point is about how we use assessment effectively. Assessment is not the driving force of our agenda, but it is one of the vehicles that we can use to arrive at the destination of improving the standards of education. For that, it should be welcomed.

Towards the latter stages of the open part of the debate, I was beginning to wonder which planet I was on. We heard about Frank McAveety's accident with the book. I am glad that he is recovering: I wish him good luck as he continues his recovery.

We have also heard about "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" which I would not recommend to members. It is one of the dullest books on the planet or, indeed, in the universe.

I had to pinch myself slightly when my good friend Mr Stewart Stevenson, who is not in the chamber, went on about an optimised species. I am not entirely sure whether that is correct. He lost my attention after the first four words. He then talked about 240. If that is his party piece, I am not falling over myself to go to his parties because they do not sound like a lot of fun.

My good friend Mr Monteith served with me on the Education, Culture and Sport Committee for long enough. He used two words that are equivalent to breaking wind in the manse front room—"Michael" and "Forsyth"—which is indicative of where the Iain Duncan Smith Conservatives find themselves today. We have an Iain Duncan Smith man in Mr Monteith and in Murdo Fraser.

And Alex Johnstone.

Alex Johnstone is more of the country party. He is an Alec Douglas-Home type of Tory—patrician and tweedified.

The Iain Duncan Smith style of navel-gazing and harking back to the prince across the water—Michael Forsyth—is typical of the mess in which the Tories now find themselves. Consider some of the people they have put in the shadow Cabinet for goodness' sake—Bill Cash, the shadow Attorney-General. I was at the University of St Andrews with a nutter called Des Swayne. He was on the students representative council with me. He is now a shadow defence minister. If the Tories are talking about dinosaurs and the Jurassic period, I will get all scientific and talk about the Cambrian or pre-Cambrian period—we are back in the era of the primeval mollusc.

I welcome the minister's comments about the teaching profession. He is talking about taking the teachers with us. Assessment is carried out all the time in schools—as the minister knows, having taught himself. It is a kind of informal assessment and it is intrinsic to how the profession goes about its business.

Following SQA and higher still, the teaching profession has had a rough time. Teachers have gone through a lot in the past year or so. It was nothing like as bad as when they were being Forsythed by Mr Forsyth and company. The key difference between then and now is that the teaching profession knew that Forsyth and the Tories were out to apportion blame.

We will deliver by working with the teaching profession, by taking them with us, by consulting them in action groups and by involving them as stakeholders. The minister acknowledges that we need to consult the teaching profession, taking on board their views and then progressing together. I underpin that by saying that what has been done so far is good. The minister was in the teaching profession himself and what he has done has been well received in classrooms—I can tell him that. If we are to pull off what the minister is advocating, a belt-and-braces approach is needed and we can then take the profession with us. I am sure that we can do it.

I am happy to contribute to the debate.

I welcome the minister's statement. It is vital that we recognise and reaffirm from the outset that the child or young person is the most important person in the whole process. Assessment must be a tool to ensure that every child reaches their full potential in education. The educational environment in which children find themselves must enhance their personal, social and academic development. It must also include a range of measures to assess the whole person, not just their academic attainment.

We should recognise that there is far too much assessment. We duplicate much of what is done and we do not do some of what should be done. Now we must seek to standardise what is in place and ensure that the assessment that takes place responds to the needs of each child. I therefore welcome the Executive's commitment to introducing personal learning plans. They are the means by which each child can benefit to the full from the education that is open to them.

The other important aspect of what the minister said is the role of parents in their child's education and the role that assessment can play in ensuring that parents are involved in it. We must make assessment relevant to parents and enable them to be part of the educational process. Previously, I was a youth and community worker. In many of the socially excluded communities in which I worked, far too often parents did not feel part of the education system or of their child's learning because they had been educationally disfranchised at an early stage and had subsequently found it difficult to engage with their child's learning. We need to find ways of engaging those parents.

I will reflect on some of what Conservative members have said. Their contribution—it was sensible for once—was encouraging. It would be nice to have Murray Tosh as a member of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee. I assume that the Brian Monteith who spoke in the debate is the same Brian Monteith who is a member of that committee. It is nice to be able to put a face to a name.

I also acknowledge Murdo Fraser's intervention. I think that we will be seeing more of him in the Education, Culture and Sport Committee than we saw of Brian Monteith. Murdo Fraser is still trying to equate what the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs is proposing now with what was proposed in the past by that good old friend of Scotland, Michael Scissorhands, who talked about introducing national tests for five to 14-year-olds—but what he proposed was decidedly different from what is being proposed today.

Michael Forsyth proposed one national test for a child, regardless of their stage or ability and at the same time—one test for everybody. That would have been divisive and demotivating; it would simply have discouraged children from learning. Perhaps that is what the Tories are really about: ensuring that the socially disadvantaged, the poor and the working-class people of our communities cannot achieve their full educational potential and that those in the nice independent sector get the best out of Scottish education. That is not what we are about; we are about ensuring that every child in Scotland can achieve their full potential. That is why testing should be responsive to the needs of the child and should take place at the time that is relevant to their learning and to the stage that they have reached. It should not be just some punitive measure imposed by central Government diktat. Perhaps that is why Mickey Forsyth and his pals were so successful in 1987 and why Scotland delivered its verdict on the Tories then.

We are at the start of a very positive process in assessment in Scottish education. In taking the matter forward, I look forward to working with the Minister for Education, Europe and External Affairs and his deputy through the Education, Culture and Sport Committee.

I have enjoyed my first debate on education in my new role as the deputy Conservative spokesman. I have particularly enjoyed it because it has proved that this party has won every argument on education over the past 10 years. We are the party that introduced testing as part of the five-to-14 curriculum and the party that encouraged parental involvement in education through the publication of more information on attainment.

Today, Jack McConnell has effectively been saying that Michael Forsyth was right. I would say to Jamie Stone—although I note that he has left the chamber—that we hark back to Michael Forsyth because we know that we won all the arguments. In our amendment, we are saying that the benefits of testing should be brought to the entire publicly funded school system.

Will the member accept a point of information: that on any basis of assessment, whatever we might choose, I believe that Michael Forsyth was wrong?

The minister may well believe that, but his actions say something different. The Tory challenge, which changed the education consensus in Scotland that has undermined Scottish education for so long, is now almost wholly accepted. We have just a little further to go on the policy for the local management of schools. We also have high hopes for the minister's review of devolved school management—but perhaps I will not hold my breath, given his decision in relation to St Mary's Episcopal Primary School in Dunblane, which was a political decision.

Some people, no matter how much they try, cannot divorce politics from education. That is precisely what happened 10 years ago, when we tried to introduce primary school testing. Referring to what Frank McAveety said—

Will the member give way?

Just a second. I will quote Fred Forrester, formerly of the EIS, who admitted a few weeks ago that the campaign against testing was political. He now admits that

"The opposition around the country to this plan was largely about opposition to Michael Forsyth".

Will the member give way?

No thank you. I will carry on for the time being.

Will the member give way?

I will give way to Mr McAveety.

Is Murdo Fraser saying that that protest was politically motivated by hundreds of thousands of Scots?

What I am saying is that the opposition to testing was engineered by people in the educational establishment, against a Conservative minister.

Will the member give way?

No thank you; I will make some progress.

Will the member give way?

I will make some progress.

Well that would be a change for the Tories.

We will see.

The opposition that I have described was opposition for its own sake. Opposition to any change in education still exists today. It does not come from the Labour Executive, but it is manifested in the unthinking reaction of the SNP. The SNP is a party stuck in the past. It brings to this chamber a 1970s agenda for Scottish education. It has failed to notice that parents' greatest concern in education is for output by way of standards, not for inputs such as resources or class sizes.

Will the member give way? I can help to explain SNP policy, as he clearly does not know much about it.

I will not give way. The SNP's political pitch is based on opportunistically picking up support from those who are disgruntled at new Labour's move to the centre. The SNP's policy owes more to attempts to mimic the reactionary stance of the educational establishment and the teaching unions in Scotland than to any consideration of what is best for Scotland's pupils. The debate has moved on. I am pleased that the Labour-Liberal Democrat Executive is moving in the direction of the Tories, while the SNP remains stuck in the past.

I will not take an intervention from Mike Russell.

With verifiable, standardised national tests we can genuinely measure what works and what does not. That allows the promotion of excellence and the ending of some of the well-meaning but misguided teaching practices that can be so damaging. It does not mean uniformity, as some suggest; it is about finding what is best for each school and each pupil, based on local needs. Active use of testing, with new flexibility in the curriculum and greater diversity in provision, will meet local needs. That is precisely what the Scottish Conservatives have been promoting for a number of years. Teachers working with parents and pupils, based on realistic information, is the best way forward.

Parental expectations have been released and there can be no turning back now. I am pleased that at least some members of this Parliament and Scotland's educational establishment are beginning to catch up with us. The minister deserves praise for that. It is time that the opponents of progress in the SNP and elsewhere gave up their dogma, listened to parents and joined us in the new, coherent debate that is taking place in Scottish education.

This has been an interesting debate in which there has been considerable consensus about what constitutes the main issues.

For the benefit of Murdo Fraser, I should point out that the SNP believes that education should be an enriching experience and process for young people—not an assessment-based series of hoops for them to jump through. We welcome any moves to provide coherence and consistency that would simplify the assessment process and move the education system closer to the model that we advocate. That model acknowledges that in primary education smaller class sizes and early intervention, rather than more exams or assessments, are the keys to improving standards.

Current research shows time and again that giving children the best possible start in formal education pays enormous dividends in their levels of attainment at a later stage. Although some competition between children is a necessary part of any vibrant education system, we believe that unrestrained competition borrowed from the marketplace is destructive of the type of socially responsive system of schooling that should be precious to us all.

The core issue is defining the purpose of assessment. Nearly all members can agree that the purpose of assessment is to assist effective teaching and learning. Recently, the Scottish Parent Teacher Council was on record as stating that

"primary schools are finding standards going up by leaps and bounds as a result of early years intervention in reading and maths."

More teaching, rather than more testing, is making the difference. That point was reinforced by Colin Campbell today.

We opposed national testing when the Tories tried to implement it and we will continue to oppose it in future, if necessary. Real education is child-centred. It involves parents and teachers working together in partnership on the task of evaluating and assisting educational progress. National testing in any form would be a crude imposition that would substitute pieces of paper for the process that I have described, and that would distort learning. All the research from south of the border shows that national primary testing leads to a narrowing of the curriculum, as teachers are forced to teach to the test rather than to educate the pupils. Ian Jenkins highlighted that in his excellent speech, which was born out of experience.

In the Netherlands, 70 per cent of primary schools have an attainment test at the end of primary school. Assessments are not mentioned before that stage. It is interesting to note that primary schools there are oriented towards the individual needs of pupils—that point was picked up across the chamber during the debate. Schools in the Netherlands also have general educational goals. Unlike subject-based attainment targets, those goals relate to social issues and social skills. Education means much more than learning academic skills.

While research shows that basic literacy and numeracy skills are important for adulthood, it also shows the key role that is played by emotional intelligence and self-esteem in success in adult life—that echoes a point made by Frank McAveety. Assessment criteria should acknowledge such skills, because employers are placing a greater premium on teamwork, ability to ask the right questions and coping with uncertainty, for example.

We must acknowledge the continuing difficulties in assessing many aspects of a child's development, in which teachers' professional judgment has a big role to play. Attainment is also influenced by social factors, including gender, ethnicity and rural and urban settings. Such issues must also be taken into account—I think that Cathy Peattie raised that point.

The timing of assessments is important. If we are to adopt a child-centred approach, assessments should be implemented when the pupil is ready, not when it suits the teacher, the school or the local authority to implement them for the purposes of producing statistics.

I agree with effective assessment, but not with an over-emphasis on assessment that squeezes out time for teaching and learning at all stages. The Scottish Executive, with all relevant stakeholders, must ensure that the central functions of teaching and learning are the priorities for all schools in Scotland.

I hope that Mike Russell's feigned anger at the start of the debate owed more to whatever he had taken before First Minister's questions rather than to a genuine concern about Jack McConnell's speech.

We did not make new announcements today. Instead, we discussed the proposals that were being developed through the action group. I want to underscore an important point: we want to work with the grain on Scottish education. We want to gain the support of all stakeholders: the councils, the teachers and especially the parents and the pupils. We want to build consensus around our proposals in order to simplify and streamline the existing system and to make it clearer and more effective.

I stress that our proposals are not in any way a return to Michael Forsyth's proposal for pupils to sit the same exam in different places at the same time: national tests—the Michael Forsyth way.

I should mention that we will support both the SNP's and the Conservative party's amendments. We thank Brian Monteith for his support for our motion but perhaps I should leave matters there, because much of the rest of his speech was not guaranteed to build consensus. The big question that we asked ourselves this afternoon was why five green bottles were hanging from his desk. I regret that his contribution to the debate was not as progressive as one might have hoped, or as his colleagues suggested that it was.

Will the minister take an intervention?

I would be delighted to give way.

The minister gave me an awfully bad turn when he said—I think by mistake—that the Executive parties are to support the Conservative amendment. The rest of his remarks indicated that he did not intend to support that amendment. I want to make that clear.

My remarks on the Conservative amendment stand. The amendment seeks to roll out proposals across all schools in Scotland, and that objective is worthy of support. In the spirit of consensus, therefore, we will support the objective that I have underlined today. We will support both the SNP and the Conservative amendments. This is the new politics.

It would be pushing the envelope of consensus very far to accept the Conservative amendment, particularly in the light of Mr Monteith's opening speech and of Murdo Fraser's summing-up. I must admit that I am overwhelmed by the minister's generosity.

To be fair and frank, if we were to base our support on the contributions, we might be supporting neither Mike Russell's nor Brian Monteith's amendment.

Ian Jenkins gave a moving description of how he beat the system and of the impact that the tests that he encountered had on his teaching. He delivered from the heart. He described how F is the best and A is the worst in one set of assessments but A is best and F worst in another. Different assessments are used in different ways at different times and they are not linked together. Jack McConnell gave a list of the AAPs, progress files, records of needs, personal learning plans and transition records. Quite simply, that must be sorted out.

We have established that effective assessment is at the very heart of learning and teaching. It is not a bolt-on extra or a distraction from the business of learning, but the basis for making crucial decisions on how best to support pupils to learn more and to learn better.

However, as Ian Jenkins and Mike Russell said, assessment is not an end in itself. Our proposals will build on familiar practice and pull separate initiatives together. The recording and reporting of assessment will be streamlined so that it is easier to understand and effective in supporting learning. By fully involving teachers in developing the new system, we aim to support them to assess effectively.

We have rejected the introduction of a new system of national tests at fixed points, which would replace the present system of testing when ready. The disadvantages of such a new system would far outweigh any perceived advantages. We have been convinced of that by the growing body of evidence from within Scotland, from within the UK and from the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

Instead, we have chosen to develop and improve the current system to make it dramatically better and simpler and easier to understand. We all agree that, for all involved, assessment should have one overriding purpose: to promote learning and thus to help to raise standards of achievement for all our children. Mike Russell is right to say that teaching and learning remain the priorities for our education system. Good assessment can inform the process.

We agree that assessment really matters for teachers, pupils, parents, head teachers, education authorities and the Scottish Executive. We all need to understand how children are getting on, so that we can act as genuine partners in children's learning. We need to be able to judge whether the programmes, courses, teaching and the support that is provided for pupils are the best possible setting for effective learning.

Our goal must be to ensure that we have in place an understandable, effective system of assessment that is clearly focused on promoting progress and learning. It needs to continue to be understandable, coherent and consistent from the start of children's education right through their school years.

The proposals that have been presented today will deliver the system that we need. Today, we have published a consultation document on whether there is a need for radical change to assessment. That will ensure that any changes are fully thought through before decisions are taken. On five to 14, we will bring together different approaches to record keeping into a single integrated framework that is straightforward and easy to understand.

The key is to bring it all together and to improve it. Too often, we do not know what we measure and we do not know why. It is time for a change to that approach. At the start of the 21st century, is it too much to ask for a simple, sensible and clear system that teachers, parents and pupils can all understand and in which they can all become involved? That will benefit everyone in Scottish education, and that is why I emphasise to members that I commend the motion, and Mike Russell's amendment, and Brian Monteith's amendment. All should be supported by this Parliament.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. It goes against the grain, but my party would be prepared to support both amendments—including Brian Monteith's. Would that be procedurally possible? Both amendments insert words at the end of the motion. If the Presiding Officer can tell us how the motion will read if both amendments are accepted, we will perhaps accept it and wander away surprised at what we have done.

I gave some thought to this yesterday when I selected the amendments. They are perfectly compatible and simply extend the motion. One amendment will be added to the other, if that is what the Parliament decides.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer.

Is it on the same point, Mr McConnell?

Yes, it is. I want to be absolutely clear. My interpretation of amendment S1M-2236.2 is that it adds to the end of a motion a call to implement the motion. For that reason, and despite what Mr Monteith said in his speech, his amendment is perfectly acceptable.

All right.