Chamber and committees

My next question is for Laura Caven and Jennifer King. How are families and children and young people being meaningfully included in the decisions about how local authorities, schools and children’s services approach recovery? How are we progressing with that? How well is that going? What more can we do?

You mentioned ASN. There are high-level working groups with teachers and Scottish Government officials. How well represented is the ASN community on them?

How could we help to alleviate that? What could we do that would be helpful to our teachers?

I thank our witnesses for being here today. Can you tell me a wee bit about what you think the impact of early activities with young people will be on their future level of activity and health? I also have to declare an interest as a councillor. Councils put quite a bit of funding into getting older people out, but maybe we do not look at getting younger children into early healthy patterns that would—we hope—continue through their lives. What evidence is there to back that up?

During the summer, people are more active and get out and about more. In winter, when it is slippy, dark and cold, is that a barrier to people getting out, and do activity levels drop?

David Ferguson pre-empted me when he started to talk about people dropping out of sport as they become teenagers. Earlier, Kim Atkinson was talking about sport and—I think that you have all done this—wound into that play activities and wellbeing, yet you all have “sport” in the title of your organisation. When I was looking at the information for today’s meeting, I was wondering whether those things are going to be incorporated. Is it a wider issue that we see sport as something quite separate when actually we are talking about activities and wellbeing together? I am interested in that aspect.

We are doing a lot of outdoor activities, risky play and so on in the early years right now, and I am interested in what kind of difference that is making to our younger children. Schools were doing great with PE and so on, but there is quite a limited range of activities on offer and we get people dropping out in their teenage years. Is there a wide enough range of activities on offer? Should we be looking to focus on other activities that might capture the interests of people in that age group and introducing them earlier? I am talking about things such as climbing and parkour that might be a bit more attractive to young people and might capture their attention.

My question is for Kim Atkinson, and is about equality and cross-cutting approaches. I am interested in the seasonal variations in walking and other outdoor activities in summer and winter. Are we taking the wider look that we need to take? Earlier, you mentioned a cross-ministerial group, and I wonder whether anything can be done around equality. For instance, in Sweden, paths and cycle paths are cleared first, then local roads and then highways. That allows women to be out and walking around, and it also provides greater access for those with disabilities. Is that the sort of thing you were talking about, and is there any such work going on here at the moment?

I am sorry that I did not make myself clear earlier. I was inviting other panel members to comment.

Witnesses have touched on the broader societal measures on poverty and the early years that have an impact on education. Are there any other local or national policies that would dovetail with those to support closing the attainment gap?

Do any of the other panel members want to come in before I put a short question directly to John Dickie?

Thank you, convener, and good morning to the witnesses. Thank you for coming today. Do you believe that the aim to close the poverty-related attainment gap is an achievable goal, or should we be talking about narrowing the attainment gap? That question is for John Dickie.