Chamber and committees

Thanks for being here, Professor Stobart. You mentioned that you are a late developer. I did not expect to be in politics, so we are on an equal basis there.

You touched on engagement with students. Obviously, students should be able to influence and help to shape the assessment system, and we should provide opportunities to recognise the full range of young people’s skills and experience and their achievements at school. What can we learn from other countries about engaging with students?

You have made a really good point about the engagement process. That is why I am asking these questions. In the evidence that we received from students, they talked about having that breadth and being given opportunities to demonstrate their skills and achievements at school. There seems to be a huge amount of trust in the teachers, which is really positive.

Do you have any comments with regard to young people with additional support needs? An issue that came through quite strongly in that respect was the need for flexibility in the system to allow them to demonstrate their skills and experience. I know that Professor Louise Hayward will be leading the expert group, which will also include people from the curriculum and assessment board. However, does that representation reflect the current situation, given that around 30 per cent of our students have additional support needs? How do you think they can be included or helped to demonstrate their skills in a new system?

Professor Stobart, you made the point about the fact that there can be corruption as far as assessment—[Inaudible.]—so I just wanted to check that you are satisfied that Scotland’s approach—[Inaudible.]—fair and robust in that standards were checked across teachers’ approaches in schools and departments, across local authorities and nationally. I want to check that that is a good indicator and that, if we are going in that direction, you have confidence that—

We talk about engaging and including students in the process of shaping and influencing the new assessment system, but I am concerned that it is easy for student voices to get lost when there are experts and teachers speaking in public and political debates about that. Is there anything from other countries or just more generally that we could do to ensure that those voices have parity and are listened to?

That is absolutely fine. Professor Stobart has spoken about the fact that there has been corruption with teacher assessment. In the light of the way in which Scotland has dealt with assessments during Covid—in other words, teachers in schools checking one another’s standards and the checking of standards across local authority areas and nationally—I want to check whether he feels confident that it would be fair and robust to use teacher assessment in the future.

It is great to hear that you have such a high opinion of our teachers’ professionalism and honesty.

There have been recent announcements about priorities relating to place and wellbeing and about preventative and proactive care being based in communities. That might involve 20-minute neighbourhoods, where people have different services to hand.

You spoke about shining a light on pre-existing health inequalities and their drivers. The Christie commission report has been around for quite a long time now—it has a big anniversary this year. What progress has there been with regard to the findings of Christie?

It was good to hear from Dr Buist about Tayside, where the NHS is working together with local authorities to roll out the enhanced community model, which relates especially to older people at home. However, my question is for Annie Gunner Logan and perhaps John Mooney. Integration joint boards have done quite a bit of work on preventing admission to hospital and ensuring that people are discharged as quickly as possible, which fits with the Tayside model. What are your views on how helpful that can be? How much of that model do we need to incorporate in future?

I accept that we have been doing things on that. When taking evidence, the committee has often heard about how health professionals’ focus tends to be on the targets that they are measured on. How do we ensure that prevention and inequality are suitably prioritised? The health professionals said that those matters end up being pushed to the side because they have other numbers that they need to hit. We all know about what is measured.