Chamber and committees

Is the lack of spreading good practice the bad example, or is there anything else that children and young people should be, or are right to be, angry about?

I will just be a wee bit more persistent about this. I asked about resources, exclusions, restorative practice and boundaries and consequences. I get the general point and I get that your approach of understanding why young people are behaving in the way that they behave is very important, but we also have to think about what everybody else in the class and the teacher experiences. It is about a balance between the two and how we achieve that balance. What is your view on the specific issues that I have mentioned?

Stephanie Callaghan summed up very well how the boundaries, consequences, frameworks and apparatus that are created in a classroom keep everyone safe. I am not talking about punishment. I do not want to go back to the days when I used to get belted every second week at school. I want an understanding system. That is a far superior way of doing it.

However, there is now a fear among the teachers and pupils that I speak to—and lots of them come to me—who say that the situation is intolerable in their circumstances, that it must change, and that they have to have those boundaries, consequences and other apparatus to make them all safe.

I am disappointed you are dodging the question and I do not know why you are, because it is about every young person feeling safe. I get the bit about resources and support and having to deal with the symptoms rather than the causes—I get all that. However, that is not working just now and it will not change overnight. What else can we do to make sure that young people feel safe in their class?

There is no doubt that things have got worse since the pandemic, but the stresses were already being felt quite considerably before the pandemic.

My other question is about where we draw the line with regard to who is in mainstream education and who is in a specialist environment and whether we are getting that right. Do you think we have the plan for the numbers and types of specialist places right? Is the balance appropriate, and do we have sufficient specialisms?

I was quite struck by the statement made by the representative of speech and language therapists. He said that the current model is not working, that there is, as you have rightly identified, a wide spectrum of additional support needs and that we cannot expect teachers to know absolutely everything about every specialism, so experts are needed to help teachers with those pupils, and teachers then gain knowledge from that. He also said that speech and language therapists are much less involved in the classroom than they used to be. From what you have seen, is there the right level of specialist input just now?

Thank you.

This has been quite a good session, so I am reluctant to go down this route, but your predecessor, John Swinney, was insistent that the new high school in Dunfermline should combine St Columba’s, Woodmill and Fife College on a joint campus. I absolutely agree with your approach, but he drove that against some local resistance. What has caused the policy change? He was all for a one-stop shop and combining places, and there was resistance to that. Why has the approach now changed?

The two issues are closely connected. I am worried that that situation, if left to fester, could create more of a division.

I am sure that it did, but I know that John Swinney was insistent.

Although the tone and the approach today have been very good—I think that you understand how serious the matter is, cabinet secretary—it would be remiss of us not to express the anger and frustration that exist out there. A lot of parents are really angry, and teachers are giving up. They have had enough, and they feel as if they are on the front line without adequate support. They really feel it.

I was struck by the remarks from the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition, which hinted not only at the overall effectiveness of the policy but at whether mainstreaming is working at all. It also drew a correlation between poorer neighbourhoods and areas of the country and a higher proportion of additional support needs.

Something that came out in the absence statistics that were published yesterday was the absence rate in poorer areas. That affects Government policy in so many different ways. If we are going to close the poverty-related attainment gap and reduce inequalities, we have to get to grips with additional support needs for the sake of not just those pupils but the country as a whole and its performance.

It is important that you understand that there is a lot of anger and frustration. Although today’s tone has, I think, been the right one, because it has been serious, there is a lot of anger.

I go back to my original point. I worry that those on the front line, whether they are parents, teachers or pupils, are the ones who are suffering. We have a policy that we like, but they suffer if it is not working, and I worry about the divisions that are created on the back of that.

Do you want to comment on the absence stats or on the remarks from the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition, or on anything else, just so that people understand that you get it?