Chamber and committees

Colleagues have probably covered the areas that I was thinking about. I wanted to ask about the policy intention and advocacy. I am feeling a bit confused. I care about all children in all countries, but there is an issue about how we influence what is happening in England if the standards are not being met there. With the best will in the world, if we do not make the changes that are in the regulations, children will still be placed here. The proposed changes include the addition of the advocate so that the child’s rights are better supported and their voice can be heard.

This might be a silly question, but I am going to ask it, because it feels like an important topic. How will amending the regulations help the practice in England, which you are saying does not seem to be rights based? Can you lay that out for me so that I can understand it?

As well as parliamentary scrutiny, scrutiny from local authority politicians is important. As you said, this is not just about the Government; it is also about local authorities.

Thank you. That is helpful.

You mentioned that Education Scotland will provide constructive challenge to local authorities. We all look for simple answers and for a uniform approach to be taken, because that can make things easier to measure. We need to have local variation, but we also need there to be challenge when things are not successful. Can you say a bit more about the actual mechanism for that?

What would that mean for a child in England?

I appreciate that you have already said that the proposed children’s care and justice bill is the place to properly sort this out, and I think that we all agree that the use of deprivation of liberty orders should be reduced to a bare minimum and that they should be used only in cases where they are absolutely essential.

This question follows on from what Ross Greer asked, and I ask it to have the issue clear in my mind. The status quo will not to stop cross-border placements from happening. Do you agree that it will not decelerate their use either?

I want to ask about the role of attainment advisers in more detail. Elizabeth Sommerville, you spoke earlier about taking down barriers in relation to both the local authority and the schools. Could you tell us a bit more about the degree to which attainment advisers are working with schools or with local authorities? It is always helpful to our understanding to hear examples of specific bits of work.

I am sorry to interrupt, but what is your understanding of why support workers would not be accessing those resources? Is that a question of time and workload? Do they not have the same space for professional development?

I am trying to understand what might go wrong and why somebody would say that there was an issue there. Is that a case of someone who is further removed from the school placing value on research that might not necessarily be appropriate to the pupil? Does that make sense? I am trying to understand where the comment that I mentioned came from.

That is helpful. While we are scrutinising and challenging things and looking for things that we can do better, it is always important not to lose sight of the diligence, professionalism and commitment in our schools. We have heard about great examples of that.

When the convener, Michael Marra and I spoke with teachers on, er, Monday—forgive me for forgetting; it has been a long week already—we heard fantastic examples of work. I was particularly impressed by the work that is going on to bring in parents to assist with literacy; an example was given of a successful film club that had been run in a library.

One challenge that teachers raised was about the research that policy is built on. One teacher described some research as flawed, because it is not disaggregated by ethnicity. They also said that some research that is being used undervalues and underplays the importance of support for learning workers. In that teacher’s school, English is a second language for many children, and support for learning workers is crucial. An example was given of a young pupil being given an assessment in Turkish and, to quote the teacher, smashing it. If he had been given his assessment in English, the outcome would have been different. I am keen to hear your reflections on how we ensure that the research is not flawed and that policies are appropriate for all our children in schools.