Chamber and committees

On 6 November 2023 I updated Parliament that it is anticipated the Centre for Teaching Excellence will be hosted by a university, learning from the successful model of the Centre for Excellence for Children’s Care and Protection better known as CELCIS.

The Scottish Government is committed to co-designing the Centre with teachers and practitioners, professional associations, local government, universities and Scotland’s national education bodies, to ensure it meets the needs of its users and stakeholders. The role and remit of the Centre, how it operates, its interaction with teachers, practitioners and stakeholders, performance measures, and associated costs and timescales will be considered as part of that design process.

The Scottish Government has had useful engagement with the Scottish Council of Deans of Education to discuss the overall approach to co-producing the Centre and, in due course, an appropriate process will be taken forward to establish it.

Children and young people should learn in the environment which best suits their needs. Most children and young people’s need are met through a universal level of support in mainstream provision, however, there are clear exceptions to enable children and young people to learn in a special school or in a specialist unit. It is for local authorities to determine the most appropriate educational provision, taking account of their legal responsibilities and the individual circumstances and wishes of children, young people and their families. We are working with our stakeholders to refine the guidance available to local authorities on taking these decisions, including updating the additional support for learning code of practice.

Our support to local authorities for additional support for learning reached a record high of £830m in the year 2021-22. We have invested an additional £15m per year since 2019-20 and provide over £11m of funding to directly support pupils with complex additional support needs and services to children and families.

We currently have the highest recorded level of pupil support assistants. In 2022, 307 additional pupil support assistants were recruited, in addition to 1,036 recruited in the previous year, bringing the total number of pupil support assistants in Scotland to 16,606. This level of recruitment is a direct result of our continued investment of £15m each year to help schools and local authorities respond to the individual needs of children and young people and maintains our record levels of investment in these staff.

We have also recently outlined in our Programme for Government 2023-24 our commitment to work with teachers to provide additional professional learning opportunities while seeking to build on the Additional Support for Learning Action Plan.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The assignment of probationer teachers to individual schools is a matter for each local authority.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The assignment of probationer teachers to individual schools is a matter for each local authority.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23878 on‎ 8 January 2024. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23878 on 8 January 2024. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Occupational health therapy services are provided by NHS Boards in Scotland, therefore there is no school staffing impact in respect of these services.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 places NHS Boards under a duty to support the identification, provision of support and review of additional support for learning. The arrangements for the provision of support to education authorities in undertaking their duties is set out within the Additional support for learning: statutory guidance 2017 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Updated guidance on the use of mobile phone technologies in schools is expected to be published in Spring 2024. The current guidance to education authorities and schools on this issue remains available from Guidance on Developing Policies to Promote the Safe and Responsible Use of Mobile Technology in Schools (www.gov.scot).

The Scottish Government has provided £367,177 of grant funding per year to CALL Scotland in the last five years. This grant is for services which deliver a positive and enabling impact on the provision of support to children and young people, who can benefit from assistive technology or augmentative and alternative communication.

There has been a period of exceptional market volatility due to a range of global factors such as the Covid pandemic and the conflict in Ukraine as well as the impact of Brexit. As a result of this, projects have experienced cost pressures out-with normal inflation expectations.

The Learning Estate Investment Programme carried out an evidence-led assessment of these issues which resulted in an increase of 11% in support to projects reaching contract close from August 2022 to December 2023 inclusive, and impacted on 20 projects.