Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to working with partners to keep schools safe, open and welcoming. However, in the event of any localised closures due to COVID-19, school reopening guidance makes clear that local authorities and schools should have robust contingency plans in place to support remote learning.

Public Heath Scotland has been engaging in a preliminary review of a sample of COVID-19 incidents in schools. The work is in its early stages and much more work needs to be done to build on the preliminary analysis and confirm the findings. However, the Scottish Government is committed to working with partners to keep schools safe, open and welcoming. In the event of any localised closures due to COVID-19, school reopening guidance makes clear that local authorities and schools should have robust contingency plans in place to support remote learning.

Responsibility for arranging remote learning in the event of school closures, instances where pupils need to self-isolate or where pupils need further support to catch up on learning, rests with individual schools and local authorities. This is set out in the Scottish Government's Coronavirus recovery guidance for schools.

In order to broaden the options available to schools, Education Scotland is working with local government via the national e-learning partnership to extend the provision of e-learning options across the Broad General Education and Senior Phase. Further information about the national e-learning partnership is available at:

https://education.gov.scot/education-scotland/news-and-events/
new-partnership-offer-to-improve-availability-of-online-learning-across-scotland/

To improve access to digital devices, the Scottish Government is investing £25m to provide around 70,000 devices and 18,000 connectivity solutions for disadvantaged children and young people.

To expand the options available to schools - including non digital options - Education Scotland launched its "Scotland Learns" initiative. This provides resources to schools, newsletters to teachers and parents and learning activities covering the key themes of literacy & English, numeracy & mathematics and health & wellbeing.

During the course of Term 4 2019-20, Education Scotland gathered a range of evidence on the approach to remote learning being taken across local authority areas. This work looked at the use of the Glow platform, use of live/synchronised learning by teachers and use of websites to share information. Education Scotland's analysis indicated that in May 2020, over 430,000 unique users accessed Glow, almost double the number of users from the same period in 2019. In the same month, those users accessed Glow 11.4m times, around 4 times the usage of the same period in 2019.

Further qualitative evidence is being gathered via Education Scotland's "What Scotland Learned" initiative. This will include the sharing of examples of remote learning during the period of Scotland-wide school closures in Spring 2020.

Education Scotland will continue to engage with local authorities and schools in order to monitor the approach to remote learning. The Covid Education Recovery Group will fulfil a further role in helping to work across organisational and structural boundaries, providing a forum for open discussion about what is working and where improvement is needed.

Detailed data on teachers' marking and assessment of pupils' work is not gathered at national level.

Responsibility for making the appropriate arrangements for remote learning rests with individual schools and local authorities. This is set out in the Scottish Government's Coronavirus recovery guidance for schools.

To improve the availability of e-learning options, Education Scotland is leading the national e-learning partnership, working with the Association of Directors of Education (ADES) to expand the national offer of e-learning available to support contingency plans developed by local authorities and schools. Further information is available at:

https://education.gov.scot/education-scotland/news-and-events/
new-partnership-offer-to-improve-availability-of-online-learning-across-scotland/

To improve access to digital devices the Scottish Government is investing £25m to provide around 70,000 devices and 18,000 connectivity solutions for disadvantaged children and young people.

To ensure there is sufficient teaching staff within schools the Scottish Government is investing £75m to councils to recruit additional teachers, as well as £5m to recruit teaching assistants or other education support staff.

To improve professional development to teachers, Education Scotland has expanded its professional development support, delivering 45 webinars to around 5,000 practitioners since March 2020.

To ensure that parents are provided with advice and support, the Scottish Government commissioned the National Parent Forum of Scotland to develop a Nutshell guide on blended learning.

We are introducing the Scottish Child Payment early for under 6s in recognition of the fact that almost 60% of children in poverty are in households where the youngest child is under 6.

We were able to introduce this payment earlier because it builds on the existing infrastructure for our Best Start Grant payments. I am pleased that applications will open next week with first payments beginning from end February 2021.

To make payments to those over 6, we need access to data from both the DWP and HMRC to verify parental responsibility. DWP have so far declined to provide us with the relevant data for 6-16s, and are still considering what can be made available to us and in what timescales.

All wild birds are protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. Subject to certain specified exceptions, it is an offence under that Act to kill, injure or take any wild bird.

The Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020 increased the maximum penalty for these and a range of other wildlife offences to 5 years imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.

The latest information on the number of school pupils who are not in school due to a Covid-19 related sickness (this is pupils who have either been displaying symptoms of Covid-19 or have tested positive for Covid-19) can be found here:

https://public.tableau.com/profile/sg.eas.learninganalysis#!/vizhome/COVID19-SchoolsandChildcareInformation/Introduction

This link also contains information on the number of school pupils not in school because they are self isolating due to Covid-19 related reasons. It is not possible to determine whether these are as a result of an outbreak at their school or due to other contact with people who have tested positive for Covid-19.

Useful information from Public Health Scotland can also be found on the weekly Infographic, published here. This includes information on positive tests by age group.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/covid-19-education-recovery-group-children-and-young-people-infographic/

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31221 on 27 August 2020. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx 

A response to the report by the independent Grouse Moor Management Review Group will be published this Autumn.