Chamber and committees

School leaders are expected to develop their school level curriculum with cognisance of a range of factors, including the national curriculum framework which is politically neutral in its formulation, local circumstance, the specific needs of their learners and staffing structure.

The ‘How We do It’ section within the Refreshed Curriculum Narrative sets out the main considerations which school leaders will wish to take account in formulating their school level curriculum, including Understanding the learners, Being clear on practical approaches, Using meaningful learning networks, Knowing your own learning and support needs and Knowing the big ideas. https://scotlandscurriculum.scot/5/

Within the General Teaching Council Professional Standards for Leadership and Management school leaders are expected to have an enhanced understanding of the dynamics of political power and influence in the relationship between schools and society, and the consequent implications for the work of their organisation. They should understand the political and social context and the ways in which this impacts on schools and those within schools, taking account of this in their leadership and management practices. School leaders are all registered teachers and must also take account of the Code of Professionalism and Conduct which sets out key principles and values for all teachers including a need to uphold standards of personal and professional conduct, honesty and integrity.

The following table details when the vessels the MV Isle of Arran and MV Caledonian Isles has been taken out of service for repairs or maintenance since 2016.

All vaccinations are held on an individual’s medical records. Upon receiving the first vaccination, patients will also be given a reminder leaflet which will be issued with the date of their follow up appointment to receive their second dose.

A vaccination certificate could play a valuable role but there are various issues to work through, not least the significant equalities issues with allowing freedoms only to those vaccinated. Work, on a 4 nations basis, has started to scope and develop a technical solution to allow secure, authenticated access to Covid vaccination status.

This is to ensure technology is not the limiting factor should the work underway indicate it would be appropriate to introduce certification at the right time.

Due to the nature of this piece of work and the stage that we are at in discussions, it is difficult to determine the number of staff partly or fully involved in discussions. We can however confirm that a small number of staff in Scottish Government teams including; Covid Ready Society, Vaccinations, Community Surveillance, Scottish Government Legal Department, and several teams across Scottish Government that manage issues relating to the digital environment, have provided input in the work already undertaken.

We continue to engage in international developments in relation to COVID-19, including on the issue of vaccine certification. These discussions are led by the World Health Organisation.

We will continue to keep vaccine certification under review as further evidence around vaccines and immunity emerges.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of the provision of safe and reliable lifeline ferry services for the economy of Arran. Transport Scotland has not undertaken what the economic impact has been of disruption and cancellations on the Arran ferry route.

North Ayrshire Council has commissioned economic impact analysis of the value of the ferry route to the community on Arran, shared with the Ardrossan Taskforce, and this analysis demonstrates the high value of services to Arran and reinforces the importance of the redevelopment of Peel Ports owned assets at Ardrossan, the redevelopment of Brodick terminal undertaken by CMAL and investment in the MV Glen Sannox (Hull 801) which we anticipate will be delivered to CalMac Spring 2022.

The STEM bursary scheme, which offers a bursary of £20,000 to encourage career changers to train as secondary school teachers in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Computing Science, Technical Education and Home Economics, was introduced in 2018. Initially 100 bursaries were made available each year but in 2020 this increased to 150.

The numbers of bursaries awarded are as follows:

107 in 2018

111 in 2019

150 in 2020

The success of the scheme demonstrates that teaching is recognised as an attractive profession and we will again be making available 150 bursaries of £20,000 in 2021-22 to career changers to undertake a PGDE in these STEM subjects. Skills Development Scotland intend to open the 2021 bursary scheme for applications on 5 April.

Adult unpaid carers aged under 65 and young carers aged 16 and 17 will be offered vaccination at the same time as adults with eligible at-risk health conditions as part of cohort 6 on the JCVI prioritisation list. Unpaid carers aged 65 and over will be offered the vaccine sooner as they are included in priority groups 2-5.

We are committed to ensuring that the burden placed on schools by central government is appropriate and proportionate. One way of achieving this is by rationalising Scotland's engagement with international surveys like PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS. Whilst TIMSS is a well-regarded international assessment programme, it is the view of the Scottish Government that PISA provides a more useful international measure to sit alongside our other evidence about the Scottish education system. PISA is the only international survey that includes a consistent set of comparator nations, with all OECD countries involved, as well as a substantial number of other countries. It also goes beyond assessing how well pupils have mastered a curriculum to assessing pupils' knowledge and skills required for participation in society and everyday life.

We are committed to ensuring that the burden placed on schools by central government is appropriate and proportionate. One way of achieving this is by rationalising Scotland's engagement with international surveys like PISA, PIRLS and TIMSS. Whilst PIRLS is a well-regarded international assessment programme, it is the view of the Scottish Government that PISA provides a more useful international measure to sit alongside our other evidence about the Scottish education system. PISA is the only international survey that includes a consistent set of comparator nations, with all OECD countries involved, as well as a substantial number of other countries. It also goes beyond assessing how well pupils have mastered a curriculum to assessing pupils' knowledge and skills required for participation in society and everyday life.

Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes in the sciences provide a framework to help young people develop a secure knowledge and understanding of the big ideas and concepts of the sciences. Despite restrictions imposed to reduce the spread of COVID-19, schools continue to meet these expectations in the sciences, and in other areas of the curriculum, at all ages and stages.

In line with the Education Scotland National e-learning offer, a range of high quality and practical STEM resources have been developed. These are designed to support education practitioners in order to improve the online learning of children and young people. The Raising Aspirations in Science Education (RAiSE) primary partnership programme has, for example, been able to support more than 300 professional learning and confidence building events between August and December 2020.

In addition, the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre (SSERC) continued to run their Primary Cluster Programme and have reconfigured their support for primary teaching in digital formats through their Home Learning and SSERCTV provision.