Oliver Mundell, the Scottish Conservative MSP for Dumfriesshire, became shadow education secretary following the Scottish Parliament election in May.

He spoke with Tes Scotland about his school days and the teachers he remembers who made a difference in his life, and opens up about how his time at school was affected by dyslexia and dyspraxia.

He also discusses his thoughts on the current curriculum and why he thinks it needs changing, what he considers the best aspects of the Scottish education system and what he would do if he were education secretary.

1. Who was your most memorable teacher and why?

My most memorable is my P7 teacher, Mrs Jeans [at Moffat Academy in Dumfries and Galloway]. She was probably the first teacher to really believe in me, and her combination of a tough approach and her attempts to build my confidence made a real difference, looking back.

She was very strict and a hard taskmaster; there was nowhere to hide in her class. I had moved school the year before and just really struggled to get going but, in her class, I went from being at the bottom end of the class at the start of the year to being middle to top at the end. Going into secondary school, if she hadn’t been so hard on me, then I would have been a long way behind.

I went back to see her - that was one of the advantages of Moffat Academy being an all-through school - on my last day of school in S6 to say “thank you”.

Jim Armstrong was my modern studies teacher. I’m still in touch with him now; he influences a lot of my thinking on education. He certainly encouraged my interest in politics, which I obviously already had a bit of at home [Mundell’s father is the Conservative MP David Mundell], but I enjoyed his classes and he is someone I admire a lot, and who has an absolute commitment to teaching and being in front of the kids.

There should be more respect for people like that, who could easily be promoted but who really value having that contact with young people.

2. What were the best and worst things about your time at school?

The best thing at Moffat was the sense of community - you had to learn to get along with people because it was the same people inside and outside the school gate. That was a really important life lesson and I enjoyed that.

The worst bit for me was that I really struggled with dyspraxia, and later with dyslexia, and I found most of school a real struggle. At some points, I was very disheartened and I didn’t have any focus. I felt like I was a nuisance and I didn’t really feel that engaged.

I got a lot of help and support, and there were lots of people without whom I would not have made it to university, but although I did well in my exams, I found there was a lot of school I wasn’t able to participate meaningfully in.

I remember my mum and dad going to one of my first parents’ evenings and wondering why none of my work was on the wall in the classroom, and asking my teacher why there was literally nothing to see. And she just said I hadn’t got any of my work finished so it wasn’t good enough to go on the wall.

Generally, though, my school was really, really supportive and the learning support team was really excellent. But there still seemed to be - and you still get a wee bit of it now, I think - people who don’t take additional support needs (ASN) seriously, or they don’t think that things like dyslexia or dyspraxia are real, and that people are using them as an excuse for not trying as hard as they should.

I find it funny now how many kids proactively put up their hands to tell you they have got dyspraxia or dyslexia or other ASN. They are quite happy to talk about it. For me it was something I was ashamed of and I used to find the thought of going off to the learning support base, particularly as I went on through school, quite embarrassing.

3. Why do you work in education?

I feel really privileged to work with people in education. Politically, I think education is the most powerful tool we have to change people’s lives. I have seen that in my own family and among my friends growing up - if people get a good education, it opens up a huge number of life opportunities.

I also think, despite all the noise around education in politics, it’s the one area where everyone wants the same outcome, even if there are different views on how we get there.

I have certainly enjoyed my time on the education committee over the past five years because it’s been a chance to work with lots of interesting people and, compared with other areas of the Parliament, and other committees I’ve been on, it’s the one where there is a huge collective focus to try to do the right thing by the next generation.

4. Who would be your colleagues in your perfect school staffroom?

I was going to say I’m not a staffroom person but my colleagues in the Scottish Parliament would know that’s a lie because I’m almost always in our tea room at the back of the Scottish Parliament chamber. I enjoy the chance to mix with colleagues from other parties and that’s one of the few spaces where there’s the chance to do that.

5. What would you say are the best aspects of our schools system today?

The best aspect is, undoubtedly, the teaching workforce, who, after 10 years of continuous reform, have retained their motivation and commitment. I’ve been lucky enough, with the education committee, to visit other countries that are often talked of as world leading at the moment but the one thing I recognise here is the value that teachers place on the work they do.

It would be easy to lose motivation but whatever teachers are asked to do, they always step up - and we’ve seen that particularly in the past year.

6. And what about the worst?

The worst aspect is probably the curriculum itself. I read the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) report [into the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence, published in June] and, while it’s right to recognise that there are lots of good features in Scottish education, the fact that we can be 10 years down the line with a new curriculum and not really be clear about what’s at the heart of it, and about the balance between knowledge and skills, I think, is a real sadness.

At times, I feel we have ended up with a system that is neither one thing nor the other. We have ended up with the worst of all worlds because neither have we embraced a more traditional curriculum - which would be my preference - nor have we fully gone down the progressive route. So we have ended up with this confusion and we are asking teachers to somehow unravel that.

7. Your own teachers aside, who in education has influenced you the most?

I’m quite heavily influenced by Lindsay Paterson [the University of Edinburgh professor of educational policy]. I know that people do not universally agree with everything he says but I admire his confidence to put a different point of view out there and to challenge people to think.

8. If you became education secretary tomorrow, what would be the first thing you’d do?

I would want to shake up ASN provision. It’s one of the biggest challenges and the current system doesn’t work well. We talk about “getting it right for every child” but there are far too many examples, even just locally in my own constituency, where that is not the case.

We should move away from a system that is driven by cost. Part of the problem, at the moment, is that there’s a disincentive for local authorities to put the right support in place because they also need to protect their own financial resources.

You see some really shocking examples where headteachers and teachers know young people need more support and they can’t access it. If there was a central pot for additional support needs, you would have 32 local authorities across the country putting in substantial bids on behalf of young people.

It’s really time for central government to step in and look again at ASN provision.

9. What will our schools be like in 30 years?

It’s a bit of a boring answer but, I think, pretty much the same. If you go back 30 years, schools are still recognisable. There have been so many changes predicted - at one time people predicted we would be sitting at home learning via the radio or the television, so I don’t think we are going to have people sat in front of screens learning.

The past year, if anything, has shown us that there’s a huge value in bringing young people together in the classroom.

10. What one person do you think has made the most difference to our schools since the Covid pandemic began?

Everyone involved in education has made an incredible difference - and not always with a huge amount of support. But people have, by and large, got on with things, and that includes parents and carers, who have muddled through as well.

I have a particular admiration for all those teachers who have managed to teach remotely while also looking after their own kids at home. I think people forget that a lot of teachers have family and caring responsibilities, and they were having to juggle those alongside a huge societal expectation to keep turning up to teach.

Oliver Mundell was speaking to Tes Scotland reporter Emma Seith

This article originally appeared in the 16 July 2021 issue