The prospect of a “parent rebellion” might be putting Scottish headteachers off from offering important qualifications over two years, it has been suggested.
Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, said today that “it is not possible to timetable more than six qualification routes (160 hours) into a single school session”.
The union said the only way for Scottish pupils to be “afforded greater breadth” in the fourth year of secondary “was for schools to offer two-year pathways, allowing up to eight subjects to be offered”.
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The intervention from the union came as the Scottish Parliament today debated fears that pupils are unable to study as many subjects following the introduction of the new curriculum and qualifications. In separate proceedings today, the Parliament’s Education and Skills committee continued its inquiry into the issue.
Scottish Labour education spokesman Iain Gray questioned whether parents would accept school’s switching to delivering qualifications over two years.
During this morning’s meeting of the education committee, Mr Gray said at one school there had been an outcry from families when the headteacher had tried to introduce two year Highers.
At Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh, Argyll and Bute, he recalled, in 2015 pupils sat no qualifications in S4 and spent two years studying towards Highers instead. However, a row erupted when parents objected, saying more pupils were failing exams or leaving with no qualifications.
Mr Gray said: “There have been instances - Helensburgh is the one that springs to mind - where a school has used that model quite extensively and parents - and the panel are in a sense representing parents - have proven extremely unhappy with that approach to their children’s education.
“The panel were very positive about that approach but I think if I was the headteacher of that school I would say, ‘Well, it’s all very well for you to sit and say that but I tried to do that and I had a parents’ rebellion on my hands, so parents don’t actually support that’.”
However, the parent groups giving evidence to the committee - which included Connect and the National Parent Forum of Scotland - said families would welcome the opportunity for pupils to study subjects in more depth, but that introducing such changes successfully relied upon both good relationship and communication.
The bulk of Scottish schools now offer six subjects in the fourth year of secondary as opposed to eight that was common under the old qualifications regime. The reduction has sparked concern that some pupils - in particular those from disadvantaged areas - are missing out on the chance to study a broad range of subjects.
Research carried out by the education committee found - five years on from the new qualifications starting to be phased in - that three-quarters of secondaries who took part in a survey said it was not possible to study for any Highers over two years in their schools.
However, speaking in a debate on subject choice this afternoon, education secretary John Swinney said Scottish pupils could now study a wider range of subjects for longer because - under the new curriculum - the broad general education ran for the first three years of secondary, as opposed to just the first two.
He also said that comparisons with the former qualifications regime - the Standard Grades - were “misplaced” because pupils were increasingly staying on beyond S4 and were “interacting” with the education system differently, taking part in a wider range of experiences from school-college partnerships, to National Progression Awards.
It was the qualifications that pupils had when leaving school with that counted, he said, not the number they had accumulated by the end of S4.
