CONSERVATIVE and Labour MSPs are desperate to create a moral panic over literacy and numeracy, and to bounce the SNP into re-introducing tests at the end of primary school.
This step needs careful thought.
As the old saying goes, you don’t fatten a pig by weighing it. It is better inputs, not more frequent measurements, that lead to better outcomes.
England is a world leader in the control of teaching through testing. Its test results show constant improvement, but this is shown to be an illusion by the more challenging PISA international assessments. All that has happened is that teachers are getting better at practising children for tests.
Conservative leader Ruth Davidson blatantly contradicted herself last week by taunting the Scottish Government that – due to the lack of testing – they didn’t know what was going on. But wasn’t official data the source of Ruth Davidson’s complaint? She was in fact drawing on the data that is produced by the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy.
This survey, based on a representative sample, concluded that 88 percent of children were reading well or very well at the end of primary school, compared with 90 percent two years earlier. This slight change is being turned into a major panic. It may be a result of inaccuracies in the survey, or, quite possibly, the impact of David Cameron’s austerity politics on young children’s lives.
Most of the 12 per cent who are not reading well by age 12 are affected by poverty. The Scottish Government is keen to improve their achievement, but the impact of poverty itself, and of the denigration which families have suffered from the Westminster government, cannot simply be wished away.
The fall in literacy measured at the end of S2 is larger, but how would testing every P7 have revealed it? The reasons for the S2 fall need serious research, with an open mind as to the social and educational causes. Again the economic factors cannot be ruled out. Secondary pupils are very much aware of well-qualified young people, even parents, being unable to find work.
Data from England have shown that even high-achieving primary pupils growing up in poverty start to underachieve as they move through secondary school. England’s rigorous testing regime has proved incapable of stopping that.
Literacy in P7 and S2 will be improved by better professional development for teachers. The recent Literacy Hubs experiment, whilst bringing some benefits to younger children, left older pupils largely untouched. Particular skills are needed for reading for information, as for critical literacy. In S1 and S2 these skills need to be understood by specialists in science and history, not just the English department.
Unfortunately, like so many Scottish Government initiatives in the past, the regional Literacy Hubs were run on a shoestring and abandoned after two years.
As ministers have recognised, the issue of underachievement in literacy and numeracy is closely bound up with poverty. What can be done about this?
Firstly, it should not surprise us that Scotland suffers a similar achievement gap to England’s, since they both have scandalous levels of child poverty. The most urgent challenge for politicians is to end child poverty, along with the stigmatisation that has been directed at families dependent on benefits to supplement wages.
Secondly, many children are behind in language development before they even start primary school. Only high-quality nursery education remedies that. We need to stop treating this as low-paid, semi-skilled work.
Scotland also needs many more nurseries and children’s centres which can actively involve parents, where they can improve their skills at talking, reading and playing with children, borrow toys and books, and obtain good advice.
When children reach Primary 1, the lowest achievers are frequently segregated on to separate tables. Whether schools call them the Elephant table or the Snail table, children quickly learn that they are “not very bright”. When schools talk about dividing up children by “ability”, they actually mean segregating those who have had least opportunities from those who have had most. This is another pattern which Scotland shares with England. Our Nordic neighbours regard this as extraordinary.
Research by the Joseph Rowntree Trust has shown that most parents are keen for their children to succeed but do not know how to help. This issue must be tackled, but we also need homework centres in schools, libraries and community settings.
Finally, we need to question whether there is a link between the apparent achievement dip in S1-2 and children moving from primary to secondary schools. Scotland’s average secondary schools are about three times as large as in Scandinavia. Do our 12-year-olds really need 10 to 12 different teachers every week? Wouldn’t many children be better served by a smaller team of teachers who knew them well and who could develop better strategies around the core skills of literacy and numeracy?
Dr Terry Wrigley edits the international journal Improving Schools. He lives in Edinburgh but is now Visiting Professor at Northumbria University. His most recent book is Living on the Edge: Rethinking Poverty, Class and Schooling
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