The Scottish Learning Festival, with its many seminars and keynote addresses, had been a well-established feature of the Scottish education calendar for years. But as with so much else, Covid changed that. In 2020 the SLF was cancelled and last year it was an online-only affair.

However, as we know, while the pandemic has done much damage to schools and education, some of the changes born out of necessity, like the increased use of technology to support learning, seem set to have long-term benefits.

And the pandemic triggered changes to the Scottish Learning Festival (SLF) that are set to have an enduring and - organisers Education Scotland hope - positive legacy.

This year the SLF is to be a hybrid event on 21 and 22 September that is more accessible to teachers - but that also offers the opportunity for face-to-face interactions closer to home.  

The changes are likely to be well-received, given that the SLF had increasingly come in for criticism, mainly because it was held midweek and teachers found it difficult to attend but also because it took place every year in the SEC in Glasgow, which meant it was easier for teachers in the Central Belt to benefit.

Some schools even started organising their own events as an alternative and, as Tes Scotland editor Henry Hepburn found out when he visited East Lothian for Preston Lodge High’s learning festival in 2019, nothing was lost - and arguably much was gained - by having a focus on sessions delivered by teachers, for teachers at a time that suited them.

The Scottish Learning Festival 2022: key changes

So this year the SLF has evolved, and the man behind the transformation - Education Scotland strategic director and former secondary headteacher Ollie Bray - describes it as “a huge departure”.

The wide range of seminars that the SLF always offered are still there but they are to be delivered online and will also be recorded so that if teachers cannot tune in on 21 and 22 September (a Wednesday and a Thursday) then they can catch up later. There will also be the chance to attend the festival in person but instead of everyone having to flock to one location, there are to be six so-called “satellite sessions”, with one in each of the Regional Improvement Collaborative areas: Glasgow, Fife, Falkirk, Dundee, Dumfries and Aberdeen.

These satellite sessions will be held after school, largely in local colleges, with a soft start from around 3.30pm, and the main events scheduled after 5pm. Again, these sessions will be streamed live online and recorded so those unable to attend can dip in when it’s more convenient.

But according to Bray, “the biggest change this year is the programme”. It has, he says, ”genuinely been informed by listening to teachers and trying to bring other voices in and give people what they want”.

Bray says that there will still be seminars delivered by key bodies like the teacher watchdog, the General Teaching Council for Scotland, and secondary heads’ body School leaders Scotland, but there won’t be “someone from Education Scotland standing up and talking for an hour”.

Bray says: “Everything has been co-created - it’s about coming back to the idea that the learner and the professional should be at the centre, and co-creating professional learning.”

The majority of sessions this year, he says, will be delivered by practitioners - be they teachers or headteachers or early years experts, or those delivering community learning and development.

In an article for Tes Scotland last year, science and physics teacher Andrew Bailey argued that the keynote speakers at the SLF were carefully selected so as not to be too critical, but he said: “It is important to hear critical voices, otherwise we close off new ideas and innovation.”

Bailey suggested Professor Walter Humes should be invited along to the SLF, given that he tends not to hold back - Humes has often criticised the “dominant voices” in Scottish education, like Education Scotland, for stifling fresh thinking and has called for a more open, less hierarchical culture.

This year Humes does not feature on the programme but Professor Mark Priestley, who has also criticised the festival for excluding critical voices, does. He is appearing at Forth Valley College in Falkirk on Wednesday 21 September to discuss where Scotland’s curriculum should go now. He will be one of a number of contributors to that debate - another taking part will be Bruce Robertson, the secondary headteacher and author of The Teaching Delusion and regular contributor to Tes Scotland.

Robertson was actually named by Bailey, along with Humes, as one of the critical voices that Education Scotland should invite to take part in the SLF. Bailey suggested he could “share the key messages of focusing on learning and teaching among the myriad quality indicators and other ‘priorities’ and initiatives that Scottish educators have to contend with”.  

Bray says the other debates that will run in the other satellite sessions will focus on additional support needs, relationships and behaviour in schools, barriers to attainment, the future of assessment and the national conversation on the future of Scottish education, which was announced by the Scottish government in June. He says these topics were chosen following feedback from teachers on social media about what they wanted to discuss.

The SLF, therefore, has retained its jam-packed programme but the chances for teachers to actually engage with it appear to be much improved.

Most importantly, though, it seems that festival organiser Education Scotland has listened to teachers. And, given all the reform underway in Scottish education, perhaps that bodes well for the future.

However, something else that will likely keep Education Scotland and the festival growing and evolving is the fact that it’s got competition.

This year there is no exhibition element to the SLF - in the past, a large chunk of the SEC was given over to stalls where teachers could peruse what companies and charities were offering, from classroom resources to expertise in areas like outdoor education or mental health. However, the organiser behind that aspect of the festival is planning to keep it going at the SEC, as a separate entity. The event is called the Scottish Education Expo and it will run on the same days as the SLF and it will also offer a programme of speakers, including Glasgow’s former education director Maureen McKenna; lecturer, author and vocal critic of the Scottish government’s education record James McEnaney; and the Department for Education’s behaviour adviser, Tom Bennett.

It seems, therefore, that Education Scotland has another reason to get the SLF right this year: there is a young upstart snapping at its heels.

For teachers, though, it’s all good news and September seems set to be a month rich with professional development opportunities, both online and in person.

To find out more about SLF click here

To find out more about the Scottish Education Expo click here