Schools must rapidly improve the first three years of secondary education if pupils are to fully achieve in the crucial later years, according to chief inspector Bill Maxwell.

Last week’s Education Scotland analysis of its inspections between 2012 and 2016 - in schools and other education institutions - showed that “Scottish education does not yet provide all children and young people with consistently high-quality learning experiences” (see bit.ly/ESreport).

In an interview with Tes Scotland, Dr Maxwell said the biggest issue was around the S1-3 “broad general education”, as “many schools underestimated both the scope and the need to change their first three years”.

He said: “In some cases, schools have ended up with a broad general education that isn’t sufficiently challenging…and therefore is not providing a strong enough launching pad for the senior phase.”

More generally, Dr Maxwell said the variability of standards around Scotland “doesn’t surprise me”, as the country had been through a “massive reform programme” that covered ages 3-18 and gave teachers more freedom to meet learners’ needs. “It’s vital now that schools that have not fully taken on board the flexibility of Curriculum for Excellence rapidly do so,” he said, adding there should be “more focus on literacy and numeracy across the curriculum”.

He also argued that the controversial system of national assessments due to start in 2017-18 - at P1, P4, P7 and S3 - would liberate teachers rather than, as critics have argued, add to their load and make them teach to the test.

Dr Maxwell said that “we are putting that faith across in teacher judgement as being the gold standard”. The assessments would ensure that such judgements were “more consistent across the country”, he added.

Assessments ‘on schedule’

The assessments are still “on schedule” to come into force in Scotland in 2017-18, Dr Maxwell said, despite concerns raised in Tes Scotland last month that pilot systems had yet to get off the ground.

He also rejected claims from some teachers that new Curriculum for Excellence benchmarks would create more work and boxes to tick; he said there was a need for “clearer understanding” of standards among teachers and that the benchmarks were “the final piece of the jigsaw”.

Responding to the suggestion of underperformance at S1-3, Euan Duncan, president of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association said that teachers “have been trying hard to get the right pace and challenge in the broad general education, but there’s a state of flux and change at the moment.

“Because the senior phase has been changing, that’s where the focus has been - and we can only properly focus on one front at a time. Teachers will be concentrating on changes to qualifications in the period ahead before turning to the broad general education, and that’s not what anybody wants.”

Retirement announced

Two days after Dr Maxwell spoke to Tes Scotland, it was announced that he was to retire this June, which is the same month that education secretary John Swinney is due to reveal the government’s plans following its review of school governance.

Dr Maxwell predicted that moves towards closer work between neighbouring schools and across local authority boundaries - the government has talked of “regional boards” - would be “one of the strongest developments that will come out of [the review]”.

He revealed that Education Scotland was already working with regional groups, such as the Northern Alliance, in anticipation of governance-review recommendations, to make it easier for teachers to work with colleagues beyond their own school.

Dr Maxwell added that the new inspections review was required reading. He said: “Every school should test their own development intentions against the themes in here.”