Every year, whoever is education secretary gets up at the Scottish Learning Festival and makes a big announcement.
So what was it this year? Well, the answer was…nothing.
In an unusual move, the take-home message of John Swinney’s big set-piece speech boiled down to “carry on what you’re doing - don’t mind me”.
After the controversial fallout from last year’s big reveal at SLF - the scrapping of unit assessments - this time he decided not to throw anything new at teachers because he didn’t see the need to upset Scottish education’s “consistent direction of travel”.
Calm before the storm?
There were, however, signs of choppy waters under the appearance of calm presented by Mr Swinney and others at the showpiece event in Glasgow.
The International Council of Education Advisors appointed by the Scottish government, for example, used an official statement to talk up the “clear and positive momentum in Scottish education, particularly in relation to the devolution of more power and resources directly to schools”.
However, when the advisers spoke at the festival, they sounded some notes of caution - particularly around June’s landmark Education Governance Review report, which envisages devolving more power to headteachers and getting local authorities to join forces in new regional “collaboratives”.
One of the advisors, former senior chief inspector Professor Graham Donaldson, warned of the dangers of the proposed changes atomising the school system and of headteachers switching their focus from leadership to management. Leadership expert Professor Alma Harris said it could be a “massive distraction” if Scotland started focusing too much on structures rather than teaching.
The advisors’ official statement, meanwhile, warned that giving more power and resources directly to schools must be “designed to improve education, rather than being structural change for its own sake”.
Mr Swinney ramped up the feelgood factor when he announced that the winner of the Robert Owen Award for inspirational educators - whose winners have previously included world-renowned academics from beyond Scotland - was Lindsay Watt, headteacher at Castleview Primary School in Edinburgh.
‘One of the best jobs’
In her acceptance speech, Ms Watt said that being a headteacher “must be one of the best jobs in the world”.
But Mr Swinney was also reminded of difficulties facing primary teachers when he took questions from the floor, with one student teacher applauded by other delegates when he questioned the wisdom of introducing standardised national assessments from P1.
The prospect of the assessments being boycotted became more likely last week, after teaching unions warned that at least 12 local authorities were telling schools when they expect pupils to sit the tests, rather than leaving teachers free to run the tests in the way they believed would help pupils. Unions were happier, however, about the news that school league tables should not result from the standardised assessments.
