Scottish education does not tend to change quickly. Look at Curriculum for Excellence, still widely talked about as if it is a new-fangled concept suffering a few teething problems - yet it is nearly 20 years since it was conceived as part of a “national conversation” on curricular reform.
This incremental change or inertia - delete as appropriate, depending on how sanguine you are about particular aspects of education - that we’re all accustomed to in education is, for now at least, a thing of the past.
Online learning? Schools had to get their heads around that at a few days’ notice when schools closed in March. Radical exams reform? In the light of events before and after Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) results day on 4 August, that feels very much on the table, particularly after the volatility of the past 10 days.
On Tuesday afternoon, education secretary and deputy first minister John Swinney addressed MSPs, a week to the day since the furore erupted over SQA data that showed teachers’ estimated grades were more likely to be pulled down in more deprived areas. A narrative had been unleashed that ran entirely counter to first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s oft-stated priority of closing the “poverty-related attainment gap”.
Swinney’s response, then, was momentous and had consequences beyond the Scottish system: he announced that all downgraded awards would be withdrawn - that the SQA would reissue them based on grades solely determined by the judgement of teachers or lecturers.
Amid all the raging controversy over SQA results, the long-trailed date of 11 August for Scottish schools’ return did not receive quite the attention most would have predicted. It represents another huge issue that, a few months ago, would have barely registered in teachers’ minds: how to run a school safely in the midst of a global pandemic? A question that once might have been the topic of a fringe session at a conference or a bit of CPD about planning for worst-case scenarios is now, as of this week, the live reality of every school in the land.
Teachers found out about this return date only at the end of June, in the same week that the summer holiday started for many. And by next Tuesday, 18 August, every pupil in Scotland should be back in school full-time.
The anxiety among teachers has been discernible for some time, but there is also excitement about seeing pupils. The sense of duty felt by teachers, in a profession where altruism is a crucial quality, has come into conflict with their fears about personal safety. The lockdown in Aberdeen, of course, has served as a harsh reminder that schools are returning not post-pandemic but at a time when, despite being contained better in recent weeks, Covid-19 remains a clear and present danger.
Earlier this week, a study from the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow into young people’s experience of lockdown (based on 5,548 young people in all, aged 12 to 17) presented some deeply worrying findings: it showed that they felt lonelier and more stressed than before the Covid-19 outbreak, that their daily rhythms had been disrupted - with 69 per cent going to bed later during lockdown - and that the schoolwork they were doing at home had increased stress levels.
A lead researcher in the project, however, underlined the fact that teachers had done “an incredible job” of keeping communities connected during lockdown. If there is something that we can count on in these uncertain, volatile times, it is that teachers will keep on doing an incredible job - whatever the challenges that lie ahead.
@Henry_Hepburn
This article originally appeared in the 14 August 2020 issue under the headline “In volatile times, we can at least count on our incredible teachers”
