 Ysgol sydd oedd ein chyfnach i ymgylchedd cyflymain ar y 13 oeg y gamwdeithasol yn yw 2018 ac mae'r fagau sydd effeithio perffodus i gynnwys ei dŵr i ddweud i hynny o'r newid sy'n gwyll worries ac oedd mae'n rhoi dwyfodol ar gyfer y dŵr ymgylchaf. Mae'n unrhyw ddechrau i ddwyllgor yma gael y gallu ddau cyflym anffordd yn ffrawr. Felly mae os ydi'r unrhyw ddechrau i ddau cyflym anffordd yn ffrawr? Dyna yw'r ystafell ymlaen nhw'n ei wneud o'r tynnu'r amser yn ymddangosol i gael a'r holl yn ymddangosol i ddweud i bobl iawn. Felly mae'r drwy'r ysgol ffócysgol i ddweud i ddweud i bobl iawn o'r holl, ac mae'n cyntaf ar gyfer o'r holl yn ymddangosol i ddweud i bobl iawn. Felly wedi ddwy i ddweud i leirio i ddweud i bobl iawn i bobl iawn. Curstyn Hog, ysgol ysgol, Barnard Ddorys, director, one parent family Scotland, Brian Scott, commissioner of poverty truth commission, and Chelsea Stinson, children's voices, the program manager, children's parliament. Welcome. I should say to the panel from the outset that if you'd like to respond to a question, please indicate to me or the clerks and I will call you to speak and don't feel the need for everybody to respond to every question. It feels free to do so if you wish but don't feel that you have to. For the benefit of those watching, I should explain that the committee held an informal meeting with parents, teachers and other professionals on this topic earlier this morning. I thank all who attended the session, some of who are in the audience watching the formal session. Yesterday Liz and Ruth and I visited Queen Anne High School in Dunfermline and I should put in record my thanks to everyone at the school who made us very welcome. The school has several really interesting projects, one of which was a swap shop that the anti-poverty group at the school had started. The pupils washed and ironed the clothes that were handed in and made them available for anyone who needed them. They had also thought very hard about how people would feel about having second-hand clothing and accessing a swap shop so they made it something that was literally a swap shop that either made a donation or you handed in a bit of clothes so no child felt as if they were getting a handout. It was great to speak to the young people who would approach the issue so sensitively. How do we make sure that state interventions such as free school meals are easy to access for our families and young people to make sure that that stigma does not fall on them? Does anybody like to respond to that? It is going to be the shortest meeting on record. I am quite pleased with this. For the children that we spoke to in the child poverty consultation, stigma was a big thing that they raised around access to free school meals or receiving any other benefits and support. There is something that needs to be done in terms of making sure that children do not feel that as a continuing thing as they grow up, because it is something that they raise quite frequently across the work that we do. What can be done? I do not have an answer to that necessarily, but it is something that children are identifying at even a young age that there is some sort of stigma that is following them if they are accessing any kind of support and benefits. Thank you very much. Just really following on from that. Stigma is something that many of the families that we work with have spoken to in terms of accessing services. One of the things that we heard earlier in the session with parents and professionals was that sometimes the systems we set up to try to make it easier for ourselves, actors' barriers, for those who are trying to access the services. The example that was given was of the digital first, the online systems for paying for school meals or even choosing your child's school meals if they are on free school meals. You would think that a system like that that is separate from the actual availability of the food in school would mean that it should address the stigma, but not if it results in digital exclusion for those families and the whole series of them were unable to go online and to be able to do that. One of the people earlier from a school in Nidry spoke about how they had drop-in sessions for parents to be able to come and do that, but I think that there is something about when we are designing the systems that we think will address stigma and stop singling people out. We are doing it with the people and not for or on behalf of them, and therefore there are all those unintended consequences that we do not see. In terms of stigma for families, what we have also found to be really successful is where a family can build up a relationship with someone that they really trust with our family support workers, for example, and where that person can help them to open up to say, actually, that I do not think that I am accessing the right benefits. I do not think that I have got the right furniture in my house for my child. Those are really difficult things for families to say to admit that, actually, if they feel that they are going to be judged for that, that is a very difficult thing to open up and say, and that can be very difficult for them to access the right support to get those benefits and to help them to access that. Sometimes that is a really long game, so we are going in and we are building up a relationship with a family for one reason, but then through building up that relationship and them feeling that they will not be judged by that worker, that they can trust them, that that is somebody who is really there to help them and support them, they will feel able to ask us to help them with those sorts of issues as well. Sometimes it is about giving someone space to say, actually, that I need some help with that and then knowing that we will be able to support them. As well as being a commissioner for the poverty truth commission, I am a parent of two children, one who is at a primary school in a deprived area. Actually, I know first hand what poverty is like. I agree with the statements before, stigma is a big thing. Also, I have encountered this underlying discrimination, for example. Some teachers assume that all children have access to a computer if they put activities online. They assume that they can go home and they have tablets, phones, whatever. Most children do, but a few children do not. They are left out and they are stigmatised and they are pointed out and it is made aware within the classroom because they can get punishment exercises that I have heard about because they have not handed in homework tasks because they could not get access to a computer. Also, the skill that my youngest boy goes to has a high immigrant community. Quite a few of the parents do not have access to computers, and if they did, there are difficulties using them. Assumptions are not made, but they are in the technical age, which is great if you can afford to take part in it. However, if you do not have the means, you sometimes feel like an outcast because you are outside the system that everyone has access to. That is a source of stigmatisation and a source of embarrassment. If you are a parent who cannot provide the relevant technical access, computer access, then it is the sense of failure that you have as well, and it is adding more pressure on to you. That is the third point. You used to be a trainer and now it seems to be smartphones and things like that. There is always something that they are trying to do. I go back to the school meal. Within my own school, there is no stigma for the children who receive the meal. In fact, it almost works in reverse. Children who pay are saying, how do we get a ticket? I think that that is exactly what Kirsten said. I have been there a long time, so it is about relationships. We have 42 different languages spoken in the school, so many of the parents struggle to fill in any forums, so straight away we will sit down with them, and many of the parents struggle with forums full stop. It is because we have that relationship with parents that they know that they can come and that we are not judging them, that we help them fill in the forum, we will write the envelope, we will send it off for them. I think that a huge bonus has been the free school meals from P1 to 3 and Glasgow going up to P1 to 4, because if it is free for everyone, then the stigma has gone, and I think that that is a huge thing. That will certainly help. I want to explore a bit more detail of the financial assistance that is available to young people. I would be keen to hear your general thoughts on how the support is accessed and is it directed in the right ways. Before I go on to specifically ask about educational maintenance allowance and the clothing grant, do you think that there is the right package of measures there to support people? The one thing that I would say about the clothing grant within the Port of Truth commission is that there is a subgroup that is looking into this, and what they have found is that the uniform grant and clothing grant is not anything but uniform across Scotland, where there is a vast difference between different local authority areas. I do not understand why. I know that the local authorities in general are responsible for setting the uniform grants, but why is there such a discrepancy? Why can't the Scottish Parliament or a subgroup or whatever come together and say that a blazer appears to cost the same when Orkney, as it does in Octonwchty? Why, certainly, the Orkney county can be sometimes up to £50 a difference to another local authority? Why is it not just uniform across the board? Do you think that part of the difficulty around that is that, while I accept that peritizers might cost the same in the south of Scotland as they do in the north, uniform is not the same. It is not uniform across the country, because there are different badges. Some blazers have got to be braided, some have got to have caps. There are lots of different things that affect what uniform is to be worn. I agree with you there. I know from one school that, every couple of years, they change their badge or colour of the blazers, so that means a whole new outfit. On the whole, schools tend to go in for all-in-one units, where they say the jumper with the badge on it, the t-shirt with the badge on it, the jacket with the badge on it. In Glasgow, where I come from, there is only one shop that you can go to, which is very expensive. It would be a lot easier if schools wanted to change, instead of buying the whole outfit, t-shirt, blazer, etc. Why do they not have some facility where you can use by the badge, so that you can go to a shop where a blazer can cost £12, as opposed to £30 from the uniform shop that has the badge on it? Or, have the badge and, in consultation with closing manufacturers, have a pocket where you can put the badge in or transport the pocket? It makes it a lot easier. If you have a few kids at school, then that is a massive pressure on your budget and on your finances to try and go out at the start of a new term to change everything again. You cannot even hand the clothes down if you have children of different ages. If the school decides to change the colour or whatever, that negates the possibility of handing it down. Some schools in the area have started up uniform clubs where parents cannot afford uniform. There is always a stock of uniforms that are handed in from pupils who have moved on to other schools, but it is always something that I could never understand why they do not just have the badge that you can buy, so that then it is up to the parent to buy the blazer wherever they want. They are not straight-jacketed into going to the one shop that has them when they are £30 each. Do you think that schools could do more to be less rigid in where the uniform needs to come from? Is the clothing grant easy enough to apply for? If English is your first language, I would say yes. It is good to hear Nancy say— Nancy made about helping. Is applying for the clothing grant an issue in your school? The forum for free school meals and clothing grant is the same forum. You complete exactly the same information, it goes into headquarters and they decide depending on your band in which grant you are given. The forum is not particularly friendly, it is a very small print. There is not an awful lot of information required, but you need a bank account and for some of our parents that has been the struggle, although credit unions are now being accepted and that is huge in our area and that is a great way forward for us. Again, I can only speak for my own, we keep uniform as simple as possible, our parents are very keen on it, it is something that we ask regularly. We have dropped the polo shirts with the badge, if the parents want it, they can still order it, but we do not sell it, we sell it at a cost price, whatever the company charges us, so a sweatshirt is £6.50 with the badge on it, and we sell it for exactly that. As I say, we have dropped the polo shirts because you can go to the local supermarket and get two for £3. If you are wearing your sweater, the badge is covered so I do not see the need for an expensive polo shirt. The issue with the forum being perhaps slightly overcomplicated, is that a view shared by the rest of the panel that the form itself could be made more simple in the way that you have to fill in? That is certainly the feedback that we have had from groups of single parents. We have been working within Glasgow to look to see what would be the barriers to you being able to access this funding. It has been the form, it has been the lack of a bank account as well. We did do a piece of work in Glasgow to look to see whether low-income families could automatically receive a school clothing grant. If we can find a way, so much information is required from families by so many different parts of the local authority. If we can find a way of having an integrated system whereby there is the one door entry point, which then passports them on to all these things without having to go through a series of hoops, that is one of the things that is fed back to us time and again. Together with the fact that if we could look at something similar to what is going to be happening, whether, for example, the best start grant, a lot of families say, yes, we get the school clothing grant, we buy what we need to, but actually we need to keep replacing things. I have got an example here. My daughter rips a pair of tights at school every day. Six pounds for a pack of three tights times 32 weeks in the year is not cheap. Outdoor and indoor gym kit, school uniforms are killed are not cheap. I went through four pairs of shoes and boots already since August. It is an on-going cost for families. It is not a one-off cost, and that is something that we need to be looking at in the system for these grants. How quickly does the grant come through? I want you to ask about EMUs as well. Very brief then. You should have spent some time on this one. How quickly does the grant come through? It varies, and that is one of the other things that people talk about in terms of the amount of time it can take from application to actually receiving the money. It really varies from area to area. I will use my last question to ask about EMUs. I would be interested in the panel's views on whether the level of education maintenance allowance is actually the right amount. What the uptake is among particularly one-year families? I would be interested in Barnardo's view if they have done any work on the uptake of EMUs among children that are care-experienced and the situation around kinship care arrangements, because there are some fixed, regulated kinship care arrangements, but there are also some looser kinship care arrangements. We answer that, Government. It is basically the first secondary, as opposed to the primary, but if anybody feels that they can respond then. Very quickly. I can get back to you on the figures. I do not have them to hand with the EMA uptake among single-parent families. One of the issues that families have spoken about in some areas is that, if you get the EMA, you stop getting the school clothing grant. I think that that is something that needs to be looked at, because it should be the role. I have heard stories within the PTC where there is a problem in the transition from child tax credit on to the EMA where it is not a smooth transition and it can be a source of great great worry. The two assistants do not seem to be linked up, they do not seem to coordinate with each other and it is left to the parent to try and sort things out. There have been cases where parents have gotten to date because there is no transfer of information or it is not a smooth transition and all of a sudden they get the bill from child tax credit, because their child has done this and has changed circumstances, you know you are always excellent. If you know of anybody that does that, they get in touch with their local representative to take their case up, because that sounds as if it is completely unfair and unjust. Nancy, I would like to come back to the point that you made around free school meals. The difference is that it has made universal free meals between primary 1 and 3 and up to 4 in some local authorities. Do you notice a difference then when the children move past the age at which it is universal? Are there challenges that were being resolved by the universal provision of free school meals that begin to emerge later in a child's time at school when it is no longer universal? The biggest challenge is making sure that the children who are entitled to free school meals, just now they hit P4 and in the future when they hit P5, is making sure that their parents have submitted the paperwork in good time because there can be a gap and in that time the parents have to pay until it is passed and quite quickly their debt can rack up and parents will say, oh but I thought they were getting free, so we start saying to parents, March, although we will not stop till August to try and get the paperwork in, that that can be the biggest stumbling block. In terms of children eating, we do have some children further up the school who you will say, I didn't see you in the lunch hall today, not many, but I didn't see you in the lunch hall today, and they will say, we don't have money, my mum doesn't have money, that's okay, Ms Cleaney's got money, come. Nobody in our school goes hungry, but there are some children who will say quietly to us. My mum said, I can't go to school lunch today, there's no money, and I'm not entitled to free school meal. Well, there's always food in Domarnock, but as I say, the biggest stumbling is parents understanding that they need to complete this forum, because they're so used to now being free and they can quickly come into debt, and that's something that we never want to see. The breakfast cob at your school, I'm interested, is there an interaction between that and the provision of free school meals? Are you able to engage with families more if they're engaging with the breakfast cob to ensure that they are taking up an entitlement that they have to the free lunch as well? Is there an interaction between the two? Not particularly, our breakfast club some mornings isn't greatly attended. On the mornings that we have support from one of our local partner agencies peak, then the number soar, but we have such good relationships like my parents' mommy. You're in the playground, you're in the yard, you're having me quiet words to pick up the telephone, and if we think that there's problems then it's the face-to-face chat, but it's about relationships and quite often the school work comes home because we need to do all of this and this is so important. In the consultation that we delivered with children on child poverty, food was something that came up repeatedly, so access to breakfast or to school dinners or to being able to bring lunch with them, and it's also something that children identified as impacting on their attainment, so going hungry in the mornings or throughout the school day has an impact on their ability to focus and their worry and stress levels as well. Just to note that we are currently doing a consultation on school food for the new regulations, and we're actually in Dalmarnock today, as some of my colleagues are. So this is something that we'll be coming back to as well in a report in the future as well, so what prevents children from taking up breakfast clubs or free school meals within their school, whether that's a cost or the quality of the food or whatever it might be, so that we'll be coming out in the next couple of months as well with the work that we're doing. We had a very interesting example in the informal session next door of income maximisation work in schools and the impact that it has on families. I'm interested in this issue of the wider financial support that's available, and what kind of difference that makes. Does anyone have any examples of where the income maximisation support has taken place within schools or where schools have been used to build that relationship with families and the kind of impact that it's had? During our summer schools, we opened the school for the last two, three years. We've opened the school in the summer for parents and children because I don't do childcare, so you have to come with your mum or your dad or your granny. We never wanted it to be a lecture, so we brought in people to have coffee with parents and to initiate conversations, but we did bring in people to talk about things like that, and that certainly the parents look forward to and now ask, can we have people back who can support us till we make sure that we're getting the benefits that we're entitled to, but it's done on an informal basis that you can engage if you wish. No one is forcing you to do it, but it has certainly helped and parents will tell us that that was very helpful. Kirsten, do you want to come in here and then? We'll often look at income maximisation, but as part of a wider picture, because looking at income by itself is a really great step forward for families, and it can often make a really transformative difference, as we heard this morning, but by itself is not enough. In our consultation response, we've given a case study of a family where the issue that presented to us was about non-attendance at school. It wasn't about income, but as we started to work with that family and as we unpicked that, we discovered that part of mum's mental health problems, part of her anxiety, was exacerbated by the financial difficulties that they had. The fact that she was a carer for her mum, she wasn't able to work because of that. We worked with them on that income maximisation, and I think that that's incredibly important, but it's got to be as part of a look at the whole family situation. What else is the impact of that financial difficulty that that family is in? It's not only that they don't have enough to eat, and that's incredibly important both for the child but also for the family, because if a child is coming to school not eating, then the chances are incredibly high that the rest of that family is not eating either. We often hear from families where mum only eats Monday to Friday, and she doesn't eat at the weekend because she wants to make sure that our kids have got enough. Where we're looking at interventions with children, let's also think about what else is happening back within their home because the levels of stress, the impact that those things have on the rest of the family, then knock on to the child and their attachment relationships, the levels of stress that the child has experienced. Yes, let's do those things, but let's try to look at everything around within that family. I'm just going to concur with that and say that that was exactly what I was going to say, that you need to take a family-based approach to look at what the issues are that are affecting the family, and also where the family feel most comfortable receiving that sort of support and advice, and usually it is some of them may feel less comfortable going into a school to have that, so it really is about finding the right place. I think this is where you need the third sector and others as the intermediaries, as the ones that have got the informal relationship with the family, the one that's not on a statutory basis, and quite often, as Kirsten said, it's other issues that families present with, and it's when you begin to unpick those, you begin to see actually, as a result of all these things, there's a family who's built up tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt. That's one of the things we need to deal with first before we can start to look at how we actually engage in doing the therapeutic work with the family, because they need to be in a place where you can do that, and so where the parent is then able to support the child. So I think it is very, very important to take that sort of holistic family view with income maximisation as part of it. In Falkirk, we get lots of referrals from the schools that we work with, but the work takes place in our family centre where the families have been used to coming since their children were two and have a relationship with the workers where they can be more honest and feel that they're not going to be judged, and I think that's really important. We've spoken about stigma a lot. What we need to make sure is that all the interventions are non-stigmatising. I thought it was interesting in the notes for today about the mention of investment in family stress models of poverty, and that's something that the children that we spoke with identified really naturally as well, and they talked about poverty feeling like a weight on their shoulders, something that they carried with them through their home life, through school, and as they progressed through life as well. So it's being aware that that's something that is going to impact on every aspect of life, and they were very aware of the stress that was happening in their families and how that impacted on the relationships that they had with their parents, their siblings and their wider network of support, as well as other peers within school and teachers and things like that. So I think that they're highly aware of what's going on in their homes and the impact that poverty does have on their lives. I agree with what Chelsea says. The overall stress levels in the family has a great impact on the children. My experience is that children take the problems on themselves. They try to find a solution for the problem, and sometimes the child even blames themselves for the problem. Overatching whether it's young poverty or young benefits or whatever is mental health issues because the system is set up that actually puts in the pathway to mental health problems because it's so confusing and it's so dehumanising. So if the parents are under stress, then it's going to be picked up by the child. And what I find as a child's natural response is to find a solution and they take the weight of that on themselves. So they're going to take that into school, they're going to take that into relationships with friends, and that's going to impact the child's own mental health. There's a syndrome that someone mentioned within the poverty truth commission called the brown envelope syndrome that when you see the brown envelope come through the door, you panic because you know that it's from a benefits agency or if you're in poverty through debt, then every letter that comes through that door is a demand. Every phone call that comes in is a demand. And that's going to put such stress and pressure on the parents if there's two parents involved. Stress in their relationship, the child is going to pick it up. And I can see why they express it as a weight on their shoulders because that's exactly what it is. Just when Nancy was saying as well that bringing in other organisations to help sit down with the parents and maybe help them out of their financial situation and maximise their financial possibilities, I just thought that I've worked with an organisation called Christians Against Poverty, which is a debt management agency. I just wondered if something like an agency like that could be invited in. And when the parents feel comfortable, they could access that service. It's a non-profit. That's what you have to maybe suggest to the schools in, organisations like that. Okay, sorry, do you finish, Ross? Yes. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you and welcome to the committee. Understandably, much of the conversation so far and the evidence from this morning has been about how to respond to the experience of poverty in our schools. And I would like to maybe explore a bit more what actually poverty means for learning because the title of our inquiry is actually impact of poverty in school attainment and achievement. So I'd like to perhaps get some views on what it actually means for learning and for closing attainment gap. And Nancy, clearly, I don't know how long you've been teaching for, how many years, but clearly you seem like an experienced teacher. Oh, does the word you're looking for? That word doesn't exist in my vocabulary when it comes to speaking to witnesses at the committee. So perhaps you can reflect on your experience of what it actually means for children turning up to school who are experiencing poverty in terms of learning and what the recent trends have been in your experience as a teacher. I've been teaching a long time. This is me now into my 40th year. And I've seen huge changes. Things got really better for a long, long time and I see things going back to maybe along the lines of when I first started. One of the things that we're finding is people are being so careful. They have to be so careful that there's lack of opportunities. The experiences that children are having are much more limited. Thinking back to when I first started teaching, schools made up for some of this. You took the children out as often as you could and it was three to a seat. It was long before seat belts and things. And if you had infants, it was four to a seat. So one bus, you know, in a way we went, thank goodness things have become much more safety conscious but that also has a cost implication. I've taught in lots of authorities and I was really pleased when I came back to Glasgow to find that they offer coaches for free if we're going to a Glasgow City Council resource. It has allowed us to take the children out and about but they're still limited. My children are being faced with texts talking about farms or the seaside and many of them have never experienced it. One wee boy in primary seven said to me last year, Miss Clooney, what is the sea? You're saying that that's a bit of water. It was nothing. We went straight upstairs and we booked a bus and we took the kids. Now it was to Lunderston Bay and for those of you doing the water, you'll know that that's the river. But for that child, it was the sea and it might only be the only chance he's got. So I feel children are watching TV, they're computer savvy, they're being presented with this wonderful world but they've not got real experience of it. That was another reason that we opened summer clubs and for parents because we take them places. But the parents are taking the children, we take a backseat on these trips because we want them to build memories, good memories, as a family. Do you remember that we went there? But it allows the children when they come back to have cuddled a bunny rabbit or climbed a mountain or whatever it happens, thrown stones into the river, climbed because it's these kind of things that are missing but they're expected to know that when they're reading a text to understand things that they've never experienced and it's very difficult. Schools now, fortunately, have got that little bit extra that we can help out but for a long time it was very difficult and the schools that I've worked in, money for parents, I have never charged for a thing for anybody but you were limited in what you could do and that's where I think children are missing out. So I hope that's helped to answer some of your question. Yep, and then we also want to come in terms of what it actually means for learning. Me first. When we spoke about poverty and how it impacted life at school, the children talked about a lot of the things that they were, that were difficult to get, so material things, things about uniforms, food, school bags, stationery, all the things that would help them and they also spoke about the lack of internet and connectivity and so being unable to do homework at home when it was assigned and needing internet but they also talked about the possibility of children who are experiencing poverty being absent a lot from school so again that will have a direct impact on attainment just by not being present in the school day and they also brought up quite regularly the kind of access to school trips and residential and how important those are to their school lives and their social lives and feeling quite embarrassed or left out and disappointed that they're not able to attend those opportunities like their peers are and in the work that we've been doing in Aberdeen around doing our best, one of the things that came out quite strongly was kind of a poor learner self-perception so this idea that if you're coming from a disadvantaged background there are kind of lower aspirations or expectations on those children so helping children understand what their skills are, what their interests are, how they learn best in order to kind of help them feel positive about their learning but there was a real kind of lower self-perception learner self-perception in these schools who are attainment challenge schools so helping children kind of raise those aspirations I think is really important as well and how we see them and what their possibilities are. I was just going to really add to that, I mean there's a I think the way we need to look at is in terms of poverty there's a causes of it which is a stuff that we've been looking at trying to address either for income maximisation, looking at how we've reduced costs but looking at some of the other policy areas which will impact on this like access to childcare which the parents spoke about in the informal session and sort of family friendly so there's a macro stuff which is about tackling some of the causes and in terms of the effect the sorts of things that the families have spoken to about us about is not being able to be involved in things is about not having a not feeling that you can send your children to school ready to learn because you haven't been able to provide the breakfast for them or whatever and things like that but one of the biggest things that they've spoken about and this is about being part of a school community that the family feels part of a school community and about being involved in things is the hidden costs of some of the things and I'm just going to in the evidence which I'm afraid you only got yesterday an apologies for that there's a family's experience where the parent was told to ask for children attending a local primary school she was told on a Thursday before a long weekend school break the children were to dress up in the colours of the African flag as she did not have the appropriate clothes she would have to take her six children including two high school pupils on the bus into town the t-shirts would cost eight pounds however the bus first would have cost 22 pounds 50 and then on top of that you've got additional lunch cost because it becomes a day trip when you're having to do something like that that would be at least 14 pounds so buying the required items would therefore have cost a 58 pounds 50 and this is apparent on benefits on top of this the children are asked to pay a pound for the privilege of wearing the t-shirts which is an additional four pounds so in terms of what it means it means those very practical things which are going to not make you feel part of a school community or make you feel different when you're going into one and which is immediately going to impact on how engaged you're going to be for learning let alone whether you're going in hungry so there's a very practical things we need to look at getting the conditions right so that when the children are in class they're in a state where they can learn and I think if we're wanting to look at addressing the poverty related attainment gap we have to look at addressing poverty and you want to come in and then for this week of course yeah I agree with all that the hidden cost to the schools in my area it's not so much paying for the privilege of wearing a particular lifestyle address whatever it is to have non-uniform days which is a pound and they're usually they burn monthly which if you've got a few kids it's the same school is expensive there's other things as well that can affect your education if you're suffering from poverty if you have to rely on a school bus to take you to school then very rarely is there any possibility of travel after the school day is done which means you can't get access to the homework clubs and the other after school activities if you have to leave the school to go to an appointment and you're relying on a bus the chances are you won't go back to school after it because it's the cost of the bus fare there and the bus for the parent back if the child is sick and your phone up is apparent to go and pick your child up if you don't have access to a card and you've got the bus fares to get there then the bus is for you and the child back and these are things that if you're on benefits or a really tight budget soon rack up and can really eat into what your affordability for buying things that week or like you said that they do special projects and you have to go and see the Christmas time where they have the activity place your child is an angel right you need to wear white white t-shirt you need to wear long white clothing or you have to wear a specific type of clothing you have to go and buy it is expensive in going back to the earlier subject where you're talking about mental health issues where these things have an impact on the mental health of the children there's been occasions where children have been sent home because they're not wearing the appropriate uniform because the parent just couldn't afford it and that has an impact on education if they're coming from a background where there are stresses and strains due to poverty they can manifest in the children through misbehaviour at school which can only take exclusions which affects the education my experience of schools that are in areas where there are large amounts of poverty is there seems to be such pressure on the budgets and there's extra demands on the school where they may have a large immigrant community so they've got to try and find funding for the translators there's the children that have got additional needs so they're trying to have something of psychological help there with maybe child psychologists coming in and there's overcrowding issues as well which from what I can see it means that it's very difficult for a teacher to give the time to this needed by the people I'll let you back in Nancy because I thought you wanted to come in at that point again I can only speak for my own authority Glasgow but we've done as an authority a lot of work on the cost of the school day and it's something that as head teachers we must do every year with our staff as part of our in-service day because as you say Brian it's things like bringing in white types you know somebody can say that I'm thinking it's a pair of white types but they don't understand the impact so it's something that as a head teacher I'm very conscious of and we address constantly with the staff and I'd like to think that the whole of Scotland was addressing that in in their schools because it really shouldn't be happening at least in Glasgow schools that's for sure thank you just to say that in addition to those sort of reasonably practical things which are our barrier to learning and attainment I think it's really important to recognise that health and wellbeing really underpins a child's ability to learn and underpins the whole attainment agenda and so we pushed quite hard in the framework for measuring the attainment gap within Scotland to have additional health and wellbeing measures in there not a super easy thing to measure but if we take our eye off that ball if we only look at literacy and numeracy and not the health and wellbeing pillar of education in Scotland which is incredibly important then we miss something there and the impact of poverty on that is undeniable so we know more than ever now about the impact on brain development of living in a very high stress environment that's not making any judgments about a parent or their ability to parent but if your parent is very stressed you are very stressed that impacts on your ability to learn and on your brain development if your attachment relationship with your family is disrupted because you live in this very high stress environment because your parent is worried about where your next meal is going to come from or whether they can heat your house then that's going to impact on your ability to learn so as well as those sort of day to day aspects that are a barrier to attainment there's also a deeper issue around health and wellbeing that it's really important to recognise the impact of okay thank you i'm going to let rott Richard back in but before i do can i just say that we've got a lot to go through now so if we could all sort of keep our answers much shorter very appreciate Richard you don't all have to answer this question but in terms of the fact it's now 2018 and it's disappointing to say the least that we are now talking about poverty again and the impact and the attainment gap and if anything the impression is that poverty is just as great an issue as it was perhaps a few years ago so i'd like to ask you why you think that's the case and what you feel the trends are in terms of poverty so i'm not talking about the symptoms of poverty i'm talking about the causes of poverty the system if you're in benefits the system is not geared towards the persons having to claim and it's dehumanising also as well it's going to put stresses on the family where you've got the new changes in the welfare benefits they're rolling out universal credit soon in Glasgow it's going to be at the end of the year that's going to cause great problems because you're going to be a five week period where there'll be no money at all so that's going to put extra pressures on the family if we were looking at what's causing the increase in poverty we need to look at the changes that have taken place in benefits and welfare reform we need to look at the increase in casualised employment zero hours contracts there's a whole series of interrelated things that are actually leading to the increase in poverty and actually we work with single parents 37% of all children in Scotland living in poverty live in a single parent family and actually the worryest thing is that the equality and human rights commission report highlights that by 2021 single parents and the children will lose a fifth of their income due to welfare reform that's an average of 5,250 pounds a year and the predicted increase in child poverty rates after housing costs for children's single parent household is going to go up to 62% so we're actually looking at how we're going to address a poverty related attainment gap at a time when poverty is projected to increase and I think that's one of the big challenges that we have it's deepening as well as having reaching more people and more and more people who are in work so we do need to look at things like family friendly working we need to look at flexible childcare there's a whole series of other policy areas which will impact on what we're trying to do here a couple of sessions ago we were debating not just the issues that you've spoken about this morning but about what can be very successful in terms of the teacher approach Danielle Mason from the Endowment group said that she felt that exactly what you've said today were crucial but that's not enough what has to be added to this are very positive teacher approaches could I ask Mrs Clooney if you could explain to us in your experience what are the best teacher approaches that help to at least explain to the youngsters some of the issues and barriers that they're facing and how they can address them in terms of the teachers we do a lot of work as a school that we try to have measures in every class to make sure that there are no barriers you know if you need something it's there it's provided there's no questions asked but I think we go back to what Kirsten was saying and that you need happy families to get happy children so as a school we started about three four years ago really looking into that and trying to address things which is where the summer club came from staff pop in they don't have to be there but they pop in and it's this informal chat over a cup of coffee where barriers between the parent and teachers completely gone you're on a level people are sharing things that they would never normally have done but because they have shared with them we have to do something about it so on a Monday as you would have seen in my report we have the blether which is CBT there's there's no two ways about it it's therapy and we have two therapists who facilitate that meeting but parents come and we chose a Monday deliberately because the weekend can be stressful and parents have suggested other things that they would like to try they've heard that yoga was beneficial and it was for some of them and it continues to be so but some wanted something more active so we got that going and that's going on in the school so my school's a very busy school for parents and children and I think that helps because we're beginning to know the whole family the holistic approach as opposed to this we bear and it's in front of us but it is about making teachers who perhaps have never experienced this aware but without the pity you know you don't want that either but it's just about if you see a barrier how can we reduce it as a grown-up and as the adult in the situation what can we do to help and what can we do to get rid of that barrier that's very helpful mrs cleaning just in terms of what happens inside the classroom on key learning would you be able to tell us some of the things that you feel have been very successful in helping those from disadvantaged backgrounds to do a bit better convener and one of my colleagues Ruth Maguire we were in school yesterday which had I felt some very good examples of what had helped actually in the classroom would you be able to tell at a primary level what you feel these things might be when it comes to disadvantage on paper my school is one of the most disadvantaged in the country as you would have seen we're at 94.7% of children in simd 1 and 2 and of the other 5.3 they're all in simd 1 and 2 they're just in houses that weren't there in the census so what do we do we support them of whatever way we can obviously last year pech was given to us and as a school community because it wasn't just the head teacher that was the teachers the children the parents we decided to upskill staff because we weren't sure how long this would continue and we didn't want to have things in place where it disappeared and you were back to square one so we upskilled staff in various therapies so that we can offer children sessions at lunchtime and after school it's things like legal therapy it's fun things but it allows children to express how they're feeling another one was kistad which is the combined use of santeries talking and drawing but again the children cannot into this if they are feeling stressed or distressed we have increased the number of support for learning workers so that the teacher has a bit more time we have put a lot of resources into p1 that's where we're really focused because we think if we get it right there and we get the vocabulary up and we get children talking then that will help as we go through obviously we're into year two now of PEF so we're continuing all of the above but we're managing now because now we're a wee bit more secure that we might be getting it for a little while so we are looking at we have quarriers coming in to work with children parents and staff and this year they're looking at first aid mental health we're hoping to get a homeschool worker but i want to use my homeschool worker very differently to the the model that Bernardo's used just now and no no no no it's Bernardo's that will host the person for me but we have negotiated i think we took Bernardo's way out their comfort zone somewhat but we've negotiated a completely different way of because the parents have that relationship in school and with me you know so they'll come and i get helped sometimes to personal things but that relationship's there we need it differently but we'll do whatever we can we have to clarification on that point what you've just set out is these measures that you've taken was that all covered by the PEF money the ones i've just spoken about yes yes definitely including additional teachers we didn't get any additional teachers it was just upskilling upskilling the staff that i have thank you very much thank you tabish i could just continue the same line of questioning to Liz and that and that's just about how you judge success and this is Richard Lockhart rightly said is about attainment and achievement but you've given a very compelling series of examples of what you've done particularly p1 but ultimately your p7 pupils are transitioning up to to the high school that you feed to how do you judge and this is i guess i'm asking is not just about this year but over a number of years how do you judge success for your school in terms of children who have come from this very tough but disrupted background as to how they then proceed into their secondary school education well we've looked at attendance we've looked at inclusion we have reduced exclusions dramatically we're looking at parental engagement we're looking at the children's engagement in other activities and we feel if we get all of this right then attainment should rise obviously as a school as head teacher i meet with staff regularly asking about individuals asking about the class monitoring where the children are monitoring their progress so those that are making good progress why and are we challenging those who are are hiccuping why and what we're doing to support that conversation goes on constantly mine is a large school but it's not so large that i can't speak to every teacher every day so people will come and say i'll tell you a breakthrough with this child or we but concerned so we can get in quickly um and i think all of that so we have where a data rich school if you saw my desk you would realise where a data rich school we're maybe not very good at filing it but we've got it um therefore you know the progress absolutely absolutely the staff i have very good staff i am supported by a fabulous team but we know exactly where the children are what they're doing and sorry Liz one person that we did manage to employ this year that has really helped is we've got cdo working in early years and she has a BA she's very highly skilled cdo and that has been a huge help for early years you better say for the record a cdo sorry in Glasgow it's a child development officer i'm old i would have said a nursery nurse but that has been a huge benefit for early years and for that transition from nursery to primary but for the rest of the school staff are assessing daily you assess minute by minute you know who's understanding we actually had a delegation of Norwegian visitors on friday 26 of them and i lost them my school is quite spread out i lost many of them when we met at the door they said oh we were in p7 and they were doing maths and we were saying so what are you doing and why are you doing and you know children could talk about their learning i think they were quite surprised at the medical cognition and the fact that the children really understood and different processes and strategies so we know that the children are making progress but i think all of the other things we do have certainly the fact that we've got them in school as well you know attendance is a huge thing if you're at school then we've caught you and you said a lot about children but are parents making progress as well because i think you've described the whole school very very sensibly the biggest challenge arguably is about mum and dad as well or mum or dad or whatever the arrangements are do you do do you do are these programmes working you mentioned yoga earlier on do you do you find this program I had it ago last week and said Nancy it's like sucky hall street in here and i said no it's not we're busier than sucky hall street um we have but again it's come from parents um so we have a photography class but the they work with clay college but what they are now doing that some of our parents who have english is an additional language they've not worked on the photographs but now they're making the photographs into a dual language book their children will be doing the translation we have a parent eco group where the food sorry is being now used in the lunch hall we have um what else many of my parents we've put through certification and many have gone on to work so we support the parents as well as the children the only other question that's going to ask is are you doing this with other head teachers in across the Glasgow authority i mean does morey mcann ask you to go and mentor other head teachers in terms of the process i'm fortunate that i've been seconded to help support this children's neighbourhood scotland so obviously the approach we're hoping not just the school because children's neighbourhood is much more than schools but this kind of approach in others too yes thank you thank you very much hey rosh you had a briefing briefly you mentioned that one of the approaches you've taken is dramatically of reducing exclusions is that that you've tackled the the causes the the behaviour causes or the other causes that have resulted in exclusion or have you changed the schools policy and approach and how you respond to those issues and have chosen another approach than exclusion look but both my teachers are now much more aware of some of the stresses and challenges that some of the children face in their everyday lives and how that comes into school and that sometimes an angry child is only angry because they don't know how to express that they're sad or they're hurt or whatever but with the so many teachers being trained in different approaches the child then is able to express himself a wee bit better so we can say i can see just now you're angry do you feel that you need to go and work with mr such and such on mr such and such and it's given the children a way out and sometimes that half hour or hour to express himself in sand or in lego is enough to calm sometimes it's not but it certainly has helped so it's a little bit of both it's changing how staff approach things but also given us the skills to deal with some children who are distressed thank you okay thank you very much Chelsea you wanted to come in yeah just um two quick points across our work at children's parliament the children speak often about the importance of relationships with school staff and i think that's especially true for children who are living in circumstances where they're affected by poverty or trauma or stress um one of the children who took part in this consultation says you know if you have a teacher who you trust it's okay but if you might feel stuck if you don't have anyone to tell and so that kind of vital importance of having really positive relationships with teachers or other school staff and kind of helping with those circumstances and helping them achieve within their school day so i think relationships are vital um and where those are right it really helps the children and where those go wrong it has a really negative impact on their experience at school and their their attainment level um and coming back to the programme that we're doing in in Aberdeen um we take a right space approach to that work and we try to working with working with the schools and the class teachers to develop a culture of empathy and trust and kindness and one that's based on human dignity and so i think helping children feel like they're part of that school community in that classroom and they're able to achieve within that setting and the teachers who took part in this this programme spoke about the difference that it made in their understanding of that individual children and what works for them and how they can best support them in the classroom and also just on the kind of on their learner self-reception and how the language that they use to describe their um how they learn and what they're feeling is going going back to that point that Nancy made about how important it is for children to have the right vocabulary to be able to express themselves and so it's not just stuck at either i'm bored or i'm angry and they can get beyond that to really identify the issues and then be part of the solution as Brian was saying earlier. Thank you, convener. I was going to ask some of the previous evidence that we've heard in other sessions has suggested that there is quite a wide variation from school to school local authority to local authority in terms of how children who are subject to poverty perform and even where it's sort of like local authority for like local authority or like school for like school there's quite a difference. Do you think that the culture and leadership within the school is the most significant factor in explaining that or is there more to it than that? I think that the culture is a huge factor in that absolutely. I've been lucky I've been in my current school for 10 years so it wasn't an easy thing and it doesn't come overnight it's about building trust and relationships and for some of our families we are the only stable thing in their lives so knowing that we are there and we're always there is really helpful for some staff and as for some parents and as I say some parents are sharing concerns worries way beyond their child and school because they come and if I don't know the answer I'll know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows the answer and it's just getting those supports in place but it's a very time consuming thing and as I said earlier I'm fortunate to be backed by the most magnificent team that allow us to do that but it's not always easy. As I sit here and I listen to Nancy speak I think it's fair to say that her school is exceptional and that there are a number of other exceptional schools across the country absolutely but there are also some schools where the starting point needs to be a bit further down the line where we need to start the work that Nancy started 10 years ago and there we're looking at interventions which are about helping teachers to understand what trauma is. We've got a fantastic trauma knowledge and skills framework in Scotland developed by NHS education Scotland and we think that teachers should absolutely be accessing the training that's recommended in there so that they have the relevant level of knowledge to understand that that allows them to be more compassionate with students so not just looking at the behaviours but thinking about what is causing those behaviours to come and what support can we put in in those schools where the relationships are not great just now. The reason that Nancy's had to push us out of our comfort zone is because often what we are doing is having that relationship and acting as that interface between the school and the parents and in some areas that is still needed and in some thankfully it's not that's great but in a lot of areas that needs to happen as well so this issue of the culture and the ethos of the school I think is incredibly important and in many cases I think it does come down to the leadership within that school. I have talked about my school team but my school team is much more than school staff it's a health and social care partnership that I couldn't imagine not being in school it's the thriving places, the community planning it's the third sector. We now no longer talk about partners they're just friends of the school and when I come to do the school improvement planning they're round the table because they very much support everything else that's going on so this is not education in a silo it's supported by a range of services statutory and third sector that I just couldn't run the school without. I mean I guess I hear you say you've been doing lots of these things for 10 years and I guess the frustrating thing sort of sitting on on this side of the table is why we haven't managed to sort of universally share that best practice. How do you think we improve that and why are other schools not taking up these initiatives? Is it a question of resources? Is it a question of more training and we've upskilled your staff to help them understand some of these issues? Do you think that people are not aware of it or do they not have the time or resource to tackle it? I don't really want to speak on behalf of other people I don't know but as you'll have gathered I'm not a shrinking violet and so if I need help I go out and I find and over my journey of 10 years I've been supported by obviously I've spoke about people locally but so much more than that people nationally you know what does it take to tweet someone to say I really like what you're doing have you got time and you're busy schedule to come and to get people like John Carran and Karen McCluskey into my school knowing my parents working with my children you know has been mind blowing and I'm now lucky enough to call them friends but people of that caliber but it's just been done in the brief pants picking up the phone what's the worst they can say to me as a wego but nobody ever does you know they've always been really excited because they want to get in at ground level too so it's been a wee bit cheeky and and saying can you come and help I mean you never know it might be you next can I ask you Nancy you started 10 years ago other schools didn't why I don't know obviously personal journeys come into it I started my I grew up in gorbos I started my teaching in gorbos and for those of you who know Glasgow I'm now in Bridgeton which is a stone's throw away so I've almost completed the circle how I was brought up my you know the morals and the values that my parents gave me that were we're all job tamsons bairns and that nobody's better than you and and you can do whatever you want and I really believe that of the children and I'll say that to them you know you can be anything you want anything and I'm there to get you there and help you and you see the wee shoulder scone nice at a time when others weren't that it was a community that that sort of village that makes a child when other schools weren't going down that route I mean what was it that you saw that others didn't and why don't I suppose when I when I got the school I'm in just now um I'd like to think that the two schools I was head of before I did the same but the school that I took on 10 years ago was five small schools that closed and became a new school the merger had happened and then I arrived and the communities for all their only crossroads from each other were very proud communities with lots of local history went into the school didn't know which child had come from which community but by golly I knew that's one staff there and that's one staff there so it had to be this united front we were quite fortunate it was 2007 august 2007 I started and we knew that in November the commonwealth games was going to be announced we took the I took the gamble that Glasgow would get it and we knew that if Glasgow got it the commonwealth village would be built in our community so that we knew that there were changes so it was new head new broom had to come up with something that they had never heard of before that no one could say oh well you know in the school we did it like that so it was just let's get going come on let's be different at that point although aces were around I had never heard of it but I knew that all these things impacted on children I never heard of adverse childhood experiences but we started looking at things and we had to build a community because the parents were for all the parents lived close they didn't know each other so we had to bring it together and that was the focus of the school so you were fortunate to get in the ground okay thanks very much for that Brian yeah from my experience I've been at councils and schools where there's programmes in place it sometimes doesn't take an awful lot to start unravelling where an incident can happen like that a head teacher moves on for whatever reason and the new head teacher that comes in maybe can't get to get up to the problem so that head teacher moves on and there's no continuity there and you can start to see through that the programmes unravelling because there's no one can out there to the ship to keep things going also trying to get parental involvement that's very important I found Nancy some schools that I've had experience of it's very difficult to get parental involvement especially when there's distinct if you like cultures within the school you may have a large immigrant community again and the communities don't understand each other and it's trying to bring them all together where you do get parental involvement the things are not easy but they're slightly easier to put into place because you've got the parents who want to drive things forward and it's trying to keep that going I don't know how you find Nancy where my experience was it was always a small group of parents that wanted to really get involved but as the children move up through the school and the children move on to secondary education those parents move on as well and it's trying to keep that going they're bringing a next set of parents so I'm going to need to get around with the flag. I think my colleagues will agree with me but we've found in any evidence we've heard about parental engagement as that it's not been immigrant communities for example that it's been difficult it's been that the previously bad experiences of school by parents have made it more difficult and I mean the one of the things that stands out is Dominic I would suspect and I know the area very well would have a lot of parents who had poor experiences at school so I mean you're telling us that you've managed to turn that round I suppose the answer that the this committee is looking for is how and that's something that I've got a lot of friend head teacher friends who ask the same people who will say you know we've started a homework club and we've got three coming and you get 120 my answer is always have you asked your parents what they want we've never produced something or offered something that hasn't come from something a parent has said it's been led by parents so we only need a spark and just in January I had two parents in first day vaccine Nancy had a thought about summer school I don't actually know what to do you know in terms of first aid could we get something in summer for that and someone else had a near miss with a fire and said I'd quite like to know so we've got fire training running for parents but it comes from things parents have said funnily enough the one thing I can't get is a parent council I haven't got a parent council that's about empowerment of the parents I think is the real answer to your question isn't it and I think yeah complete involvement and empowerment absolutely I just wanted to go back to something that Nancy was saying earlier about kind of opportunities for schools and inviting different organisations in or people to come in and kind of yeah to broaden what's happening in that school and I think for children's parliament we work with schools across Scotland every year and for our consultations and projects some schools are kind of so eager to get involved and they're really keen for us to come in and deliver workshops or sessions or projects and there are other schools that are very resistant to that or they don't have the capacity to even think about doing that and so I think there's a huge discrepancy between schools about how they approach those additional opportunities that present for them and so I think there's something to be said about an attitude of you know yes let's get this going and trying new things but there's also some a capacity issue as well I think for some schools or they might just be resistant to people coming in who they don't know and the second thing I wanted to say is that in some of our MCPs attended the second cabinet meeting with children and young people in March and one of the things that they continuously say is that they want to be more involved in teacher training in social work training so that those people who are going on to be in those professions are hearing from children early on in their training about what makes a good relationship between pupils and students or teachers and also kind of what makes those relationships work and what their advice is for those people. They have a lot of experience with teachers and social workers and we should be using them to help our professionals as they advance in their careers and so that's something that I just echo here is that children are saying that they want to be involved in that. Thank you very much, Jolene. So many things that I wanted to pick up already been mentioned by you but particularly just off the back if you talk about ACEs and what you've just said about teacher training. Do you think that there is a role for the teacher training that the new teachers are going through where actually they have got that fundamental basic training in the sort of things that you're now using your PEF funding for for your continuing professional development schools which give them the tool kits the basic tool kits to be able to understand childhood trauma and the impact of that and how they can they can help. Thanks feelings on this I know that Barnardo's are very keen for many people teacher training is now one year so it's a very very tight year and there's so much to cram in. I also don't think children should be labelled with ACEs. Many children have suffered many trauma but some have the resilience and ways teachers can help other children build that resilience. I think it's very important they know about it but there's so many other things to cram into a very tight year that it's a very difficult one. I've been very fortunate I've had some amazing young teachers come through my hands but they come into schools a wee bit like rabbits caught in headlights because that year has passed and I was the people who've gone through four years obviously they've got more time to think about it and consider but I'm unsure about how much time can be spent on anything and if you only mention it and it's piecemeal it's that worse I don't know and I think maybe it's up to the schools to work I mean we talk about it but there's no labelling of children who have suffered the three, four, five, six, even, seven ACEs but I know that that's different from Bernardo's. Absolutely we would take on board the additional pressures that are being put onto teachers and so it's less that we would say this is the method by which teachers need to understand about trauma and ACEs because there will be others who are better placed to make those decisions but there are a couple of things that I think would really help. One is going back to what we talked about about the culture of leadership within a school and the new qualifications and training for head teachers I think it's incredibly important that trauma and ACEs are there because that leadership and that understanding needs to come from the very top of the school and that will help to change those cultural issues that we've talked about. The approach that we take at the moment in supporting teachers is often around helping them with an individual case that they are facing at that time and that then helping them to broaden their understanding of ACEs and of trauma without it being prescriptive or in a textbook or an additional thing that they feel or I've got to take this on but where they can really see the benefit so for example we had a case in a school of a young man who would often take himself out of the classroom he found that just really stressful to be in that environment and he would take himself off to a nurture space within the school and the teacher would send somebody to bring him back so that young man was in no position to learn at that point so in terms of attainment it's not doing him any favours you've brought him back to the classroom but you've made him more angry so we've helped that teacher to understand that actually the reason he takes himself there is to calm himself down that helps him to regulate his own emotions then when he's ready to come back he'll be in a position to learn so it's not so much saying you must know about this new thing and you must know this terminology but it's about saying can we help you to unpick that now so that if it happens again in the future you'll be better placed to deal more compassionately with that person rather than just looking at their behaviours and I would I think from our perspective as well I think the in creating that culture that supports children in school and at home I think children's rights are vital to that and as I I think I hope many of you have seen the documentary resilience which is where a lot of the discussion around ACEs has come from in Scotland as I was watching that it struck me as the kind of gap in the narrative of that film because it's an American film where they don't talk about children's rights like we do here and I think it was something that can really support what we do in Scotland as a foundation because those 10 things that are identified as adverse childhood experiences are happening because children's rights aren't being fulfilled so I think creating a culture where children's rights are respected where children and adults know about their rights can help us address some of these issues that come to the front and one of the the MCPs that we work to has said I think it's more it's I think more people in Scotland especially kids need to know about their rights if something unfair happens then they know what to do about it so it gives children an understanding of what should be happening what shouldn't be happening and that there are people that they can go to to discuss what's happening in their lives. I'm just going to quickly add to that to say I do think it's important for us to look at how we have better trauma informed practice across all the professions that work with with children but I also think it's important for that to be contextualised and when we're talking about adverse childhood experiences I mean our view at OPFS is that that needs to take place with an anti-poverty framework which recognises the structural causes of inequality so you can actually be extremely resilient you can be coping with a series of knockbacks day after day after day but there's only so much you yourself can do to address those and there are other factors that we need to look at and I think with poverty in particular which is what we're talking about here it can exacerbate the impact of those adverse experiences on individuals and families because it reduces your ability to put in place those protective and remedial factors which actually you know you could be in an upper class upper middle class family have a series of aces but that family has got a resource to be able to buy in what they need to support you with that so I think it's looking at the impact of poverty on the capacity and resources to deal with the effects of adverse childhood experiences at the same time as recognising that many of these families have developed a high degree of resilience and coping mechanisms and are putting up with circumstances on a daily basis which are having an impact and we need to look at contextualising this whole debate within the anti-poverty debate. I'd like to ask about PEF funding. You've outlined some incredible things that you're doing with your particular PEF funding and it was really good to hear that you don't make that decision yourself, you make that decision, the school community makes that decision. Is there any things that you would like to use this opportunity to talk about PEF funding, what it means to a school, if it can be improved, you mentioned about knowing that you're going to be getting it year on year, is there anything that you would say that PEF has meant to your school that otherwise you wouldn't be getting it? Last year it came as a complete vote out the blue and to be given the third largest amount in all of Scotland was just scary, no two ways about it but you very quickly get used to it and this year it went up significantly so we have a lot of money but it is exciting and we are trying to make use of it well so that we, not just I can document, that we can document that it's helping to close the gap and raise attainment. I appreciate that we can't say that it's for 10 years or whatever but knowing, this uncertainty that is it next year, are we getting it, it would be helpful, that's for sure but it has been very gratefully received. I was in Finland last week with teachers from all over Scotland and of course it was mentioned and it was really interesting hearing what they're doing and learning from each other. It really has allowed us to be quite creative and think out the box and I think that's a wonderful challenge as a leader to not just do more of the same if you do more of the same, you get more of the same at the end so really thinking differently it's been super so thank you to everyone who voted for it. Just finally before I let one of my colleagues come in, I'm struck by what you're saying about the parental engagement in your schools but I'm very aware that, as James alluded to earlier, that for some parents maybe very chaotic lifestyles or parents who have had a very negative experience of school themselves that actually getting involved in the school could be an added pressure and if they feel that they're outside that whole community, how do you deal with parents like that for whom the idea of coming into a school is another stressor on to their already very chaotic or busy life that they feel that they just can't engage with the school? That's what I'm wanting to explore next because we have the parents who are very keen to be part, we have parents who have been reluctant because of language barriers and we've got them on board but we do have some parents that we're not getting so we want to know what would, one thing that they will come to is anything to do with their children, the turnout at my parents' evenings last month was 98 per cent which I think is tremendous and of the 2 per cent who didn't come every one of them called, every single child was accounted for so that my parents really do want their children to do well but there are some who haven't joined things yet so what is it that would get you in and we need to explore that but we need to ask them and if that means knocking on doors then that's what we do you know if you won't come to a coffee morning then I come to you there's no escape so but we need to ask because I don't know what the answer is um I'm looking for for my parents to tell me and tactics and I'm the mafia the bridgedom mafia okay right thanks thank you all um Mary you wanted to come in with her so just a very brief follow-up question on peff what would you be able to do differently with your peff funding if you knew year on year you were getting that funding if you knew for the next 10 years you were going to get the same amount of funding what would you do differently I think it would allow us to write a long-term action plan just now it's reactionary you know we've got the money fortunately we were allowed to carry it forward and that was a huge help anything that we didn't spend but just now it's reactionary it would be really nice to sit and say let's let's vision 10 years time where would we like to be and have a theory of change going just now um it's happening quickly and I'd like to take more time and think deeper and longer absolutely yes thank you thank you very much very person you wanted to come in with us the other issue around long and short term funding is around the importance of relationships which we've talked about and if the funding is only for one year um if we are commissioned in by a school it's very difficult to retain staff um on that short term contract and therefore for those relationships to blossom and families feel really let down when their worker changes something like that can have a real impact and set your your right back so that would be the other advantage of the long-term funding okay thank you Ruth thanks convener good morning panel or good afternoon as it is now um it's been a really interesting session and my colleagues have covered a fair bit of the ground I wanted to talk about um collaboration um with you all and I think that we know intuitively as well as um with the evidence that we've gathered that um tackling the attainment gaps more than just about school it has to involve parents and the community and indeed third sector organisations um in terms of um the PEF funding and the attainment challenge are there any changes that need to happen to it to make collaboration easier um what's making me ask this is that we heard in evidence here in the committee and also on the visit we did to the school yesterday that procurement can be a bit of an issue and I know it's not a hugely exciting topic procurement but do you have the flexibility to bring in other services to get the things you need are there any barriers to doing that as a person with PEF I haven't found any barriers um yet um maybe I haven't been exciting and but I haven't found any problems anything that I've wanted to do I've managed to do um no I haven't found that I suppose it from yourself I wonder whether the Nancy factor comes into play here again in that you are the person who will go out and knock on doors because I think that the feedback that we've had is that for third sector organisations we are now having to engage individually with individual schools and it's very difficult for us it's very challenging for us to develop those relationships with schools which is not the way that we've traditionally operated um so something structural which makes it easier for schools to know what is out there and what is available because Nancy has the drive she knows what it is she wants to achieve she goes out and she finds somebody to help with that but I think there are other head teachers who felt more overwhelmed by having that money who are not so sure about what it is that they could usefully do with it and so ways in which we can do that that isn't on a an individual relationship basis would be really helpful sorry I hadn't thought of that person certainly a head teachers meeting a new head teacher said exactly that I don't know what is out there so we Glasgow city council organised speed dating for third sector and charities but they were all there you could go around you could speak you could pick up leaflets and that was very helpful for people who didn't know where they were going I appreciate that some smaller authorities or remote communities that would be a wee bit harder but it's certainly I know that new head teachers in Glasgow found it very helpful one of the things that was fed back to me from a parent who was in a who is in a parent council is the accountability by the head teacher and the reason why that was raised was it's going back to kids who don't have access to after schools called duty transport issues where they were trying to put in a homework club within the school which would be great but it's not helping the kids it's aimed at because you've got the transport issues and trying to get them to bring in the homework clubs to the areas where the kids stay because there's facilities there so that this person raised the accountability so that they can that's great the money's there but the ability of the parent council to maybe say cooperate maybe coordinate and put in their ideas the parents haven't been collaborated with effectively rather than other friends yet okay right thank you and finally do you want okay thanks very much I think it's been really interesting and I'm sensing perhaps the committee's going to suggest we should just clone Nancy Clooney and everything would be solved but I mean I think I would I mean it's been really interesting and also that much of what you've described predates the PEPF is now facilitating something you were already doing I think I would also say that in my experience over the years and privilege of being an elected member there are quite a lot of Nancy Clooney's kicking about in the in primary school sector particularly who are full of energy and full of ideas and I suppose what our job is part is to think about how do we use all those resources in our schools best in order to focus on this gap that we're all concerned about I'm interested in I think you've made a very good I mean able to explain very clearly how you've seen you've seen the opportunity of PEPF a lot of the evidence we've had over the last period has suggested that education is under a lot of pressure schools are under a lot of pressure staff are under a lot of pressure there's been a loss of support staff that would support the school and facilitate with its attendance officers admin staff and certainly my direct experience has been to teachers they describe their increased workload because all that support staff has gone has that been your experience and has there been a loss of for example properly supported learning support support workers that you're now perhaps finding ways of funding through PEPF I have not found a loss without funding without personal funding through PEPF our support workers have increased significantly there has been in things like educational psychologists their numbers have reduced but I think the approach that we're now taking where we work collaboratively with other schools and the psychological services through SIMS staged intervention meetings and through joint support team meetings they've been very helpful because it allows different people to contribute I think it's thinking out the box you know money isn't limitless we have to make best use of what we've got I think the establishment in my own authority of local improvement groups where I'm working with four other head teachers very closely on PEPF what they're doing how it's affecting their attainment they hear about mine and we're learning from each other I think we have to be really creative and we have to stop moaning and just go on with it you know we've got what we've got let's make best possible use of it and make sure everything we've got every person every resource be it physical monetary or people that we're using it to get the best for our young people so there would be no distinction through you between for example your core funding being stable and increasing as opposed to PEPF funding you just simply you use whatever money you get and whatever means you get I have tried to I have not used PEPF funding for anything that should come from the school budget and my school budget is such that I've been able to do many a thing PEPF has been extra and I'm making that very clear and when people say can we get this can we get this well we look at the budget first if it's something that should be in school and that PEPF is to make a difference to you know I don't want I don't want the two merged I want to keep them quite clear but the school budget certainly covers what it should be covering and PEPF has allowed us to do things like residential trips which had stopped for my school because it was coming down to a few so this year we had 56 away for a week and these are the kind of weeks that children never forget so it's about building memories. Ask on that point then because I mean even way back the day when I was still a school teacher there was ways and means that you found without stigmatising a family to ensure that they were able to participate and you would know probably if you know the families well you would know how to do that and that's part of the skill I think of of a well-run school if you can support them without having to deny them things does that mean that that trip thing at the end of primary seven is so important do you think there are enough means by which we can ensure that all of our young people in primary seven are able to get to go to that kind of trip because it is about their educational experience as well as everything else or does the PEPF funding absolutely fit that then is that a good example of how you would allow everybody in a school to go on such a trip? I was quite clear as soon as we heard PEPF with my deputes before we had consulted with anyone our eyes lit up and we said straight away that's a residential over the years when I first went to the school we did have it and most children went but over the years the numbers were dwindling and no amount of subsidising but they're still expensive so we decided it was easier not to have them than to have seven eight ten or whatever go but this year to be able to say to everyone I did charge everyone £10 because I don't think you should get things for nothing and I think that's something that's really important you said earlier about the swap shop for clothes putting in a donation I think you have to give people their pride so we gave them a year's warning it was £10 and they could pay up and everyone who wanted to go went now some children didn't come but that was for other reasons that they weren't yet mature enough or they didn't want to come but the PEPF money allowed us to take the children away and as I say I think we did it in January because we want to benefit as well as a school and it's also a little bit cheaper so it was less of our PEPF money but I think it's really important that it gets used for things like that. Can I say thank you very much that was that that's the end of the session that was a fantastic panel and I think everybody here got a great deal about it and Nancy can you empty your diaries for Wednesdays and we'll see you here 10 o'clock every Wednesday morning okay but seriously thank you to everybody that was that was tremendous that brings us to the end of the public part of the meeting and we'll now move on to private session I shall suspend for a moment or two to allow the witnesses and the gallery to leave before continuing