 a fyddai gael i'r Government i chi. I'm going to apologize to the road of grant once more. I'm going to Peter Chapman. Apologies, but it's not enough time. I imagine that both subjects will be coming back to the chamber, but we're going to move on to the next item of business, which is a statement by John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Public Health and Sport on an update on P1 standardised assessments. The Cabinet Secretary for Public Health and Sport will take questions at the end. oeddwem ni'n deallu'r diogelio i gyfwitio ddaeth gweithredu a chyfgturio i gwybodaeth Eurovision yn ei ddweud ar gwasanaethon yn fysg, penwys. On 9 September last year, the Parliament debated the Scottish National Standardis assessments and voted in favour of a motion that called for two distinct actions—a halt to P1 assessments and for us to consider the evidence about how best to progress the assessment of pupils I understand the views that are expressed in this Parliament, and I am alive to the concerns that are expressed by MSPs and others about the P1 assessments. In the light of the parliamentary motion, I judged the appropriate response was to reconsider the evidence and that if we were to stop P1 assessments, that decision should be based on independent expert educational advice. I therefore commissioned an independent review of the Scottish National Standardised Assessments in primary 1. The purpose of the review was to take a clear reasoned look at the evidence and provide an informed way forward. The review would have had sufficient scope to endorse the criticisms voiced on 19 September and recommend an end to the SNSAs in P1, should that be what the evidence directed. I set out this approach clearly to Parliament on 25 October. Taking advice from Her Majesty's chief inspector of education, I commissioned David Reidy to conduct that review. Mr Reidy possessed the necessary educational experience and expertise to secure professional credibility for this role. Mr Reidy was, for example, co-director of the Cambridge primary review trust from 2013 to 2017 and has served as both general secretary and president of the United Kingdom Literacy Association. As someone who had not been involved in the debate on SNSAs until that point, he was also perfectly positioned to apply the required objective rigor to the review. Between January and March this year, David Reidy gathered information, conducting stakeholder interviews, inviting written feedback and examining the submissions to and findings from the P1 practitioner forum and the Education and Skills Committee inquiry into the Scottish National Standardised Assessments. Crucially, he visited schools to observe the SNSA being delivered to primary 1 children in real time. The review could not have been fully or meaningfully informed had it not been possible for Mr Reidy to witness children undertaking the assessments first hand and to talk to the teachers involved. The Scottish Government gave clear advice to schools in September. They should continue to implement the assessments as they had been doing, pending the findings of the independent review commissioned to reexamine the evidence at Parliament's behest. Continuing to deliver the assessments was encouraged both for reasons of consistency, guarding against the creation of an information vacuum and to ensure that the independent review was considering evidence based on the second year of assessment delivery. That was also undertaken with the recognition that feedback had already been gathered and acted upon to further improve the system, particularly in relation to P1 following the first year. There would have been little value in examining a position from which SNSAs had already moved on. 142 primary 1 teachers, 131 senior school staff and more than 50 wider stakeholders were involved during that phase. I thank everyone who took the time to submit comments or agreed to meet with or demonstrate the assessments to David Reidy. Their contributions and the sharing of their views was of the utmost importance in helping Mr Reidy form his conclusions. Those conclusions have been published today, alongside a set of recommendations, both for the Scottish Government and for local authorities. Having been asked explicitly to consider whether the primary 1 assessment should be stopped, Mr Reidy's answer in his independent review is that it should not. Rather, David Reidy concludes that it would be beneficial for him to continue, albeit with important modifications and the establishment of additional guidance and support for practitioners, to ensure that they deliver their intended value as low-stakes diagnostic assessments. Mr Reidy acknowledges that the assessments can provide an additional source of objective, nationally consistent information about where a child is performing strongly and where he or she might require further support. I do not suggest that this review has delivered an unqualified green light to the Scottish Government in terms of P1 assessments. Clearly, the review makes important recommendations about improvement, and I am determined to take the valuable learning that is contained within Mr Reidy's review and act upon it to introduce the recommended modifications and safeguards in order to further improve the assessment experience for P1s, secondly, strengthen understanding of the purpose of the assessments, and thirdly, to ensure that practitioners see the benefit of the information that the assessments provide. Fundamentally, however, the key review finding that Mr Reidy articulates in his report and the key message that should be taken away from his report is this. Primarily, one Scottish national standardised assessment has potential to play a significant role in informing and enhancing teachers' professional judgments and should be continued. I was reassured that Mr Reidy identified, and I quote, scant evidence of children becoming upset when taking the P1 SNSA, but I acknowledge the significance of his observation that the attitudes of those delivering assessments can influence children's confidence. We must ensure that practitioners are appropriately supported and equipped to deliver assessments in such a way that they are perceived positively by the children undertaking them. Mr Reidy also considered the compatibility of the assessments with a play-based approach to learning. The review makes a clear and helpful distinction between a pedagogical approach to play-based learning in the early years, which the Scottish Government fully endorses and which is at the heart of curriculum for excellence at early level, and what David Reidy describes as a moment of assessment. The review confirmed that it was eminently possible and indeed valuable to assess children in the early years through diagnostic means such as the SNSA, while remaining true to the principles of play-based learning. The report states, and again I quote, that there are strong examples of schools where head teachers and teachers operate a play-based approach and find no incompatibility between that and the primary one SNSA. It is evident that the need for a shared understanding of the aims, purpose and value of the SNSA drives many of the review recommendations. I am happy to commit today to redoubling our efforts in terms of communications and engagement with practitioners and all stakeholders to clarifying our messages, strengthening our guidance and ensuring wider access to SNSA training. Mr Reidy also identified important reservations regarding the length of the literacy assessment and its alignment to the benchmarks. Again, I accept the recommendation to review that assessment and explore with Acer, the company who developed the assessments, the potential for reducing the number of questions presented to primary one children. Before concluding, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the wider scrutiny of the SNSAs that has run in parallel with the review. As members will be aware, the Education and Skills Committee has now reported on their inquiry into the SNSAs. The P1 practitioner forum that I convened last December has produced a number of recommendations for enhancing the P1 assessment experience. In addition, our annual user review, intended to feed into our cycle of continuous improvement for the assessments, has produced interim findings ahead of the end of the school session. I thank the committee and the P1 forum, chaired by Professor Sue Ellis, for their thoughtful and detailed consideration of the issues. All their reports contain valuable suggestions for ways in which to improve aspects of the communications around and implementation of the SNSAs. Importantly, none has made any recommendation to scrap the assessments. That, I believe, reflects the evidence that Parliament requires us to consider and provides the basis and rationale for the SNSAs to continue to be applied as the independent review recommends. Where further vindication needed, I would direct members' attention to the learner feedback that we have gathered during this academic year from a question within the SNSA system itself. Ninety-one per cent of primary one children who have undertaken the assessments say that they enjoyed the experience. That statistics represents the views of the children themselves. I accept that there is work to be done, but I believe that, with the improvements proposed, we can move forward in the correct direction. Today, I published a Scottish Government's individual responses to Mr Reidy's independent review, the Education and Skills Committee's inquiry report and the P1 practitioner forum, along with the progress report on the SNSA user review for 2018-19. In addition, given the clear overlap in focus and read across between a number of areas raised in the different reports, I intend to publish a summary that draws together all the actions that the Scottish Government will undertake over the coming months. I have published a draft of that action plan today. The draft identifies eight overarching themes for actions to be taken forward in response to all report recommendations. We will take that draft to the Scottish Education Council for review and feedback, working with practitioners to agree the details of our approach to implementing recommendations before producing a final action plan at the start of the new school year. As the Parliament requested, I have reconsidered the evidence. As we approach the end of the second year of delivery, we now have a far clearer picture of the views of both P1 children and their teachers towards those assessments. An impartial review has confirmed the value of the SNSAs. A constructive action plan for enhancing the assessments, consolidating their value and delivering on their potential has been laid out. I hope that members will join me in accepting Mr Reedy's findings and in focusing, as we must, on delivering an education system in Scotland, which raises attainment for all, closes the attainment gap and enables all children and young people to fulfil their potential. I remind members that we are very pushed for time this afternoon. After the opening questioners for each of the parties have had their opening statements, I would like all questions to be succinct and to the point and answers likewise. I call Liz Smith to be followed by Ian Gray. I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement and for the copy of the independent review. The cabinet secretary states that, on 19 September last year, the Parliament voted to halt the P1 test and to review the evidence. Let me remind him why the Parliament and the Opposition parties were doing that. That was because we were listening to the concerns, the many concerns that were expressed by primary teachers, parents groups and teaching unions, who told us that there was not sufficient evidence to prove that the tests were in the best educational interests of primary one pupils. Those concerns were then echoed at the education committee on 30 January by other organisations such as Upstart Scotland and Children in Scotland. My three questions to the cabinet secretary relate to the evidence. What specific educational evidence has the cabinet secretary seen, which convinces him that he is right and others wrong when it comes to promoting this type of formal testing of five-year-olds as being both necessary and appropriate, particularly in light of the fact that the reading review has not undertaken any in-depth analysis of the evidence from other countries that do not start formal testing as early as P1? Secondly, can the cabinet secretary tell the Parliament why, in light of the Parliament voting against those P1 tests, he chose in mid-April this year to announce modifications to the tests before waiting for the review to be completed? Thirdly, he says in his statement on page 2, and I quote, "...there would have been little value in examining a position from which the SNSAs had already moved on." Cabinet secretary, I do not understand why you make this point when in mid-April your announcement was doing the exact opposite. First of all, David Reidy's review has done exactly what the Parliament asked us to do, which is to look at the evidence in relation to the educational evidence on this question. That is the basis of my judgment. I am interested only in whether there is educational value here. The substantive is a lot of information that is covered in David Reidy's report, but one of the key points that I think is there is the important assistance that the assessments provide in moderation across schools in Scotland to enable teachers to be confident about the judgment that they are exercising about the progress of young people, given the fact that the Scottish National Standardised Assessments, for the first time under curriculum for excellence, gives them an assessment that is related to curriculum for excellence and assists in providing them with confidence that young people are reaching the appropriate level that is envisaged in the early level of the curriculum. That is just one example. Secondly, and I would also add to that, David Reidy has spoken to many, many organisations and many, many practitioners, and has seen practice in place many of the organisations that Liz Smith raised in her question to me in coming to this evidence report. The second point was about the P1 practitioner forum. I believed that it was important that I should respond as swiftly as possible to the views of practitioners in a body that I had established to hear practitioners' views, and if practitioners believed that there were ways in which the assessments could be enhanced, we should take them at the earliest possible opportunity. The third point that I would respond to in Liz Smith's question is the important point that I accepted in September of last year that, if there were specific educational issues that had to be addressed about the P1 standardised assessments, we should do that at the earliest possible opportunity. That is precisely why I have taken the actions that I have taken. Iain Gray, to be filled by Ross Gorman. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thanks to the cabinet secretary for early sight of his statement, the cabinet secretary says that this review does exactly what Parliament told him to do, but, of course, it does not. Parliament told him to stop P1 testing. It may be that the reading review does not say that, but it does say that those tests need a clear rationale. They, obviously, do not have one. It says that those tests must not and cannot be aggregated to draw general conclusions or to compare schools or local authorities, yet the Scottish Government has repeatedly claimed that it can. The review says that the administration of the tests must be flexible, but we know that 80 per cent of P1 tests were administered at the same time of year. The reading review says that the P1 tests must be changed in order to align with curriculum for excellence. They clearly do not. The review may say that the tests have potential, but its evidence says that Parliament's concerns back in September were well founded. What gives the Deputy First Minister the right to introduce those concerns, to ignore that decision and to defy Parliament's will? Cabinet secretary. I have accepted that there has to be a clear rationale about those assessments. David Reedy reinforces the argument, which I have advanced to the committee, that those assessments are with a diagnostic purpose. That is their purpose—to assist teachers and pupils in identifying the progress that requires to be made. I have accepted that there needs to be a clear rationale and for that to be embedded within those assessments. Secondly, Iain Gray says that the assessments are not related to curriculum for excellence. I have to disagree with him on that point. Mr Reedy does not substantiate that point in his report. What David Reedy has said is that the literacy assessment might benefit from being shortened, and that is exactly what we will explore with the company involved. The third point that I would say to Mr Gray is that throughout all of this, I have been interested in the educational arguments for standardised assessments. That is what I have been interested in. Parliament in September—this was the first paragraph of my statement—voted for a halt to P1 assessments, but it then asked us to consider the evidence about how best to progress the assessment of pupils in P1. I took a decision, which I reported to Parliament in October, to encourage the assessments to take their course to give us a second year of evidence. We have looked further at the evidence—I have commissioned David Reedy to undertake that review—to give us that evidence, and I present that evidence to Parliament. The evidence says that there is an educational benefit for those assessments. They should have their purpose clarified, but they should be maintained, and that is the Government's intention. Ross Greer will be followed by Tavis Scott. Thanks to the Deputy First Minister for the statement and accompanying papers. Given that the Government's primary objective for those tests is to inform teacher judgment, Parliament has still not been presented with compelling evidence that the P1 test usefully informed that judgment. We have heard concerns from teachers, parents, education and child development experts about the negative effects of the test and the confusion surrounding their introduction. In giving evidence to the Education and Skills Committee, the Deputy First Minister first claimed that the tests are formative, not summative. Later that same morning, he stated that the tests are somehow both formative and summative. Given that he has been unable to clearly explain the purpose of standardised tests himself, how does the Deputy First Minister expect teachers and parents, who have posed P1 testing from the start, to have any confidence in a policy that this Government seems to refuse to drop? The first point that I would make is that I am accepting today that there is a need to strengthen the rationale for the assessments. That was a point that came out of the Education and Skills Committee's inquiry, and I am happy to accept that point. The second issue that Mr Gray raises is about the nature of how those assessments are described. He accurately reflects the exchange that he and I had at committee, but I want to put it into a little bit of context. I was asked whether the tests were formative or summative, and I said that they were formative for all the reasons that I have just explained to Ian Gray. I also accepted the point, and it is just an acceptance of reality, that if you add up all the numbers, they inevitably become summative, but that is not their purpose. It is simply an honest answer to a question that I was asked in the committee. Let me be absolutely crystal clear with Parliament that those assessments are formative assessments to inform teacher judgment, and I believe that they add a valuable component, particularly on the question of moderation that I replied to Liz Smith about, to support teachers in their professional judgment. I thank the cabinet secretary for his statement. Can he explain to Parliament why he hired an academic from the English educational regime that nationalists condemn from a country where high stakes testing is the norm to produce the arguments that he wants? Can he illustrate how many more reports Parliament is planning to see when teachers, unions, parent groups and this Parliament all said halt the testing of four and five-year-old boys and girls? Can he tell teachers in primary one what their workload will now be, given all the more guidance that he has now produced and the new action plan that he has announced today, what is the increase that is going to be in their workload and in the bureaucracy that they face every day? If parliamentary democracy is so important, why is the Government so determined to press on with those tests when Parliament said, do not do it? I simply offered David Reidy's independent credibility as a leading expert on literacy and questions of literacy as justification for recruiting a man of significant independent educational expertise who has not got an axe to grind on Scottish education. I simply invited an individual who has an academic track record to provide us with some independent evidence. Let me place on record my thanks to David Reidy for being prepared to do so. Secondly, in relation to the points that Tavish Scott raises about primary one teachers' workload, what I am trying to do is to make sure that teachers have the ability to rely upon a substantive assessment that will assist them in the crucial role of moderating the educational performance of young people. The steps that we are taking are to make that as convenient and as straightforward and as accessible as possible for teachers in primary one. Thirdly, Tavish Scott supported a motion that called on us, yes, to halt the assessments but also to consider the evidence. I have considered the evidence and the evidence says that our assessments are perfectly valid to be taken forward as a rational contributor to assessing the progress of young people, and that is why I believe that it is important to implement the view taken by Parliament in the fashion that I have set out this afternoon. Thank you. All the parties have outlined their positions, so just questions from now on, please. Jenny Gilruth will be followed by Alison Harris. Given that the standardised assessments replaced what was already used in 28 out of Scotland's 32 local authority areas, can the cabinet secretary explain how the Scottish Government will ensure that they are not used in addition to those that existed previously, many of which were not benchmarked against curriculum for excellence? This has been a project in which we have had excellent co-operation with our local authority partners. Our local authority partners have been involved in all the preparation of the standardised assessments. In a limited number of local authority areas, local authorities are continuing with the former assessments that they undertook to give them a consistency check for future years. I think that, on a temporary basis, that is an entirely reasonable proposition, but the Scottish national standardised assessments are relevant to curriculum for excellence and provide an opportunity for local authorities not to use other assessments that have not been related to curriculum for excellence. Obviously, we will work with our local authority partners through the actions that I have set out in the Scottish Education Council, where local government are full partners with us in taking forward those issues. Alison Harris will be followed by Tom Arthur. Thank you. Despite the independent review, a survey from February this year revealed that 41 per cent of teachers disagreed that the tests were beginning to inform teaching and another 17 per cent were unsure. That is nearly 60 per cent of the teaching profession—disagreeing or unsure. In light of that, are the standardised tests really capable of delivering their intended purpose of informing teaching? I am not sure whether Alison Harris was one of the members of Parliament who took up the opportunity to see a demonstration of the assessments, but what she would have seen in that was the diagnostic information that is generated on every child. The feedback that I get from individual teachers is that the diagnostic information is quick and simple to consider and gives teachers an opportunity to judge whether the prevailing judgment in their view is accurate or whether there are issues that they believe require further investigation. I think that that is the opportunity that the diagnostic assessment provides for teachers. Obviously, it gives the reassurance that I raised in my answer to Liz Smith that the teachers are seeing a position that is relevant to what is expected in the early years of the curriculum and that is of benefit to the professional judgment of teachers. The Deputy First Minister outlines how standardised assessments at primary 1 can support teachers in closing the attainment gap in schools in my constituency of Renfrewshire South. Obviously, because the diagnostic information readily identifies areas where young people may well have challenges in their own educational performance, that will help teachers to undertake what is increasingly happening within Scottish education, which is a relentless focus on closing that gap, of identifying the obstacles that exist in young people's education and supporting them to overcome those obstacles. That will apply in Mr Arthur's constituency in Renfrewshire South and, of course, because those are available across the country related to curriculum for excellence, it will apply in all other areas as well. David Reidy concludes that it would be beneficial for these tests to continue, albeit with important modifications and the establishment of additional guidance and support for practitioners. Can the cabinet secretary give the chamber some detail of the important modifications that are required and the timescale for implementation? Perhaps the most important modification is in relation to the length of the literacy assessment. That is something that we have to discuss with the company involved in the design and delivery of the assessment. We will do that as a matter of urgency. I will be very happy to keep Parliament informed on that specific point. The other important modifications will largely relate to the description and outline of the purpose of the assessments. I think that Mr Reidy gives us a really strong framework with which we can operate to ensure that at no stage could those assessments be viewed as high stakes and that they are, in fact, low stakes, diagnostic assessments. I am determined to make sure that that is the characteristic that those assessments have. Can the Deputy First Minister outline how the Scottish Government can ensure that all local authorities, including North Lanarkshire, integrate the standardised assessments with a play-based learning approach for all primary ones? I am really anxious to separate out two issues in this question. I think that those issues have become somewhat conjoined. One issue is about the importance of a play-based curriculum for young people. That is at the heart of the early level of curriculum for excellence. There is absolutely nothing in the statement that I have set out today that compromises that play-based curriculum. David Reidy helpfully makes the distinction between a play-based curriculum and what he calls a moment of assessment. At some stage, assessment will be undertaken for children who are involved in a play-based curriculum. David Reidy correctly characterises how that can be undertaken with the Scottish national standardised assessment, but I want to make it absolutely crystal clear today that the Government firmly believes that a play-based curriculum in the early level is an absolutely vital foundation of how young people acquire their learning at that stage in their educational development. Thank you very much. I apologise to Johann Lamont, Oliver Mundell, Rona Mackay and John Mason, as I am afraid. We are just too pushed for time this afternoon, and we have two bills to get through. That concludes the statement. We are just going to pause as we turn to the next item of business.