 Good morning, and welcome to this third meeting of the Equality and Human Rights Committee of 2017. I'm going to make the usual request that mobile phones are switched on to silent or flight mode, thank you. Our agenda item 1 this morning is a decision on taking agenda items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Our committee condemned to take agenda item 3, 4. Thank you very much, we're content. Agenda item 2 is our substantive agenda item for this morning and it's a continuation of the work that we started in November on bullying, harassment of children and young people in schools. With us this morning, we have a number of people from different areas in our panel, and I'm delighted to have with us this morning Philip Gosney, who is the education and youth employment manager at North Ayrshire Council, and a member of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, who you represent this morning. We've got Mary Barrow of Her Majesty's Inspector of Education and Senior Education Office of Reinclusion and Equalities at Education Scotland. Maggie Fallon, who is the senior education officer for right support and wellbeing with Education Scotland. Barbara Cooper, the director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service. Finally, John Edward, the director of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools. I welcome you all to committee this morning and thank you for your continued work with us in this area, because we kicked this off last November. On the back of that, we had made some concerns to the Scottish Government on the anti-bullying strategy, which was in draft form at the time. The Scottish Government agreed that the committee should do some work along with all of the interested parties in order to ensure that that anti-bullying strategy worked best, because some of the young people we had in front of us were not convinced. We thought, why don't we work together with the Government and agencies to ensure that we get a better understanding of what young people are expecting from us when they go to school, especially when they want to go to school in a safe environment? Kicking off this morning, I wanted to do a general question. Maybe I'm not looking for opening statements because we've not got a lot of time and we've got lots of questions, but maybe just a wee bit of insight into each of your organisations and where you see you fitting into how the strategy would develop and work for young people. John, could we start with you? Good morning. I represent the 75-76 independent schools, which range from mainstream schools, both day and boarding, nursery all through, single sex, co-ed, but also a substantial number of independent, complex additional sport needs schools, most of which are residential. There's quite a range of interests there and there's also quite a range of approaches that schools have to take in relation to issues like this because probably a third of our pupils are residential, either boarding or residential, so there is a 24-7 pastoral care there, as well as the daytime school issues. We weren't part of the steering group that set up the strategy, but we obviously follow these issues very closely. We're inspected by Education Scotland in the same way, and the care inspectorate, our schools run closely to Higios 4 and issues like this. What we've done is we've developed our own child protection strategy, and that incorporates general guidelines on bullying, taken from the Respecting Rights agenda from UNICEF, taken from Respect Me and Brave the Rage and others who do some training courses for us. I suppose that the key thing for us is that each school has to effectively approach this in its own way because they're entirely autonomous. The governors of our school are trustees and directors, but they're also the employers of the school staff, both support and teaching. Therefore, they're directing authorities when it comes to legislation such as the Children and Young Peoples Act. They're the ones that have to set policies, but what a lot of our schools have done recently is seek to engage the pupils in writing policies, whether it's positive relationship policies, behaviour, health and wellbeing, moral education and so on. You'll see that a lot of our schools are rights-respecting schools, and they've used that as a way of dialogue with the pupils to treat issues that come up in bullying, and they come up in all schools, and ours are no exception, particularly as it relates to protected characteristics. We also try to approach the attitudes that lead to bullying in the first place and see if they can try to understand what prompts those kinds of things within schools and therefore can be dealt with as much by the pupils as by the teachers. As you know, Catholic schools make up approximately 20 per cent of the schools within Scotland, while the majority of them are under local authority responsibility, and therefore would follow the policies of the local authority. They have a particular characteristic in trying to ensure that church teaching is rooted in everything that they do from their academic, social and spiritual practice. I think that we are particularly interested in that, because we feel that first and foremost experiences have been a protected characteristic that has gone through an evolution, if you like, of being accepted within Scottish society, and we've got some experience to offer there. Rooted within our tradition is what we would call an experience of reconciliation, which is now more commonly known as restorative practice and peer mentoring, and trying to ensure that, while it's rooted in education, it goes beyond schools and is linked to our communities. We have very close partnerships with our local parishes and social groups such as our guild guides and sporting activities, etc. I welcome the opportunity to be here and to offer our experience and to consider ways in which we can root it in the formal curriculum, but also in the informal curriculum as well. I am an HM inspector of education. I am one of a team of dedicated inspectors undertaking inspection and scrutiny activities in early years, primary, secondaries, and, as you are aware, we also do college and other scrutiny activities. A key focus of the work that I do in schools is ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion. My background and my new education officer role, which was mentioned earlier, is about inclusion and equality, and clearly I bring that expertise and contribute in terms of inspection teams, that knowledge. I am also part of the new model of inspection, which, as you know, started in August. Safeguarding has been given an increased emphasis and is now a core component of the inspection process. It always was, but it has been enhanced. I am also frequently responsible for undertaking safeguarding procedures on inspections. Thank you so much, Mary Maggie. Hi, I am Maggie Farlin, senior education officer for right support and wellbeing within Education Scotland. That translates into me being lead for children's rights, our relationships and behaviour policies that include attendance and exclusions, and I am also responsible for wellbeing in relation to GIFEC. I am a member of the working group that was put together. There is the new respect for all the new anti-bullying guidance. I am also the policy link for anti-bullying with the Scottish Government, and I work very closely with respect to me. One of the other key pieces of guidance that I am responsible for implementing is better relationships, better learning, better behaviour. Thank you so much, Maggie. Hello, I am Philip Gosney. I am a senior manager of education and youth employment in North Ayrshire Council, and I am a member of the Association of Directors of Education Scotland. Addis is an independent professional network for leaders and managers in education and children's services. It informs Influences Education Policy in Scotland, and it works in partnership with local and national government and other agencies. Addis also offers a range of professional development activities and opportunities for its members. Addis, in line with the Scottish Government, takes bullying of any kind very seriously, including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic, and is committed to promoting it in ethos where every pupil has the right to learn an atmosphere that is free from victimisation and fear. Children have the right to protection from all forms of violence—physical or mental. They must be kept safe from harm. They must be given proper care by those who are looking after them. Addis recognises that wellbeing and entertainment can be severely undermined by bullying behaviours, and we recognise bullying can affect co-influence. It can undermine identity, lower self-esteem, result in social isolation, and contribute to poor mental health and affect physical health. We welcome refreshed and updated anti-bullying policies, and they should be developed with and be at the heart of a whole-school approach to establishing a welcoming and nurturing ethos where health and wellbeing and being safe is a necessary prerequisite to effective learning, to achievement and to the attainment of all young people. We expect all schools to have an anti-bullying policy, which is regularly reviewed and informed by local authority and national policy. Approaches to anti-bullying should make clear that all types of bullying are unacceptable. Thank you so much, and it gives us a wee picture of where you fit into the bigger picture, because there are so many component parts to this work. As Philip said, ensuring that safe is not just an environment that can be created for our young people, which can only be good. We have a number of areas where we have individual members who have interests in areas, and I am going to just take them in turn in that way and kick off with Alex. Thank you, convener. Good morning to the panel. Thank you very much for coming to see us this morning. I should start by declaring an interest that, before I came to this place, I sat on the ministerial task force on child sexual exploitation. My wife is also a Roman Catholic primary school teacher in the city of Edinburgh. In my work on the task force on child sexual exploitation, it became very clear very early on that there is an intrinsic link between child sexual exploitation and bullying in schools, particularly in the new frontiers of emerging social media and various platforms of social media. I was the youngest person on the task force and was largely unaware of many of the platforms that young people are engaging on these days, particularly with things like Snapchat and Instagram, and other platforms where you can capture images or text, which can be incriminating and used against children and young people and used to coerce them into sexual acts or other kinds of behaviour. That became one of the priorities for the group. Can I ask each of you what your organisations are doing in terms of these emerging fields of technology, how you are working to instill an understanding of child sexual exploitation in the teaching staff and any other frontiers that you are exploring in this area? Maggie, do you want to start there? I think that my being on the working group gives you that insight. If I can refer to respect me's research, I know that you heard evidence from Brian Donley at the last committee meeting, but just to reiterate that Brian did say at that point that within the research there was no more evidence to suggest that there was more bullying taking place online than there was offline, that the most bullying was taking place face-to-face and, in terms of managing it and dealing with it, it did not matter where the bullying was taking place. What was important was that we dealt with it in a consistent way. I agree that social media has made things very emotive. It can become very complex, but a number of schools have adopted some very thorough ways of dealing with it. A lot of it comes down to going back to some of the things that Philip mentioned, going back to having in place a positive ethos-inclusive environment where bullying cannot really thrive. It's really crucial that schools have that in place, that they work really hard to have that. I think that there's a huge amount of work going on in schools to develop that. We've heard again from Barbara speaking about restorative approaches, nurturing approaches, solution-oriented approaches. Schools are working hard to develop those so that children feel safe, that they have people in schools that they can identify with, that they can speak to where they are concerned. The other thing that's probably worth mentioning is that, again, we would be looking for schools to develop policies under the safe and responsible use of mobile technology, where children are involved in the development of that policy at a local level. It's really crucial that they're involved, and again we've heard from colleagues about that as well, so that they have ownership of the safe and responsible use of mobile technology at the school level. Anybody else? I could maybe offer something in terms of this particular area. We would see it also lying within the field of relationships and moral education, so one beyond just the aspect of bullying and helping our young people to build an understanding of how all of this is connected. Within our primary resource, which is called God's Loving Plan, there are particular lessons right from second level, which talk about different forms of technology, and try to help our young people to understand about the dignity of their own body, the dignity of other people's bodies, and a sense of modesty. More than that, to also have the sense that there are trusted adults who they can go to, and that there should never be an atmosphere of secrets between them and somebody who is sometimes also within their immediate family, but there should also not be a sense of guilt in going to tell somebody. It's a holistic approach to this and not just rooted within bullying. Within our secondary resource for relationships and moral education, which is called God's Loving Plan, called to Love, which goes from S1 to S6, we're currently refreshing our resources to be able to bring in aspects of the platform of social media and internet technology. Could I contribute in terms of the inspection process? As mentioned earlier, safeguarding and child protectionist is a core component of the new inspection model. Certainly, in our discussion with schools, we'd be asking and looking at all their policies and procedures to ensure that child exploitation and other matters have been fully included and have been given due regard in terms of all their policy and practice. If we're aware, through bullying logs, et cetera, of any particular incident, we would also have a detailed discussion to ensure that the school had done everything possible to support the child to address the issue and, more importantly, that the school strives to develop a culture beneath us of the highest expectation, a culture of inclusiveness where everybody feels that they belong and feel safe. It's clearly a key aspect of any inspection process and the promotion of positive behaviour. All that will flow very much from the safeguarding and other aspects of the inspection activity. I would quote from our school document 4. You will see that child sexual exploitation is mentioned by name on the 2.1 safeguarding and child protection quality theme. That's good. Anybody else? From our perspective, Mary mentioned the word ethos. It's very important to our schools because they all individually have an ethos philosophy that has developed to have decades, centuries in some cases. That forms a very core part of how they approach any of these problems and cyberbullying and sexual exploitation is part of that. One of the main roles that SKIS performs for its schools is professional learning and development and the production of guidelines on all sorts of areas based on best practice, based on case law, children and young people's act, whatever it may be. We have a child protection bible, if you like, which is updated almost monthly, which now has a very large section on cyberbullying on all aspects of how to deal with it, on how to prevent it, how to respond to it, how to capture the evidence of it, but also how to recognise in schools increasingly and then go back to the respecting rights agenda and others that it's pupils who are seeking to call each other out on this as well, and there's an element of self-respect and collective respect in schools that seek to engender so that there's no sense that this is an acceptable thing to do. I mean, all our schools will have individual technology or ICT policies as well, which refer to this as well as more minor issues like the prevent duty, for instance. But, of course, if you've got, as I mentioned before, in the case of some residential special schools, children for 52 weeks a year, or in the case of boarding schools, eight, nine weeks a year but 24, seven, then connections to ICT and connections to the outside world, not least your family who may be on the other side of the world are very important, so there has to be a very careful balance between access to technology and how it's used within the school. Thank you. If I may, my second, final question this morning relates to the culture, school culture, and how aspects of school culture can unwittingly foster environments where bullying can take hold. In particular, I'm talking about the use of sport and physical education. Certainly, when I was coming up through school, it was pretty normal that, from a very early age, by peer review almost, people were sifted into those who could play and those who couldn't, and that would then determine who was picked last for certain team games and who wasn't. That went right through to secondary school and was almost a received wisdom amongst the physical education staff, that these were the elite and that these were the guys that you just found something to do with during the hour of PE. I'd put this to Sport Scotland at the health and sport committee on Tuesday, and they were quite vehement in their denials that this was still the case. However, I went to Cramon Primary yesterday and they said, no, it's absolutely still the case to the point where we actually banned football for three months because it was leading to a culture of elitism and people being excluded. We wanted to encourage the kids to try other forms of physical exercise and it was actually a very beneficial experience. I'm sure that there are policies and will within all levels of the education system to stop that kind of culture of quasi-elitism and peer selection. Can you tell me what your feeling is as to how good we are at stopping that and what policies we're using? Certainly, again, coming back to the inspection process. As a person who was always picked last for all games, I very much understand the point. There has been an increasing focus on promotion of equality and diversity in our schools and that has been a big change in our schools over the last ten years or so. Teachers are increasingly aware that in terms of potential, ability, attributes, everybody varies and everyone has to be treated in a way that they feel valued and I think the word valued is very important in our schools now. What happens is that sometimes behaviours are imported from outwith school. The football, rugby and other sports, martial arts and all sorts of different activities, increasingly children and young people are involved in activities beyond the classroom which has been a very positive attribute. A lot of that is very important and that staff are very aware of how to promote diversity, how to ensure positive behaviours in schools and that comes from the promoting positive behaviours which have been a key focus in our schools. It's also very important that when people see these behaviours that there's a very consistent approach with teachers that everyone realises that it's not all right to pick and choose, that everybody has a right to be involved, to feel that their contribution is valued. As you say, schools will, when they see it becoming an issue, that is a very important intervention. They were actually preventing that behaviour and people then understand that if they display those behaviours then they will lose something that they value, which is their football. It's about the constant reinforcement. Equality and diversity is something that has to be reinforced day in, day out and that's what we are seeing in our schools. But clearly there is still, as with many things, still improvements that are required and always will be. Can you hear from John about the private sector? Obviously sport has a substantial role to play in our schools because it forms part of the extracurricular aspect of our schools. If you speak to some of our colleges they will expect their young people to spend almost as much time outside of the classroom as they do inside the school that I spoke to last week. A primary school pupil, when she taught it up, did eight hours of physical education in the course of a five-day week. They will want to encourage that in every possible way and therefore avoid ending that might put people off. Sport has approached both from the aspects of physical and mental wellbeing but also in terms of developing a sense of self-evaluation but also a sense of team spirit. Even if you take some of the most famous names in rugby schools, quite a lot of them will drop rugby after one term and switch to hockey, for instance, to make sure that the people who are front of the line first time round are not front of the line for the whole year. That's the same boys and girls. In terms of pupils going out of the school we follow the Getting Out There guidance from 2013 about off-site visits and pupils leaving the school aware that that may create an atmosphere where pupils are more susceptible. We also have to be aware of all the other aspects of when people come out of the classroom like the maintenance of religious symbols if you're changing into sports gear or gender-neutral uniform policies, which are in some ways easier to control within a school uniform environment but if you're talking about changing rooms and different sports kits there's all sorts of issues. There's a whole range of issues but I think it's fair to say that none of our schools would want to discourage the participation of everybody in outdoor activities whether it's team sport, individual sport or more just general pursuits in terms of outdoor classrooms and other things, but the important thing in that is to have a sufficiently wide range of activities that no one child feels that this is not for them. Okay, Bill. Nurturing approaches and storage of practice are more than just a classroom-based approach. It should provide all of what you do in a school including health and wellbeing and fitness and health and sport. At times I think we overplay the sports card. I'm happy that health and wellbeing is a much wider sphere of importance for our young people is about being healthy and there are lots of ways of being healthy other than just playing a lead to sport. At present we have lots and lots of opportunities for children both to develop individually and as part of a team. That team approach should have a basis of inclusive practice. It should have that restorative practice when there's the Tensions Bill between children. That whole approach needs to be buried not just in our classrooms but in our playgrounds, in our sports fields and in our communities. Thanks very much. We're going to move into some other discrete areas of emerging issues that came from November. One of the things that did come from the round table in November was about data and how data is collected and how that data is used. I think that Willie Coffey is going to come in on that point. Thanks very much, convener. Good morning, everybody. I'd like to touch on the issue of data, data recording and so on just to get a handle on the extent of the problem that we might face. When we heard from our panel in November, there seemed to be a consensus in the panel that there was a lack of data, particularly on prejudice-based bullying. That was quite a clear and striking message that we received. What would you say is the position in Scotland in terms of recording incidents of bullying even on a per-school basis? Are we consistently doing it? If we are, why would such a panel think that there is a lack of data available to us? Mary, you mentioned earlier that you've changed the inspection procedure slightly. Can you maybe tell us what the changes are and how they relate to Willie Coffey's question? Yes. In terms of safeguarding, it's always been part of any inspection and in the old model what happened was that as information, data and intelligence was gathered during the week, the managing inspector or the designated inspector with the required training and expertise in child protection. All inspectors are extremely well trained in safeguarding child protection, but some obviously take it forward as their own particular interest and specialism as I do myself. They then met with the head teacher and had a detailed discussion about any aspect of child protection that had come up during the inspection that they wanted to discuss in greater detail. We've expanded that and moved to including much more emphasis on safeguarding and child protection. That's the actual name of the quality theme. I think that's been an extremely positive move because there's many aspects of safeguarding that may not be indicated to be child protection, but you want to have a discussion about protective characteristics. It might also be young carers looked after children etc. They want to have conversations around their safeguarding. Data is very important in any safeguarding and child protection procedures, a range of data. Attendance, for example, is a very important aspect of data because if somebody is not in the school, then clearly there are concerns about their safeguarding. Attendance exclusions also are important data and there are others. For example, you look to see how well the young person is attaining because that can often be an indication of difficulties or an unmet need. As part of the safeguarding procedures, bullying logs are looked at in schools. The introduction of this quality indicator ensures that there will be a continued, consistent approach by inspection teams. You'll find that all inspection teams will be looking and asking for bullying logs. As I do myself, I have looked at many bullying logs. Bullying logs are important not so much in the numbers but indicating what the issue is, and to have a detailed conversation with a head teacher about any particular issues. We spoke earlier about social media. If in the bullying log I see that a number of the incidents are related to social media, you then have a conversation about how the school is actually ensuring that that is dealt with. You're looking to see that in personal social education there is the required focus on positive behaviours around social media. You're looking to see that it's covered in assembly. You're often looking to see that they've got a separate policy on appropriate use of social media. You're talking to staff, you're talking to children to ensure that it's been dealt with appropriately. You're looking with a focus on all data, you're looking for themes, you're looking for any particular issues that are emerging. Sometimes it's a one-off, it's something that's been dealt with very quickly by the school, the parents have been pulled in and the situation has been dealt with and therefore you don't see it in any way carrying forward. Data is important. Inspection teams look at bullying logs in schools. They also look at the bullying policy and the anti-bullying policy. You'll find that they are now called mainly promoting positive relationships. It's couched in very much in those terms. This is a long conversation of safeguarding. It often goes on. I'm sure my colleagues who have been involved with safeguarding will tell you it's very detailed, it's very thorough. In a few schools, and there is not a high number because I've checked the figures for this, there is a particular concern. For example, the promoting positive behaviour or the bullying policies have not been updated recently. With that, we would then ensure that we make sure that the authority we take that back into Education Scotland and ensure that the authority are informed that this is a particular concern. It's very much an additional procedure to ensure that the authority know directly that this is a concern and there will be some follow-up that happens. To answer the question, consistency and rigor are a very important outcome of the new procedures. Willi, do you want to come back in there? Mary's got a brief supplementary. Here, just what the actual position is on the ground because I haven't heard yet why did the panel last time think there was a lack of data across the board? Do you agree with that? Is there widespread data across the board? Why would the panel say such a thing? Of course, our majority of Catholics are within a local authority. I went to the primary head teachers association of Catholic heads and they were all absolutely sure that local authorities are robust in their policies of anti-bullying and the fact that it should be recorded. However, my understanding from what they were saying around the table was that there are such significant differences on what should be recorded and how it should be recorded. Even just within a group, so our head teachers association represents the eight dioces, which includes all 32 local authorities. Even around that table, people who were enabling local authorities, depending, for example, on the computer system that they were using to record data, meant that there wasn't necessarily the same opportunity to record a type, if you like, of bullying, but also one of the things that they raised was about who gets to define what the root of the bullying is. Is it the person being bullied? Is it the bully? Is it the adult who's looking at the situation? There was nuance and grayness within that as well and they were very much open to help and support in a way to ensure that the data was accurate. Just really to say the existing guidance in anti-bullying, the national approach, did contain information and advice and guidance on recording. And monitoring, I would have to say, it's not just about the recording, it's really important that we monitor that, that we look for any issues within the data and address them at a local level. And I would also say that it's really, really important to involve young people in that. Again, it's back to that ownership at a local level so that they're involved in that data analysis. The new guidance respect for all, which I'm conscious that you haven't actually seen, but if I can just say that there's a much stronger emphasis on recording and monitoring within the new guidance. Obviously it's guidance, we can insist, but it does provide a framework. Again, schools and authorities don't absolutely have to follow it. They take authorities to be able to place their own stamp on it and make it personal to their own local authority. For example, the suggested framework does talk about making it very clear who's actually involved, where the bullying's taking place, if it is face-to-face or if it's social media etc. The type of bullying experienced. Is there an underlying prejudice or a protective characteristic there? Consideration of personal or additional support needs and importantly what the actions are, what the next steps are, what's going to take place next. We would hope by having those strong recommendations within that guidance when the guidance is published then there'll be a much more consistent approach across the country to recording. My colleagues within HMIE will be able to see that when they're out in schools. Can I ask you in the capacity of ADES in relation to this, because one of the things we did here in November was a very inconsistent approach to how data is gathered and recorded and how that's then used in order to identify and tackle bullying strategies. Is that something that you are aware of, is an overview organisation at director level and whether you've taken any action to address it? I just agree with the respect me position of taking a local recording of data around bullying. It's not just about recording though. Data should be recorded and it should be analysed. The analysis of it is more important about gaining information to measure the effectiveness and impact of our anti-bullying approaches on our young people who are directly affected by bullying and that has to remain the purpose of data collection. It's about improving services to young folk. As I say, it should be gathered, analysed and actions that should result in actions taken to address instances of bullying and to build a young person's resilience in response to instances of bullying ensuring that we continue in getting it right for every child. In and there should but does it get done if that's the question that we want to know? I think that a guidance that is proposed for respect for all will help us with that and it will help consistency and guidance. Mary's got a brief supplementary, then I'll bring you back in. I just wanted to ask a specific question of Mary and it's in relation to the safeguarding element of the inspection process and it does relate to the points that my colleague Willie Coffey has been making. You said earlier that the safeguarding element has been enhanced. Can you tell me why? Because the child protection guidance was updated in 2014 and includes new elements that are very pertinent to the modern world, for example, female genital mutilation, the work around prevention of terrorism, it also includes elements in terms of sexual and gender issues that are constantly being updated. So as they get updated the school's policies also have to reflect that and schools have to be sure that when they're discussing these issues with young people that they're using current and up-to-date information. So it is an ongoing issue and it reflects national guidance. Also reflect or did it reflect the fact that there wasn't an awful lot of data collection and that's why that element has been enhanced? No, not from the point of view of Education Scotland because when we're going in we're looking at the data that individual schools have and I can understand that you will possibly want to have a discussion about data beyond the school level but for inspectors we're looking at individual schools when we do the school inspection and there has been an expectation for a number of years that schools are data rich. That's a very much an expression that comes from the journey to excellence which comes from how good is our school 3? So schools need intelligence and schools that use intelligence well, they analyse it they intervene, they change their approaches. That's the most important aspect of high quality data that actually static data represents its own risk because you're collecting data. You can go into a school and a headteacher has many brightly coloured folders and everything is beautifully colour coordinated but you're not seeing the actions of the impact of the data and that's a very important aspect in terms of inspection. I just wanted to finish up my point on the data recording issue and I appreciate what the panel is saying about the thoroughness of the structurally data that we might be looking at in the future and the point that I wanted to make was that it's still advisory, it's still guidance it doesn't seem to be a requirement to record so I'm wondering how whether you think we needed to take that step to go beyond advisory and guidance and expectation and so on and to ask and require schools to record this kind of data otherwise how would children and parents know what the position is at a particular school if they don't collect and gather or even report this information? Yeah as you pointed out it's guidance so the language that's used the strongest language in terms of recommendations within the policy is should however local authorities can within there because part of the policy is the recommendation that local authorities develop their own policy and in schools and all other organisations, youth organisations et cetera develop their own policy as well so at a local level local authorities can be much more they can use stronger language in terms of what they expect from their schools Maeon, in terms of data recording for us because it's specific to each school there is a very strong expectation from all sides that there will be a clear record certainly in all of our mainstream schools parents coming to the schools sign a contract with the school to try part of the education of the child they will expect to be able to be shown a very clear record of how things have been dealt with in any situation as will the governing board of a school now obviously it will be up to individual teachers and to a certain extent the senior pastoral staff or the deputy head or whoever it is to deal with a particular issue whether it's immaturity and naivety to a certain respect through to more serious elements and there is an expectation there and what has helped when you get children involved for instance through the respecting rights agenda to produce the code of conduct themselves is there's an expectation of them that it will be recorded that it's not just treated as you know high spirits or whatever it might be and there's also an ethos that it is appropriate to report and record and therefore not something that you're seen as being a client or a snitch or whatever for instance on the cyberbullying issue one of the things we stress in our training is the importance of recording information there's an assumption that in things like snapchat and other things it all just disappears there are ways of capturing quite a lot of this data if teachers and support staff are canny about it and know how to deal with it so there's an absolute expectation and the governing board will expect as would indeed be Cair Inspector or Education Scotland to be demonstrated and shown on paper exactly what was done in any one individual case okay thank you okay moving on to another substantive issue in our inquiry I think Mary you're going to pick up specific aspects that you're interested in thank you I want to to ask about training in a previous session we heard about the degree to which teachers are trained to recognise and cope with bullying in schools while they're going through their teacher training we didn't get an awful lot of substantive information about exactly what form that took the degree of importance that was placed on it or how long the modules, whether there was one, two, three or it was refreshed before the left teachers were actually given so do you think within the element of teacher training that the training is robust enough for teachers when they're going to schools to be able to cope with and deal with all forms of bullying? whereas we want to know are teachers canny and equipped and how are they being equipped if they're not it would be the expectation of us and the schools that they would be going on exactly that point I think there are elements in teacher training that are robust enough but it would be falling in the extreme to assume that once you've been teacher trained and you've done your papers that's it over and that's the point of our professional learning development is it's career long and that includes Heads we have Heads and Governors and chairs of Governors in to discuss these issues not just the classroom teachers and support staff so for instance we've got an event next month I think Brave the Rage may be coming to it which is specifically for pastoral staff in boarding schools to look at the latest developments maybe aspects of cyberbullying the latest best practice we've got another event I think the month after that on gender neutral uniform policies in schools and these sorts of things so yes I think the more could be done in terms of teacher training of course in our sector we tend to have teachers coming from a very very background so we have a lot of teachers coming from down south we'll have a fair amount of teachers coming from at least at the moment elsewhere in the EU and further afield the commonwealth so they will have had a different formation and of course if you're coming from far afield your attitude to these things may be different as well just as if you've got pupils coming to a boarding school from the other side of the world their attitude to what constitutes bullying may be different which is why it's increasingly important to make sure that you have trained so we've probably got 3,500 teaching staff in the sector I'd say at least a third of them go through skills training every year of some form or another that is child protection and well-being training so we don't see it as something that once you've got your certificates it's all over Would anyone else like to comment? I've had feedback from LGBT that they've been working with 7 out of the 8 initial teacher education providers in the last year that's the 8 including the University of Highlands and Islands Respect me themselves have been working with the universities and there's a lot of new development work going on just now LGBT are developing a new toolkit they've got a consultation day coming up very soon and they'll be planning to launch the new toolkit following the publication of respect for all and also Scottish Government are in discussion with LGBT in Stonewall about the provision of further training from themselves together looking at further resources and training and that would be the whole teaching profession ranging from ITE right through to teachers in the classroom but also senior managers as well Given the data from Ty and the Stonewall research contained in the education Scotland response and all the contributors from the 10th of November regarding bullying its effect on our LGBT and young people we see it as particularly important that the release of the resource now goes ahead as respect for all ensures that all include prejudice-based bullying and take recognition of the protected characteristics as well as making links to the UNCRC and some of that work has gone ahead with respect to me and the training is planned as of a high quality but we need that guidance to be released now I'll give you an example LGBT youth have spoken to us the Tai campaign have spoken to us girl guides have said some things this week about education I was at the launch of the EIS booklet in the summer about misogyny in classrooms all of these organisations are all saying the same thing and the one thing they're saying is some of the teacher training and the CPD is inadequate I was speaking to two professionals last week I took part in teacher CPD last week about violence in the classroom especially domestic violence in that sense and the whole lesson was taught completely in binary terms it was men and women much more the broader characteristics of what's much more reflective and it seems that all of these groups are all telling us this stuff but it doesn't seem to be filtered on through to what's actually being delivered on the front line how do we address that I think that with any training we need to reinforce teacher's confidence in dealing with issues of prejudice-based bullying harassment in the school system in order to reduce the significant impact of bullying on lifelong mental health and educational attainment so that appropriate equality is training in place for student and newly qualified teachers and educational support staff that has to be advised and updated it's the only way we're going to get up to date and our teaching methods and our experiences with private children also are up to date Mary I do have a concern because we have heard from panel after panel from professional people who tell us that we have policies we refresh the policies we refresh it again we do something else and then we get young people in here to tell us that it's made absolutely no difference and with the greatest of respect introducing policy after policy clearly is not addressing the issue Mr Chynch it's practice policy you can call the policy you like but we need to have our staff trained and be confident in their delivery in meeting the needs that these children are demanding of us so we need to change our approaches and that will be helped through the guidance that we're going to get it will help develop our responses if we then listen to young people we need to listen to young people Mary and David Can I particularly then ask John that you're from independent schools and you said that you work with your pupils can you explain to us then how you develop your policies and your strategies with the input from young people and what difference do you think that makes I was speaking to one of the schools here in Edinburgh last week about them moving from level 1 to level 2 rights respect in school and what that actually meant and they had used their pupils both talking about the UN convention but talking about all sorts of other aspects in the school to rewrite their policies so the children had actually sat in on the process and therefore they were the ones who were policing those policies as well I can think of another school in the west where bullying cases quite often are at first depending on the severity obviously are looked at by the final year at school and as a sort of collegiate approach as older people who've been through the same school within living memory look at that issue it's fair to say that if we thought the training was perfect out there we wouldn't have to develop our own but I suppose we're in the lucky position that we can create a bespoke training and involve TIE, involve respect me and others but I think the point that was made about the prevent duty is an important one Scotland has got the prevent duty right to a certain extent because it is not focussed just on one particular faith against another and saying that this is against radicalisation of one kind it looks at seterianism, it looks at extreme white it looks at all sorts of other aspects and I think that's the same with bullying you have to look at it in every aspect it's not just in a sports changing room it's not just boys against little boys it's not just boys against girls it's different varieties and that's where in fact the protected characteristics come in quite useful because then you can start to identify the way in which it should be done but I would worry that if we weren't able to provide training that we do for our schools or indeed bring in other bodies from down south and even further afield I would worry that our schools were able to keep abreast of the developments not in terms of guidance and statute but actually in terms of the world of society because as I know as a parent and as all of you will know as parents you're always three steps behind your children in terms of what they understand David, do you want to come in at this point then with your supplementary? Good morning everybody it's interesting that you brought a point of procedures I've got to change the convener mentioned to girl guys there I belong to one of the largest our training is put in place in how we support these leaders and how we interact with all these different groups is way beyond what you're doing just now and how we reinforce all the training and give adequate support to leaders if we feel that they can't cope with whereas you're an organisation who has millions of millions of pounds of local authority money and you're talking about procedures need to change how are you going to do this? David is one of the biggest groups of scout leaders in Scotland I should have put that as my register of interests but we have engaged with our youth engaged with all the different groups within the scout association for a long long time and promoted it it's one of those things that when you walk into any scout hall you'll see anti-bullying posters all the steps that we've got to take there so how the private sector we have got millions of pounds to spend and we're all volunteers doing it and supported with limited resources but you cannot get this message across the schools No and nobody's got millions of pounds to spare but respect me as an organisation are set up to support all schools, establishments organisations clubs that are working with children and young people so they have as part of their service delivery an agreement to work with all agencies so with bigger organisations obviously you would need to speak to them about this but with bigger organisations like the scouts then I'm sure they would look at some kind of training for trainers cascade type model that would help them to develop their own policy change procedures if they need to be changed so they would provide all of that support and training In our case it definitely isn't millions of pounds because millions of pounds aren't there the courses we run literally it's the cost of photocopying and the coffee unless there are outside speakers who charge which very rarely they do because apart from anything else we have speakers and attendees from local authority schools actually from down south and a lot of the time all you're doing is identifying a school or a centre or a charity or others where they've done something new and innovative in a particular area and getting them to come and share that best practice and our schools are very keen to do that so it needn't be a huge costly complex thing because apart from anything else the bigger the structure you set up the less flexible it is to respond to a new development I mean half the stuff that's in our child protection guidelines wasn't there when I started in this job seven years ago It's just the concept of training has also changed particularly around something as important as preventing bullying and harassment we would certainly have an expectation that staff model positive behaviour as well that is a very important aspect in terms of any culture to prevent bullying and harassment we would expect senior staff and peers to regularly be going to the class of teachers to look at how they're interacting with pupils to see how they're behaving and very much to give them feedback in terms of improving their quality of their teaching and very much about how they're interacting with young people so I think training as maybe a two week course or a day course it's about career long it's about the coaching increasingly coaching type approaches that are coming in it's about helping our teachers when a teacher comes out of college they are just at the start of their learning and it's very much about them being able to link with staff that are very skilled in terms of supporting young people and learning from them having opportunities and there's been an increase in teachers working in trios small groups working often from different schools about looking at each other's classes and sharing that insight with each other to strive to improve the quality of the learning and teaching that clearly has an impact in terms of how children and young people are supported in our schools and also in the playground and beyond the classroom that also the dramatic increase in third sector involvement in schools has been to me one of the more exciting developments in Scottish education we go into schools now and we see boat builders and we see the police and we see NHS, local businesses and also when I go on inspection now I'm having to take my willies because I'm often on a farm or an outdoor centre looking at the work goes on so the learning doesn't always happen but in terms of the third sector we would fully expect the child protection procedures to safeguard the same rigor in terms of anti-bullying to be going on both with our third sector and with our schools and that's done driven very much from the school in terms of setting the procedures up so that everyone is quite clear of the expectation of the school young people should be supported regardless of where the learning is happening come back on Mary one final question in relation to a policy on anti-bullying and a refresh that's done to a policy on anti-bullying what is the panel's expectation of how that will be fed down through the school if a policy is refreshed and it's taken into a school how is every teacher trained or updated on that policy in terms of inspection I asked them a section of a secondary school of a thousand people say at the end of the week at least almost of the teachers have at least seen an inspector they've had opportunities to meet with inspectors there's drop-in sessions where people can just come in and talk to us I'll even talk to teachers in the lunch I don't normally take lunch but I always join a school canteen to talk have you seen the latest policy what's been happening in terms of the school's approaches to bullying, to promoting positive behaviour we ask remember school inspection has three elements it's the quantitative data it's the people's views and it's the direct observation we also have focus groups of teachers we have focus groups of pupils and we're constantly asking them around very important aspects we also put out pre-inspection questionnaires in terms of parents and teaching staff in pupils before an inspection and we gather and collate the feedback from those just to say that for 2015 2016 for example most 85% of primary pupils in the majority of 71% of secondary pupils strongly agree or agree that staff are good at dealing with bullying so we're also using being data rich in terms of our own data if we see an issue then we'll ask why and then we'll say well how do staff not know you need to do training we also look at training logs as well to see we always check child protection everyone has to have child protection training but we also look to see what the educational psychologists are doing what the social workers are doing what the third sector are doing better equipped, more competent at delivering the health and wellbeing that's all part of the inspection process Labour the point but you said that you will ask teachers if they have seen the latest policy by that do you mean have the read the latest policy or have they had practical actual training in it I'll ask them what has the school got a new policy on anti-bullying have you seen where do you find the anti-bullying policy that's a question I'll ask now increasingly they have their own shared area for policy and procedures I'll say when was it last updated what difference has it made were you part of the team helping to develop that how was it taken forward the normal procedure is they have working groups to take forward different procedures so one working group might be working on anti-bullying another might be working on work-based learning the different priorities coming from the school improvement plan so it's a set of questions because we're doing this week in week out we very quickly know when staff will say to you is there a policy so as soon as you get anything any kind of alert like that clearly that becomes a very focused discussion and further follow on actions in terms so it's rigorous cos we're also triangulating as well so all inspectors there could be 6, 7, 8 people out on the secondary team and we're all feeding back the information that we're gathering to triangulate our evidence to come to conclusions so the conversation varies depending on the responses but we'll also go to the deputy head and say we're talking to teachers and teachers don't know about the policy why is that deputy head will say it was only written 3 months ago and we haven't heard her plans others are saying it was written 3 years ago and we need to update it but it's very quickly identified action and that gets written and shared at the sharing of findings in terms of the inspection process Does anyone else want to comment Maggie? Just in relation to the new policy again there are very clear areas of responsibility for teachers, parents pupils themselves I'm conscious that that's what's written down in black and white and you're interested in what's actually happening in practice for us our expectations are really strong in terms of the development of the policy the process is really really important that it's not a case of the national policies taken and the name rubbed out and the local authority or the school names put in and there's just a few changes throughout the process that involves as many people as possible in the development of it is so important and again I'm going to reiterate how important it is to have children and young people involved in that but also parents as well so that staff within the school are involved in the development of the process and it's the staff themselves and the children and young people that present it to their peers that it's not the head teacher standing up there it's the working group and the children and young people that present it to the staff, support staff and the children and young people themselves and obviously once it's done once it's out there it's important it's not just left on a shelf so our expectations would be around keeping it high in the agenda having the posters around doing the assemblies making sure that there's references to it and improvement plans etc etc so there's a clear monitoring and review process built into that so that that's what we would expect we are going to be holding our planning to hold engagement events following the launch of the policy to help schools and clubs implement the policy and these are the kind of things that we would be talking to them about again part of my job is to make sure that the schools know that this kind of conversation is going on we weren't on the original steering group but I brief heads at least once a term and senior staff and address individual meetings of governing boards I was talking to 21 heads in Perth and Kinross yesterday and I talked about this event this morning so we will want schools to feed in at a draft stage at a consultation phase just like they are on the new health guidance that came out from the government just this week so that our guidelines and our the professional learning development we deliver to schools is future proof to the best of our ability in terms of new legislation whether it's the CYP Act or the latest education act or whatever so that they are adapting best practice to that but also so that they are feeding in because we may be a small sector in numbers terms but I'm not an education expert I have 3,500 education experts out there so those are the views I want to come through into consultations like this so I would expect certainly the senior staff and the governing boards of schools but also the key pastoral staff to know well about developments like this while it's in its draft form and where appropriate to feed into it not to wait and see what the outcome of it was and then simply implement it Okay Okay, me to move on Jeremy Thank you and good morning I just want to develop slightly more just two of three that have already been discussed just at a very basic level a classroom teacher in an average school in Scotland today how much training would I get on bullying and how to deal with it in say a two year so I've been a teacher for five years how much would I be given in regard to training on bullying I mean it very much does depend on the school and the local authority that you're working with in it's up to them to develop the training programmes or CLPL programmes for staff but the kind of things that they would call upon I mean again going back to the preventing bullying creating a positive ethos and culture we would expect you to be involved at a local level in approaches to developing positive relationships and behaviour so we've already spoken about restorative approaches nurturing approaches these kind of things we would expect that you were involved in those also respect me skills could be engaging with respect me to provide training looking on the respect me's web but also looking on education Scotland's web and glow pages as well for sharing examples of practice there and psychological services within local authorities will be providing training again in a lot of these positive relationships and behaviour approaches so there should be whole school training but there should also be training offered at a local level that you can access and there's also training that you can access at a national level that education Scotland would offer in terms of positive relationships and behaviour it would be on going it would be related to the school improvement planning process you would take that forward all staff would have access to training you would have bespoke training you would have highlighted issues that you have through your PRD process and then you could apply for training through the local authority so there are lots of different routes there would be training in school working in trios as you were saying and working in groups around policy and practice in your locality you would get advice through external trainers about national practice and national policy and you would then work together as a school group to then translate that into actions for your own community working with staff working with pupils which is important vital and also with our families so that would be on going so from year to year there will be a consistency in the nurturing approaches the restorative approaches and all of that embeds and develops the culture that will then support anti-bullying strategies that will make them most effective that is an on-going process and a regular feature Just to be absolutely frank I have spoken to quite a number of teachers over the last couple of months and that is simply not their experience and I think the biggest concern I have and I suspect other members of the committee have is that we are so caught up in policies and strategies and high-browed thinking that the average class teacher who is trying to do a really good job of getting the training and help to do what we are saying and I think I find it still concerning that we talk so much about policies and strategies which are important to have a place but if they are not being embedded in our local school and in our local classroom then we just simply sit in a shelf I suppose the second issue was picking up Barbara's point and maybe this is aimed again at Philip is that the way that information is recorded seems to vary quite dramatically between different local authorities so one local authority would deem that as a bullying incident one may not how it is dealt with seems to vary again if there are no guidance given across Scotland where we are having the same recording happening not in each local authority but in each school so we are comparing apples with apples because I think the danger is that some schools may be recording it very well on the side of having too much bullying in the schools while other schools don't record it and are not picking up a message so it seems strange to me that we don't have a standard way of recording bullying incidents back to what I said earlier I mean if a child feels bullied then it should be recorded as a bullying incident there's no threshold if you like for what bullying is if a child feels bullied then they're being bullied and that needs to be addressed and it needs to be recorded so there should be consistency around that so why are we ending up, as Barbley says with different local authorities doing it in different ways because it's up to the individual local authority to develop their own policy and recording systems to do that do you think that's a key issue here of is inconsistency I think the recording and the monitoring is absolutely crucial as long as a system a process is set up that people understand and they adhere to and apply consistently at a local level and then the tracking and monitoring is done at a local level so that any gaps, any issues any recurring themes are addressed at a local level that's what's important so it's getting it right within the individual school, local authority and apply it consistently at that level Jeremy's obviously picked up points that you made Barbara would you like to come back on those points some things are kind of converging now in terms of training in terms of consistency I think it's fair to say that the intention of every teacher training institute every local authority is to do the best for the children who they've got within their care but sometimes it's these almost like the policies are becoming barriers to be able to do that my experience as a classroom teacher was that every single year I had a consistent input on child protection at the beginning of every academic year that was standard and that led into a holistic view of the protection of every child including anti-bullying and it's my understanding that that's what should happen in every school across the country should start with a view of child protection but I think there's differences in terms of what the induction year training is depending on the local authority that you're in and how much is offered there for NQT teachers my responsibility as an individual teacher for my own professional update then I have to look at the standards in which I have to apply within my career and I have to ensure that I keep myself refreshed and so I think that well consistency is an issue there's also perhaps a blurring because it becomes solely about anti-bullying and where it becomes getting it right for every child agenda because I think that schools are trying to do that but maybe teachers don't name it as an anti-bullying training session or an anti-bullying policy or you know so I do agree that there are inconsistencies that are perhaps stopping the data I do think that people are trying to do the best but I do think that it can be improved because just one final question again in regard to training in that all bullying is wrong I think there's no disagreement in regard to that but bullying for different spectres of whether you're disabled or whether it's raised or whether it's sexuality or whatever will be different how does your training reflect that clearly Ty have worked in a campaign in one area what about disability what about race is there training specifically on how you deal with someone who's been bullied, who is disabled or who is being abused on a racial issue I can't speak for everyone's experience of how they would do that formally in a local authority but my experience as a classroom teacher was that it was very localised so for example when we were aware at transition for example of some young people who were attending our school who had particular disabilities or who were immigrants or had a language barrier then that would be raised first of all within a safe environment for staff to hear about it with some partner agencies coming in to talk to us about what would be the appropriate things to look out for and how to look after that young person but I would say that that would be very localised as well depending on the context of your school so anyone? I can talk with my northeers on that if that's okay there are many ways that we're building a massive staff in supporting anti-bullying a recent we're looking at training at different levels we're looking at staff training we're looking at parent training and we're looking at policy refresh we've talked about policy yet but essentially if we're going to change the approaches and give teachers the more confidence in the only bullying our training will include what is bullying it will explore prejudice based bullying it will explore online bullying it will look at impacts and outcomes of the strategies that we're advocating for staff it will look at culture and policy within the school and what the prerequisite is for an inclusive and nurturing approach it will look it will explore the child who's bullying and it'll explore resilience that we can help build in our young people these are plans and these are training programmes that are about to be launched in North Ayrshire and we'll look at case studies and what we can learn from case studies and we'll discuss that so that training really is then focusing on particular aspects and it will the case studies will be used to explore how bullying is used in all its important forms, quite frankly and how we can then respond in supporting young people so we are looking at all of that Did you want to come in? Really, really, I mean Phillips kind of said it all but really the only thing I want to add to that is that I think it's very important that we don't create hierarchy of bullying one bullying is more horrendous than another because all bullying is horrendous and shouldn't happen and needs to be addressed so I think we need to be very careful but yes I agree it's within the training programmes it's helpful to have some additional knowledge in relation to perhaps some of the protected characteristics to help the training but in terms of addressing the bullying it's done in the same way and there's no hierarchy in how PSE is used in skills and obviously a very clear foundation tenant of curriculum for excellence is health and wellbeing and if you don't get that bit right then you don't close the attainment gap and kids don't perform to the best of their abilities with the right support so one of the things we heard was about how PSE was used and I have to say I've talked to a lot of young people over the past few months who have told me some horrendous stories about how PSE is used and especially going down a very moralistic route as well where a lot of young people felt really backed into a corner where they felt their thoughts and feelings were not being respected so although you're saying there should be a hierarchy which I absolutely agree with there is an inconsistency about how people in different protected characteristic groups are dealt with by teachers and that comes back to that issue about being canny and being equipped because what I'm hearing is teachers are not equipped and especially on some of the issues that in the manifesto for LGBT youth or the issues that the TIE campaign have raised or the girl guides or even the misogyny stuff what we're hearing is teachers are not equipped to deal with some of those issues because either it's dealt with as a moralistic issue because it's something that maybe they don't believe in but I think what we're looking for is if there's a belief issue there what we want is teachers to be able to handle that and if they can for whatever reason they're equipped to signpost those kids to the right places so in order for those kids to get that support and there seems to be a non-recognition of LGBTI issues across schools I have to say some schools are doing brilliant work and that's not just that is both faith schools and non-faith schools doing absolutely brilliant work some are just not and we're hearing of young people who go down the route of self-harm attempt and in some cases actually commit suicide now that's where that comes down to the crux of this is about that health and wellbeing of kids and what are we doing to ensure that that journey through school is safe and supported and nurtured and in that respect we're not doing it at all the Disney seem to be a recognition at all that there's an issue about LGBTI young people and how they should be supported through school and that's a real concern for all of us and I don't know I say it's across the board where there's great practice St Joseph's in Dumfries, Vaila Leven academy you know we're hearing brilliant stuff going on but in other cases we're hearing some very disturbing stuff going on and how PSE is being used for that and I know the education committee are going to look at PSE and how it's used my son's just left school and I had a very long frank conversation with him about what PSE meant for him which was quite a concern as well and he's able to come and speak to me about anything but when I spoke to some other young people in some of the high skills in my area PSE was a disaster because either it was a moralistic judgment on the young people or it was a waste of time and that's how they view it and that's across to this issue we're not facing that I don't think so your thoughts I know that was a bit of a rant but your thoughts please if I may jump in I think that there's two aspects to that one is as I talked about before that sensibility to the different severity of an issue and when we do child protection training for instance one of our trainers has a series of scenarios that she puts in front of new teachers probationers, gap year students, whoever and say what do you think this is quiet word in the air letters to the parents and invariably if there's the first time in this situation they're airing on the side of extreme caution or extreme liberalism and you just got to attune them to that but the other aspect, particularly in terms of protected characteristics is attuning schools and pupils and teachers when there may be circumstances they haven't come across before I remember speaking to a few Sikh temples a couple of years ago because a school wasn't sure how they dealt with that a Sikh boy was carrying as to how he played team sport as a result of that but there's plenty of guidance out there once you speak to it the school could incorporate that he spoke to his class about his faith and it was spread out from there I mean the respecting rights agenda is very good on that because pupils are very aware of what their rights are and I think a lot of it is attuning I mentioned the gender neutral policy event we're doing soon Brighton College down in the south coast took a very clear view on this a few years ago and they said we're not having the way we're simply going to do this have two uniforms, one's a trouser uniform one's a skirt uniform, you choose which one you're going to wear and he said it wasn't about uniforms that was the issue what we were aware of was that people who had an issue in terms of gender identity or transitioning were as you said at least 50 per cent more likely to attempt self-harm or a high percentage likely to attempt suicide and so they were saying we will fail as a school if we don't recognise those issues are there and find a way of speaking to those children about them and if uniform is the routine then that's the one we'll take but it may well be if you've been in a teacher professional 30 years this is the first time you've ever experienced that which is why you bring people in and you train them on that basis but a lot of it actually at least in my experience is pupils from different ethnic backgrounds and with other protected characteristics as well talking to their classmates into their school and to their assemblies and saying this is who I am this is what I as a Muslim will be doing over Christmas this kind of thing and I've seen quite a lot of that and once pupils start to respect the individuality of their peers then there's much greater resistance within them as a group of pupils Barbara, would you come in there because the young people that we spoke to did raise some issues about Catholic skills and you know this because you've seen the evidence and we would like to get some insight into that whether there's a recognition of some of these issues especially around about LGBTI young people and what maybe the Catholic Education Service are doing to address that without making young people feel as if they're doing it so I think that part of it is teacher confidence not only within Catholic schools but within all schools about their confidence to be able to speak about issues that they perhaps haven't had to encounter before and we are working with our two head teachers associations to first of all find out what the reality is of the young people within our schools and then to have what we're kind of looking at as a kind of a two pronged approach to being able to help those young people the first one is to look at dedicated training for teachers which will be within that as I mentioned earlier that holistic approach of relationships and moral education but particularly looking at identifying within our secondary schools what we would call I suppose a trusted adult trained that are young people who were perhaps going through issues that they didn't feel they could talk to anybody else about would have an identified person who they could go to and that's for a couple of reasons one is so that we know that that person is confident, is well trained and is able to support the young person and their family but also because we don't want a culture of within schools teachers feeling that they have to become counsellors for all of the children especially if they're not equipped to do that because sometimes that can be more damaging than having the correct person to go to second to that as well as the training for our staff we're looking at inputs that we can put into relationships and moral education programmes so for example we've already identified a resource which was used developed by the Crime and Prosecution Service in England and Wales that looks at hate crimes and in particular LGBTI and homophobic hate crimes because we feel that exactly as you're saying that there are some well for us there's no way that we remove God from our approach to education but there is a time where we want to look at this in terms of our societal responsibility and so for example that would be an insert for PSE as opposed to religious education and so while there's a connection there and while the good of our children in terms of their spiritual, academic, physical, health and wellbeing is all connected we feel that that's something proactive that we can do immediately further to that I've just returned from a conversation with the Bishops Conference of Scotland and the other things that we are hoping to do to look at ways of actually getting research in this area to find out the experience of our young people but also to find a way to support anyone who presents himself within school and says either I am transgender I am gay to be able to offer a line of support there that's out with the school parents it's one of the hallmarks of Scotland that it's great that parents have choice of which school to send their children to and when they choose a Catholic school they choose a school that has tradition practises and is rooted in the faith of the church and we know that in every parent when they make that choice knows that so we want to have a balance of ensuring that we are meeting the needs of those young people without any conflict with church teaching and I think it's important to stress the fact that the term hierarchy of bullying was used there in terms of our church teaching as well there's consistency in church teaching for example with what we would say to our young people about sex before marriage and what we would say about sex between a man and a woman and a woman that there's not a separation there in terms of homosexuality and heterosexuality so I think that it's important for us to help our teachers to understand and for the wider site to understand what the church actually teaches as well and we're hoping that these strategies which are already beginning to come into place are something which is going to address the needs of our young people but also help to answer those questions that's really welcome to hear that and the work that you're doing on hate crime but you mentioned about speaking to bishops conference and some of the work that's on going on that and some of the people you'd speak to you didn't mention any of those young people's representative organisations is that clear that they would be involved? We've had a meeting with we've had a meeting with some of our young people who have gone through Catholic schools so within the LGBTI community we're very conscious of the fact that this is part of our community as well you know it's not lots of separate things within Scottish society it's our parents, it's our pupils, it's our local community so absolutely this is not something which is this is not something which is going to be solely within the Catholic Church if you like although we will be working with partners and things we will be keeping an eye to being authentic to church teaching That is extremely welcome because I don't think the issue is about we all understand that Catholic schools teach within that faith we understand that and we get that very clearly the issue for us is when aspects of whatever's happening in school fails and that's when discrimination comes into place so it's about dealing with the discrimination and not the moral code maybe that you would have in your faith but dealing with the actual discrimination and that's where we're getting most of the pressure coming to the committee because we're getting examples of really seriously terrible situations for some young people but if you're giving me your commitment and your reassurance here that that is an on-going issue we'll take that on board and certainly across the board we'll be monitoring all of it as you can imagine we want this to work for your sake but mainly for the kids' sake as well Alex, you wanted to kind us a little bit just very briefly on that point thank you for your answer Barbara absolutely endorse what you say about the role of faith and consistency with church teaching in Catholic education not in any way trying to integrate that however there is for me an inconsistency there in the sense that as recently as the last 5 or 10 years particularly with some of the remarks from Cardinal O'Brien some of the remarks of Pope Benedict there was a difficulty there a disconnect between the upholding of sexuality and people's choices within sexuality and the teachings of the church that's improved a bit under Pope Francis but we're not entirely there yet and I just wonder if you could just tease out a little bit more about how you bridge that inconsistency between the teachings of the church around homosexuality and upholding and valuing your LGBTI pupils in Catholic schools okay so that within Catholic schools we propose the gospel we don't impose the gospel and I think that that's the most succinct way that I can share this is that in all areas of morality we can offer a vision for life and then it's up to each individual of whether or not they want to accept that, they want to take that on board what we want to ensure is that as we propose a gospel which is rooted in ensuring that the dignity of every human person is cherished simply for who they are and that's not compromised in any way depending on their choices that our staff and our community understand that there's no judgment to be made of people and I think that that's for some it's a generational thing for some it's a societal thing for some it's also a sense that as a protected characteristic ourselves we feel that often it's our beliefs in our position that is often being attacked and that we don't have the right to defend what we see as a vision for life and I think it's shown by the numbers of families who are non-catholic who choose to send their children to Catholic schools that there's something in that vision and ethos that they want and that as I see it it's proposed and if people decide that that's not the choice for them at this moment or not the choice for them at any moment that's up to them That's encouraging but can I also ask then how you equip and support your teachers to deal to be receptive and helpful to children who might look up to them and might find that they're the closest adult relationship they feel comfortable in exploring their sexuality and saying I think I might be gay if I want to come out because I know from personal experience my wife teaching the Catholic education system that there is still a bit of anxiety and a bit of doubt as to what their role should be and what they should be allowed to say to that and actually there's a default to well don't talk to me about this Can you shed some light on that and where the current discussion is within the Catholic teaching education system but also the Bishop's Conference around this? Sure I think that it's I think that it's fair to say that staff, particularly if they're not particularly in secondary school our primary school head teachers have said to me that they haven't seen a marked difference in the number of young people who have presented to them in any way of looking or considering their sexuality or that they are maybe transgender they say that at the moment in primary school that's not something which they would say has risen for the majority it would be within our secondary schools for some of our secondary school teachers it doesn't matter what the issue would be from our young people if they are not equipped they're perhaps not a PSE teacher anari teacher they don't feel equipped to have conversations of that ilk with the children anyway is to ensure that first of all our staff know at a very basic level the law and what they are allowed to talk about but secondly what the church actually teaches because sometimes there's a confusion there so that they have the confidence and the sense of freedom to be able to talk about that but also to sometimes say I'm not the person that I think can help you and so that's why we're going down this avenue of ensuring that within all of our Catholic secondary schools that they would be able to go to someone, a trusted adult a safe space within the school where there would be someone who would have had that opportunity to be trained for want of a better word trained in order to be able to meet the needs of the young people in their care OK, I think we've well ran over time this morning as you can imagine we've got a lot areas that we want to explore in this and we will decide after today how we're going to take forward some of the aspects that have arisen from today's evidence and the previous evidence we've got. We thank you so much for your attendance at committee this morning you have given us some food for thought and we will take that forward but we really appreciate you coming along and if you go away and you think we should have said this or I should have said that please keep in touch with the committee. We want to give the best advice to Government in order for them to get this policy right and if the policy is right with good pragmatic recommendations in it then we get it right for every single child irrespective of what school they go to in what area so we appreciate your help this morning and no doubt we will talk again so thank you so much I'm going to move committee into private now so I'll suspend in order for us to move in to private to deal with other issues on the agenda. Thank you