 Can I welcome everyone to the second meeting of the education skills committee of 2018 and I'm very pleased to be chairing a meeting of this committee in my hometown of Glasgow and pleased to welcome all members, witnesses and observers to the meeting. As background the committee is responsible for scrutinising the Scottish government in relation to its education policy and in recent months the committee has been taking evidence on the education reforms that the government is consulting on at the moment. A result of the committee's Mae'n gweldu i'r gwnaeth i gŵrgau ar gyfer cyhoeddau, neu ychydig oedd mae bwysig neu dyma'r cyd-dŵr. D awardedd yma ar gyfer y gallu gyfaint mewn gyfaint amser yn gyfreithio gyd-dŵr yn cyryddiaeth gyffredinol o gyfaint o'r Gweithreifydd. Mae'n cyfr�iol o gyfaint mewn gyffredinol gyffredinol yn gwybod mewn cyfaint. Y gallu cyfaint yma willo ag yn gweithio ofyn cyfle gwyddiadol yn gyfaint mewn gyffredinol yn cyfaint 5 pwysig. We've received apologies for this meeting from a number of members who have either taken part in other parts of the day. Liz Smith was with us earlier on the day for local visits on widening access. George Adam sends his apologies. Richard Lochhead and Ross Greer are on their way here from a European Committee event so they can take part in the informal discussions at the end. Apologies are also received from Oliver Mundell. We're hoping to be joined by Sandra White, MSP, who's a local MSP amddai weithio i'r hyn o'n perthynasol o gyfnodd a heddiw. Dwi'n hynny i gwybod gywyddoedd ac i gyd y gyd dweud i gyd, Mary Shaw, ydych chi'n gwheithio yr cyfnodau Gwladgol Cymru, gwybod Cymru i'r cyfnoddol dda'n gyfnodd gyffredigau a gwybodaeth o gwybodaeth dda'n cyfnodd Gwladgol Edyddianol. Ryf Bynx, dyfod ddiwyd Cysgr Ymddwyd, Morrian McKenna, dyfodol cyfnodd gwybodaeth dda'n cyfnodd gwyddau Gwasgol City Council a dyfodol yng Nghymru sydd yn eneryddol yn gwybodiaeth o'r gwagodau ysgrifennu yn Scotland. Gweithio ar gyfer rydym, mae'n lapau ied Fall Ready yn amlwyno i gael oedd y cyd-dwyllgor eu parwyr rhywlei Mae'r Gwyan Gwlan. Gweithno'n dod o'r ddiddordeb. Roedd iawn i gael y cyfatbwysig o fôl i ddod o'r gweithafol yn y Gwasgol City regionGE, ac i gyflwyno oedd ar y cyfnod Gwasgol Cymri ac yn cyfnodol iddyn nhw y bydd y cyfit gweithgol yddynau o'r pethwyr i'ch gwahozwyr, byddwn yn cael ei gwahog wahanol iawn. Mae'n gweithio'r plan yw'r cyfriddor hyn yn arwad ar y pwysig. Mae'n gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio a'r gweithio'r cyfriddor, a'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio. Mae'n gweithio'r gwahog wahanol iawn yn credu cyfriddor yn cael ei gwahog. 1. Os ydydd yn yr ngynghoraf. Mae yw pinodol wedi ddiwyddoedd byddai'r ddiwydddoedd Rhyfodol, â ddiwyddodd ffordd, dyddio'n rhai ddiwyddodd, a 5. Byddai'r ddiwyddodd hynny, aws yn y bydd ychydig, ac mae'r drwyn yn ei weithio iawn, ac yn dweud ydych chi fod y cwysig ar drwyddoedd. 5. Brindwch wedi wybod Awr Ynillai neu fod yn ei cwestiynau Cymru mae'n gweld i gael i gael eu bod yn y cysylltion ar y plan ym Mhugwr. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mary. Before we move to questions on the number of themes of first team being previous practice and collaboration in school education, I'll kick off with a question about sharing good practice. One of the main purposes of the collaborative is to share best practice. Are there examples of how successes in one part of the region covered by the West Partnership have been shared and recreated in other places? And how do you see the regional collaborative supporting sharing best practice in the future? Yes? With your permission, I think one of the areas that we have been very successful in has been the moderation of assessment in the broad general education that has been a model that initiated in East Remfrewshire has been shared across the partnership with the original four education authorities. That would be the pan-remfrewshire ones in Glasgow, and this year is also being rolled out to the other four, the two Lanarkshires and the two Dumbartonshires. I'm also pleased to say that the South West partnership in covering the Ayrshires and Freesongallwy is going to adopt a similar sort of approach, and that will enable collaboration between collaboratives indeed in making sure that all teachers are on the same page when it comes to assessing and moderating those assessments. Maureen has also led some work in terms of improving maths within the collaborative and that may be some other areas where we are able to identify best practice and share that. Would you like to come in at this point, Maureen? The improving maths work that we've done has reaped dividends. Billy Burke, who's the head teacher at Remfrew High School, was a lead part of that, and we set up a small group to look at maths on the back of the report of the group that I chair making maths count. The work to date has been very positively received. Of course it's far too early to be able to say whether it's had a huge impact or not. Just this afternoon I chaired a group of the heads of service of representatives from the eight authorities leading on improvement, and one of the key areas that we are going to focus on is sharing best practice and sharing best practice around quality assurance processes, around building the capacity of leadership of head teachers, of staff, of a local authority personnel as well, use of data and also sharing practice across very good HR practices and working with our professional associations. Sharing practice, we have some emerging evidence of where we have used this as a good way forward and I think there's huge potential for us to take this forward. OK, thank you. Ruth, would you like to come up to the point? Just to build on what my colleagues have said, first of all looking at the moderation, this was a very good aspect of collaboration, talking from Emma Clyde's point of view, because we had an authority that had a well-established model that we could learn from, and so something that was already in place, well-established and tried out, was then rolled out across other authorities, but it also gave authorities chances to work together and teachers chances to work together so we could take forward moderation of standards. The maths work that Maureen was speaking about making maths count, we have learnt a lot from the collaborative work between the quality improvement officers, sharing their experience and also taking improvements forward, and another area that hasn't been mentioned yet is in the early years, where there has been a huge amount of collaboration and joint learning across the West Partnership. OK, thank you. Do any of the committee members have any questions that you'd like to raise? Thank you, convener. I just wanted to ask a very brief supplementary on that. Is there enough scope within the collaborative to allow each local authority to perhaps have quite unique and distinctive plans, or is there a baseline across the collaborative that each local authority must meet? Thanks, convener. The collaborative's plan is designed to enhance the provision of local authorities, which will be much more detailed and much more focused on the self-evaluation and analysis of that that will come out of each local authority. It is about where we have opportunities to collaborate and learn from best practice across the region, which will improve practices across the region, but within local authorities. So, yes, at the moment, I would say that that is accurate. Of course, as it grows, or indeed, as is intended in the education bill, we need to wait and see how things are going to sort of work out. Thank you. And then, Jolene. Thank you, convener. Can I just ask a question about the plans that you've been describing? There's a school improvement plan, a cluster improvement plan, a pupil equity improvement plan. There's now to be a regional collaborative improvement plan. On top of that, or underneath that, depending on how you look at it, there's a national improvement framework. We've got a heck of a lot of plans. How are head teachers meant to know which plan is their plan? I agree with you. However, each authority has a different setup. For example, in Glasgow, we don't have cluster plans. So, there would be a school improvement plan that would link to a local authority plan, and the regional improvement plan is a high level one, as you can see. It is not intended in any way to replace or usurp what's happening at a local authority level. What's important is that we have that element of golden thread coming through, and that if the collaborative is to be successful, it must enhance, not replace, what is delivered at a local level. The evidence base shows clearly that it is, from international evidence, that it is local based improvement is what makes a difference. So, we couldn't say by any stretch of imagination that a collaborative is going to be the answer to all things, to all men. We are a very large collaborative, huge population, and there is no expectation or assumption that all eight authorities will be doing the same thing at the same time. Part of the work we're doing just now is about scoping out. Where is that good practice? Where can people share? If it is good practice already happening in your local authority, why would you change just for the sake of a collaborative? It's about our focuses on outcomes and on improving outcomes, not on the inputs. There still are going to be different tiers of plans, and I don't frankly understand how these all interrelate against each other, and I asked the same question, which plan is the school's plan? Is it the school improvement plan, and therefore do all these other things are less important than that school improvement plan? No, I don't think, I'll revert to Maryam. I don't think they're less important, absolutely not. When you look at the clear evidence of what makes a difference is at a local authority level or indeed a collaborative level, you choose a small number of key priorities. You stick to them, you keep them high level, and schools then tie in theirs, but they have their own ability to design locally in partnership with their parents, with their young people, with their staff, what makes a difference there. There is a golden thread that runs between them, but it's not that one has a priority over the other, but you should be able to link them together, and the key is that you make your plan at that high level with priorities that schools recognise and tie into that are the important things such as raising attainment and achievements, such as improving outcomes for children and young people, and head teachers are then able to design specific actions that will achieve those outcomes. Can I just ask you what you mean by the golden thread? A golden thread that it links so that you can see the thread that it links from the national improvement framework all the way down, and there should be a golden thread that runs from there all the way down into classrooms. In that context in Glasgow, I'm just trying to understand the accountability here, is that your responsibility do you think to provide that golden thread? Absolutely. Would that be also the case in your other respective areas of the West? I think what's important to remember is that school improvement plans are based on the priorities identified from the school self-evaluation. Now you can take that to lots of different levels, but essentially that then feeds into the local improvement plan, but there's also other priorities that come in or drivers that come in in terms of the national improvement framework, and we're all essentially working to the same agenda as Maureen has already mentioned, but just to reiterate and reinforce what Maureen has said, it is about managing and indeed managing the workload of staff to be able to take forward the priorities so it should be a small number of priorities that they deepen and continue to dig into, continue to review to see the impact of the actions that they've taken and then move from that. They are all interlinked, but essentially school improvement plans do have primacy, and indeed where there is opportunity to collaborate, where for instance schools of similar demographics or indeed of similar outcomes or underperformance that needs to be improved can collaborate together to bring about that improvement through those sorts of reviews, and that might be a separate plan or an action plan altogether. So schools are used to working to different plans and contributing to local improvement plans, and in these temperatures we don't expect all of our schools to take forward every priority or action that's set out in that, but where that reflects their own self-evaluation and priorities then certainly it would enhance and indeed contribute to the outcomes from the local improvement plan across the authority. I recognise the golden thread that Maureen's referring to and it's the outcomes for children, the reading different improvement plans, you can see that golden thread already quite clearly linking to the national improvement framework, linking to attainment and raising attainment and closing attainment related to poverty attainment gap. I think what the additionality of local authorities and the regional improvement collaborative give is the level of support to schools to take that forward, schools want to take this forward and they can do so in different ways, sometimes they can do it with collaboration with other schools, sometimes it could be collaborative with the local authority and the emerging practice that's coming out and is already there about regional collaboratives and how we can join together, so I think that the golden thread is the impact and the outcomes, everything else is how we're going to get there. OK, maybe I could come back to support later on. There's a number of questions later on. Jolly? Explain that Tavish, Joanne and I have just come out fresh from a focus group with head teachers so I'm going to raise some of the points that they had around regional improvement collaboratives, however we're going to ensure that a regional improvement collaborative is not another layer of administration or that it isn't topped down in any way collaborating with our practitioners on the ground and being bottom up. Our own plan has indeed been shared with many of the head teachers within the WEST partnership, I have to say within East Renfrewshire it was welcomed, they saw it as areas where they will be able to look outwardly rather than inwardly within East Renfrewshire, opportunities to share practice and to learn from practice out with the realms or the boundaries of East Renfrewshire and in that sort of sense would be able to enhance the practice that's there and that's the way that our plan has been designed. The plan isn't something that we've just dreamt up as eight directors that has been fully discussed, agreed on the three themes that we are working towards at the moment, that's not to say that those three themes will stay the same, they will evolve and change but certainly it is based on what we think as directors our schools would benefit from which of course is based on the analysis of data and other information that we have from our own school reviews, our school inspections and indeed the analysis of attainment. So we're not necessarily thinking that it's going to be an administrative being or indeed a being in itself. We see it as enhancing the support that's already in place for schools and where we might be able to learn from best practice across the region. Does that answer your question? Well, it really was questions from headteachers so that's why I was putting it forward because I thought it was an opportunity, a lot of them have actually stayed back to watch today's proceedings so. Yeah, just to come in, I agree, I mean I agree there is a danger that the improvement collaborative could become an additional layer of bureaucracy. I don't disagree with that point at all, I think it's incumbent upon us to ensure that it doesn't add that extra layer of bureaucracy and that's why we need in these early days and it is very early days of the improvement collaborative that we do work together positively and that we are constantly mindful of the importance of reducing bureaucracy. So in our plan I would hope that you would recognise that it is very minimalist, it's very high level, we've had interesting discussions with elements of the Scottish Government who would like the plan at the outset to be much heavier, much more detailed and we are resisting that and we are absolutely resisting it in the West and we are all signed up to that because we are very mindful of the complexities that are involved around planning because let's not forget it's not just about education authority plans, there's also children services plans, there's the community planning partnership and so it goes on and on and so we cannot allow an improvement collaborative to become an extra layer or to be viewed in any way an administrative burden, it must enhance and add value or else it's not worth doing. Thank you. Thank you very much. I suppose what I'm interested in if the Scottish Government hadn't suggested these regional collaboratives would you have been campaigning for them and I think collaboration, who would be against collaboration, we're all in favour of it, professionally people will learn from each other anyway, there are local structures, I wonder if, because you said if it's going to work then such, such has to happen, I wonder whether this is something you're going to have to make work or whether it's something you would positively advocate. I suppose I'll come in with my president of ADES hat on. ADES has been actively promoting collaboration across authorities for at least the last two, three years. I wouldn't describe us as campaigning, John. We've certainly not campaigned for the regional improvement collaboratives and there's elements of it that have still got to be tested in the system. They're not an entity and we have to ensure that it's managed appropriately. However, there are huge advantages in working together and there is, as Mari has already said, a huge advantage in having us being able to lift our heads and being able to look outward and to be able to learn from each other. I don't think that we do that often enough because as we get the daily grind of the work and that goes in schools as well as in local authorities. So collaboration gives us that opportunity to look outward and to be able to learn from each other and the trick will be for us to be able to manage that so that it does add value. There is a danger of a conflation between the merits of collaboration and endorsing regional collaboration bodies, which will have their own budget. We don't quite know how you would look, but would it not be, if I were sceptical on the question of it, would it not be as reasonable to say it's so high level, local authorities are so diverse, even within the West, so diverse in terms of the needs, demographics, landscape, whatever, actually the logic would be to say there should be collaboration on education at a Scottish level and that it's possible to do that in different kinds of ways. We do not need to create a structure in order to do that and I wonder whether you have said that you've resisted the idea that it should be heavier as the Scottish Government wants it perhaps to be more directive. Is that not the purpose of them in truth? I don't believe that spending time on restructuring and I don't believe that the regional improvement collaboratives should be a structure per se. They should be about a way of working as opposed to a way of being and I remain to be convinced about them having an allocated budget and how that would be that they're not an entity. Nobody is going to be employed by a regional improvement collaborative at this point in time and I think as I say that we have to work across the West. I think there are advantages. I think there's lots that we learn from each other. You wouldn't describe East Renfrewshire and Glasgow as remotely similar in terms of demograph but I think there is lots that we can learn from for example as we have done in the past in the way that East Renfrewshire goes about quality improvement. I've learned a huge amount. I'm sure Mary would have examples where East Renfrewshire has done the same with Glasgow partnerships so I don't think you have to be the same in order to be able to work together effectively or indeed to learn from each other. There's always learning goes on even from poor practice. I just have to be at a regional level then. Given the diversity within the West you could argue that diversity is expressed right across Scotland. I can't tell you how much I love the idea of collaboration. I'm just not clear why there needs to be a regional level collaboration. What you're talking about is continuous improvement, getting best practice, understanding diversity. There's diversity within Glasgow for goodness sake. There's already that level of collaboration. I'm not arguing for the regional improvement collaboratives to be entities. Joanna, I think that's a question for the Scottish Government. Just to come in, authorities have always collaborated with each other. Addis is a very good example of that and certainly as a small authority we rely on collaboration to take us forward and we very much enjoyed the training gain that we get from each other. I think what this has done is formalised that kind of collaboration rather than made it ad hoc, has given us a structure with which to work. There are huge advantages with that. There are also challenges but none of these insurmountable challenges that we can't take forward. I think putting a framework and a formalisation around it is probably a good place to start at least. I suppose just to finish this point. The regional collaboratives are being promoted as a way of tackling some of the challenges. You tell me you're already doing this but there's now a formal structure so what I need to ask, what I'm interested in is actually what is the claims for it. It either is already getting done and we're just formalising it or it's going to bring an added value which I don't get a sense of and I'm interested in where you're sitting at. You say that it's you looking for a formal entity, is that right? Can I just come in before that? Can I just ask when you say that it's already happening, is it happening all across the country? Are these collaboratives happening in the same way in terms of relationships across the country? Maureen mentioned that I dis-improvement partnerships actually that had been formed almost about two and a bit years or so ago and I think it would be fair to say that those are at different levels of maturity and indeed we started out as a much smaller. I made a sales pitch in the East and West in Barchonshire and North and South Lanarkshire decided to join us because they liked the direction of travel that we were going in. They saw that there would be benefits for them in joining and contributing to the work that we are doing. I think we do though at the moment and I think there is acceptance nationally across the whole of the education community that we do have a moral purpose and I think everyone is signed up to that moral purpose of improving attainment, improving outcomes for youngsters and I think that collaborating to take that forward whether that's on a school-by-school basis or indeed on a cluster-by-cluster basis or on a local authorities collaborating together, it is worthwhile as you know and as research shows but there is no intention that the West partnership and that every local authority within the West partnership will do everything within the plan because they will not, I mean any strength for sure, we have expertise in data analysis and as Maureen says in quality improvement but we have opportunity as well to learn from the excellent classroom practices that there are in Glasgow and other areas within the collaborative. So there is opportunity for us all and all our youngsters at the end of the day to benefit from that. The point that was made was not across the country. I'd like to move on to changing roles of headteachers and local authority. Could you give me a view of what you think the greater collaboration and the role of headteachers will mean through these reforms? How the role of headteachers is going to change through these reforms? Through the forms set out in the education bill or I think certainly I think it's careful to remember that that is a consultation. I'm not sure what members have heard today from headteachers. I mean certainly within East Renfrewshire I can say that some will welcome the reforms. I can also say that some may have some concerns about the reforms and think that they're not going to have the support of the local authority now that will depend on confidence growing I would think but certainly we would expect that we will support our headteachers. We embrace the headteachers charter. Certainly it is the direction of travel that we're already going on in terms of devolving budgets and all of the budget possible to headteachers. We already have devolved management in terms of the curriculum and certainly within broad guidance which reflects the national guidance to make sure that and to have that challenging discussion to make sure that at the heart of that there is youngsters outcomes and improvement in outcomes are expected. I think sometimes headteachers get a wee bit frightened almost about the management of the budget and whether or not they're going to become accountants. I don't think that's going to be the case but certainly we need to make sure that they have the support of those with that expertise to be able to make the decisions that they want to make. In terms of what might mean at class teacher level I don't expect that that is going to change significantly. I would say that class teachers are already expected to meet the individual needs of youngsters within their class and they do that by designing a curriculum at that level almost at an individual pupil level for where it's necessary for to make sure that children continue to achieve. But managing that at a school level indeed is something about it is about freeing up it is about giving class teachers and headteachers more autonomy but making sure there's still accountabilities within there and I see the local authority continuing to play a crucial role in having those challenging and professional discussions where the outcomes are maybe not what we want them to be or indeed to learn where outcomes have changed because of curriculum design and that is something that we have built into our plan through the learner journey team. Does anybody else have any comment on this one? I've got a couple of questions I'm sure others do as well. I'll let Tavish in just one second. To whom will headteachers be accountable for the performance of their schools? As employers they'll still be accountable to local authorities. I think the education bill sets out accountability at a very local level certainly to communities and to other stakeholders, parents and pupils and so on but that's the case at the moment and certainly it would be our view that local authorities will continue to be those bodies that headteachers will be essentially accountable to. If the headteacher breaks that golden thread it will be the local authority, it will be responsible too. Tavish? That's a very useful answer you just gave believe me. One of the headteachers at the session that Gillian was just describing before earlier this afternoon described the change in her role as moving from being the leader of learning to a business and HR manager. I'm not sure we'd all want it to go that way. What's your view of that because you've very fairly just described the support that needs to go into if this role is to be the headteacher charter envisages it. That strikes me as HR and business manager rather than a leader of learning. What do you think our headteachers should be? The headteachers are naturally nervous about this. There is no direction wanting them to be HR and business managers and I think we have to be they currently welcome the challenge and support that are given by local authorities and I think there's an area of wanting to keep that. Therefore I think there's a nervousness around headteachers about what this looks like but they remain absolutely with the main objective is those outcomes for learners and making sure that everything that goes in behind that makes sure that they get the outcomes for learners. Headteachers are in a good position to be able to monitor that to take that through improvement plans and self-evaluation and to ensure that all the bits and pieces are in place there but they are nervous that that might be weaked away from them. I can understand that. The intention is not to go down that. If I could add to that a wee bit. I have been a headteacher of a number of primary schools. I was considered myself as a leader of learning in East Renfrewshire and indeed in contributing to that at a regional level as well. You deal with the budget maybe two or three times a year and then essentially you get on with it. You make sure that the way you allocate resources reflects your school improvement plan and the priorities within that. The HR issues will still be supported by the local authority as intended by the Bill but more importantly the investment in people will continue to be an opportunity to improve practice and improve outcomes. That's not an HR issue but indeed a continuous learning opportunity and that's something that we are also planning to learn from best practice across our partnership. Thank you. I think it's incumbent upon us in terms of the headteachers charter to ensure, as Mary said, this is a consultation. It's not agreed that this is what's going to happen and I think it's for us to ensure through our responses to the consultation that we ensure that the best practice is what comes out. We want our headteachers, I like the headteachers charter in terms of its principles. I absolutely sign up that headteachers should be appointing their own staff, should decide on their management structures, should develop the curriculum in line with their local needs but we need to be careful that we're not creating a hero innovator system. It talks about the headteacher but actually best practice is when the whole community is engaged in it and it reads at the moment as if all roads lead to one person so I understand why headteachers are. A number of them are understandably nervous so we need to be careful if headteachers charter ends up embedded in legislation then there could be a lot of unintended consequences that will cause us all difficulty. As the local authority remains as the employer then they remain that accountable force and I think we need to work positively looking at the policy intention to ensure that we can deliver on the policy intention but without some of those unintended consequences because we all agree headteachers need to be leaders of learning but they also need to have an eye on these other activities and it's for local authorities who have a can provide that framework of support to be able to guide them through that. I just ask if headteachers roles do change and you're all employers in that sense I suppose is it fair and many of you said this to us today that if you augment their responsibilities you're changing their terms and conditions of employment so is it fair then that many are saying that's a change, a material change to my circumstances that has consequences for the profession and therefore for me as an individual in terms of how much I'm paid, what my job is and so on and so forth do you think that's the inevitable consequence of a big change to headteachers responsibilities? I think it's interesting that there's no mention in the consultation document of SNCT and the Scottish negotiating committee for teachers where they already set out what a headteachers role is so actually if we are going to significantly change that then it should go back to that tripartite structure that looks after all the negotiation and it is odd that it's not mentioned in the consultation document. I think the issue around the headteachers chart and very struck by the meeting we had before with very committed professionals who do huge amounts who are wanting to make the very best, want to serve the very best interests of the young people in their community and they are expressing significant reservations about this and I wonder whether a part of it is is being sold as big change but people have been reassured that there's not really any great change at all and I wonder which you think it is. I'll come in as Addis. I think if the headteachers charter ends up in legislation in the way that it's written it will have significant repercussions for headteachers. Do you think that's the detriment of the role as leaders of learning? I think that it would impact on their role as a leader of learning if all those responsibilities transfer over in a kind of a verbatim way. So if you interpret the way it's written in verbatim I absolutely appoint every member of staff, support staff, clerical, janitors, you take all that then of course it will radically change them. I'm not sure that is the intention of the policy and that's why we need to work on accepting. I do sign up to the policy intention but ensuring that the implementation achieves what it aims to which is to improve outcomes for children and young people. I was very struck by what you said about hero innovators. I think I worked with a few headteachers in the time we thought there were hero innovators and the rest of the world didn't think that. But I wonder whether, again from the focus group from elsewhere, there's been suggestion rather than a headteachers charter, there should be a school charter which you then test the school and senior management team within that in terms of how things are delivered and I wonder what your view of that is. I would totally agree, I think there's insufficient emphasis on the importance of collegiality as a means of taking forward change, as a means of taking forward improvement and to put it all roads leading to a headteacher is not a good approach to take. One last point, I suppose, is how do you, if there is going to be a headteachers charter, how do you balance the accountability? You have authority to do a huge amount. What structures we put in place in terms of accountability? When you devolve so much power to a school level, where is the accountability round that would balance that? I would argue just now, certainly in Glasgow, that we do empower our headteachers and we do devolve a lot of responsibility out, but it is within a strong framework of accountability and a strong framework of accountability that they are parcel of. It's not an either or, it's not about the authority versus the headteachers. Our headteachers are very much senior officers of the authority and need to take that collective responsibility for improvement and I think that we need to talk more about collective responsibility across schools. A good improving system, the international research, those that are systemically improving are ones that are outward facing that take responsibility for improvement, not just in their own school or in their own classroom, but in the next door classroom, in the next door school, and it's that collective approach is what makes a difference. The headteacher couldn't decide, for example, in secondary school to only run three hires in the fifth year or in primary school decide to be more prescriptive about young people who could come into school? I think at the moment our headteachers decide but they don't make that decision on their own. They decide on what they are going to offer in partnership with their parents, with the young people and with their staff and that the checks and balances in the system are the local authority wraparound but it's very much that collective responsibility. I don't know any headteacher who would make a decision such as that all by themselves. No, but if they made that decision and they have autonomy to make that decision with the consequence that an individual pupil doesn't have the right to access the same opportunities at fifth years they might have in another secondary school, who would be accountable for that? But that is the case just now. There are schools where they might offer six hires from fourth year indeed and take a two year lead into that and others who continue to do and offer five hires. So I'm not aware of any and certainly with any strenfisher I don't know of any that only offer three but that would be for something and quite frankly I don't think parents would allow that to happen because essentially they would vote with their feet. They just wouldn't attend or sign up to go to that school so that would be a consequence of that and indeed that autonomy that headteachers may have to make those sorts of decisions they have to measure those decisions against what are the likely outcomes for youngsters and indeed for the school itself and whether the school continues to be viable. I can't see a school that would take such a drastic decision. Thank you convener, it's just a brief follow-on point because it's interesting the point you make about working collectively because the visit that we did earlier on in the afternoon, a concern was raised about why in principle the headteacher charter is very good. It has the potential to create a structure in the school where the headteacher sits there and tells the rest of the staff what will be happening in the school and that was a concern that was raised and I see by the nodding heads you agree with that summary and I suppose my question is the headteacher charter as is is it an easy fix to make it workable in schools or does radical change need to be done to it? Those that are written in the headteachers charter are ones that I would sign up to but I think the sentences stop short so the headteacher should appoint their own staff within a financial envelope taking the caveat of welfare transfers of probationers so I think there's an interpretation there's more needed to be looked at and that's why I worry about it being placed into legislation because as soon as you put it into legislation a lot of things become batten down very quickly and the risks increase. Good evening panel, thanks for being here. I was going to ask this question under parental and community involvement but I think it ties into what Mary Fee was saying there. When you speak about the headteachers charter and perhaps the unintended consequences that could arise and what struck us, in fact a teacher raised it this afternoon that the teacher voice actually isn't mentioned. You reflect on that. Just to backtrack a little bit when we were looking at the supremacy of the headteacher when we see the best working practices when headteachers work collaboratively alongside each other we have a model where our headteachers co-designed a curriculum together and it's a strong model the downside of that model maybe where one school would like to do a slightly different one if you've co-designed something as part of a collaborative then you may feel you've got less autonomy and parental and community involvement I think that's where we have to be very careful that within a parental community will be different opinions even within one school so you can't always get a joined up voice so when we look at collaboration we have to be very careful that we're not taking just a few strong voices and making sure that the working together actually takes things forward I think headteachers enjoy working alongside each other I think there is all of our headteachers enjoy working alongside their parents their communities and in the community of the school I would include the teacher voice in that I think I find very strong representatives of parent councils, parent partnerships improvement plans, the PEF planning where teachers voice is heard so I think there is room for everybody's voice in this but we have to make sure that it is well managed and schools are maybe not picked off against each other Mary I think importantly and what is set out in the bill is more a focus of more parental engagement I think Ruth's right that there can be sort of a small number of strong voices especially involved in parent councils that don't always reflect but there are duties in there to make sure that parent councils do reflect much more closely the demographic within the school and that's to be welcomed however, I think more importantly if it's about raising attainment and making sure that youngsters learn it's more about parental engagement in learning out with school and in school and I think in best practice that is already happening and indeed will lead to those improved outcomes Murray I'd like to ask you a question before you can answer don't worry it's not a trick one you talked about school charter do you see that as being the same thing as head teacher charter but under a different name so that it sounds more collaborative and more inclusive I think I am concerned about the point about collegiality and the absence of collegiality and I suppose should we get hung up in the manclature however, the title is really important because the title should sell should sell what it's about is what it says on the tin so if the head teacher's charter is telling us that it's all about the head teacher then that is selling the wrong message whether it's school, nursery, establishment I think the use of the school term is overused because we deliver education in a whole range of ways services, units not just the establishment of a school that people equate to a building so we do have to be careful and maybe a little bit more thought needs to go into what we call it to get the right outcomes that we're looking for Can you come in? I'd like to move on to workforce planning although Joanne might want to come back to the previous point I'd like to put on record my thanks to Keppel Campus today for a fantastic visit I think everybody that was there this afternoon really got a lot from it and the pupils are an absolute joy and the teachers were clearly committed to the school We spoke to a number of the ASN teachers in Brwm Lea and they said that one of the issues they had was a kind of difficulty in recruiting teachers actually since Theresa said the same thing although Saracen seemed to have much less difficulty with that Could you tell us do you think the regional collaboratives will help particularly around the ASN one where there seems to be a shortage of those sort of teachers is there a possibility that across the regional collaboratives there might be scope for teachers to to share that burden? At present within the West Partnership we are not seeing the need to go down the road that the Northern Alliance had to go down a number of years ago in terms of recruitment of staff we are the sort of biggest partnership we do get the bulk of students we also get the bulk of NQTs and it makes recruitment a bit easier for us in terms of additional support needs I think there's always been a difficulty in recruiting staff into additional support needs to a certain extent it is a vocational calling for some and for others they tend to sort of drift into it and that doesn't always lead to best outcomes however one area that we are and have agreed to look at is the recruitment of head teachers that is continuing to be problematic across the region and it's something that we could explore in terms of succession planning and not necessarily thinking that that you know easter temperature should be succession planning for itself but that we would you know be developing the leaders of tomorrow across the region and all of us benefiting from that I don't know if Maureen wanted to come in about something specific about just I suppose that it is a challenge for us to recruit an additional support needs and we're actively looking at that across the city and I think part of the challenge is is because there's a shortage of teachers so there's work across the board I think that we certainly are going to make that in the city a focus for us next year to look at how we work with our probationers because our probationers are they need to do their first year in a mainstream school they can't reach the standard for full registration and so there's a blocker in the system from the outset so we really need to look at that to ensure that we are giving them a breadth of experience because sometimes it's just they don't know what they don't know and to enable that I was really glad you said that because one of the things that came across loud and clear when we were talking to teachers today was that there seems to be blockages and becoming you know assisted learning teacher and then being a primary school teacher for example and I think that something has to be done to make sure that that route is as straightforward if it's ever a straightforward route but as straightforward as it is for any other type of education Okay Ruth do you want to come in? No sorry I thought you wanted to come in later Gillian you want? Leads on from that are you collaborating with teacher training colleges, universities around how you can modify or be innovative around the type of courses that they provide to encourage people coming in to teacher training I'm thinking specifically people who are in other sectors who might want to retrain as teachers but can't give up their job for family reasons so maybe part time opportunities In the west we've been working as a west grouping for a number of years with initial teacher education providers not in that specific example that you gave there about workforce planning and about retraining but more about initial teacher education and trying to enhance the quality of teacher education by having a stronger focus on a partnership approach so the balance of assessment between lecturers and teachers in schools and that's been going on for a number of years acros, and it's just coincidentally it happens to be the same eight education authorities in fact we applied for funding a number of years ago from Scottish Government for teacher education so we have been working with them and it may be an area that we go on to look at in respect of the changing profession in Glasgow City Council an example we've had is working with Strath Clyde where we've looked at, we've put a plea out where we're a job fair and we put a plea out for people who had degrees who would be interested in a change in career but were stuck because they needed for family reasons to keep a salary coming in and we've been able in areas of identified need to be able to support them financially to enable them to do the postgraduate year and then they've got to come back into Glasgow to teach a bit small scale Let's ask one, thank you Camino one supplementary on workforce planning and the changing profession that has just been described the one consistent message we got this afternoon and I certainly heard it very consistently over some months now since the proposal came out is on the GTCS on the General Teaching Council of Scotland Leave it well alone Do you understand why teachers are saying seems to ask so clearly that they wish that organisation their professional organisation left well alone and not reformed in a way which is currently being considered? I haven't had any discussions with head teachers about that I have to say I do think that the GTC as it was in my day has a special place in the hearts of teachers in Scotland I think they do see it as the keeper of the standard if you like they do make sure that the right people almost always get into education and are right and proper to be in front of children and in that sort of sense though I'm not from the reform seeing that that particular remit would change but indeed there might be a sort of lengthening or a broadening out of the remit to include CLD and the standard set out within that so I do think that it does have a sort of historically it's always been something that sets Scotland apart from other parts of the United Kingdom in particular and as such is well protected by the teaching profession On your earlier question about innovative practice around initial teacher education we're currently part of a pilot in Inverclyde working with one of the universities looking at people training while still maintaining their job within the council so we give them time off they do Saturday mornings and evening lectures but we'll give them time off to undertake their teaching practice Wondr if Addis has a view on GTC, the changes We're in the process of putting together our final response and we don't have actually a very strong view I would endorse Mary's view of the GTC having a special place in the hearts of all teachers what we are going to ask for is that a financial assessment is carried out of what would it cost to change the GTCS towards an education workforce council because there's no mention of that and I understand that the way GTCS is set up as an independent body that there may be implications around that from my discussions with the chief executive of GTCS there may be financial implications that should be fully explored before any decision is taken I wonder if you think there are professional concerns My sense from the meeting earlier was the concern would be there would be a blurring of responsibilities and roles which would perhaps diminish the role of the teacher within education and I wonder if that is an anxiety and B would it be a sufficient anxiety for you to suggest to the Scottish Government to think about this again because the strength of feeling at our meeting certainly took me by surprise I thought it was a wee add-on at the end of the meeting but it was a very strong view there was an issue about maintaining the integrity and standards of teaching in Scotland I think there's ways around that it's not an anxiety for me I think the challenge is that the general teaching council has been established as a member organisation and as a member organisation that's a huge strength so teachers are on their board and therefore to change that without really thinking through the repercussions of that what would happen to that member board because that member board is set out in the legislation that governs GTCS one of the challenges that ADES has is that we don't have a place on that board we do in partnership with COSLA but not ADES itself Directors of Education don't have a place on the board it's only through agreement with COSLA and so I think that there's a number of again I'm back to unintended consequences that really need to be more fully explored and teased out rather than just well let's just change it okay thank you we're going to move on to parental and community involvement can I just ask a question about we talk about stakeholders and their involvement and how would you see their role in the city region collaborative Glasgow city region collaborative and also particularly I suppose colleges and young people how would they be involved in it colleges I've got obviously got a central role to play in this how would you see them be involved in it at present within the west partnership we sit across three different regional bodies we have a regional developing the young workforce region we have college regions and indeed the regional improvement collaborative this is an opportunity for us to really sort of look at bringing all of those together so that we can work on the same agenda for instance in East Renfrewshire we don't have a college and we sit across two college regions but only feed into one regional outcome agreement so it makes we seem to dance to lots of different papers is what I'm trying to say so I think this is an opportunity to redress that but we do have an intention under the learner journey theme that that would be something that we could explore where there are opportunities to really look at the offer especially in the senior phase and in different curricular pathways for youngsters and indeed being able to access such across the whole region rather than just particularly within the one that you're sitting so F.E. I have a meeting set up with Robin Ashton for instance in the next couple of weeks who is the chief executive of the Glasgow board to explore those areas and then we'll sort of look at how we can bring others into that in terms of stakeholders or other stakeholders I think certainly in terms of a bottom-up approach head teachers would involve both young people and children and indeed parents in determining what the school priorities would be and if this is going to genuinely being a school-led, teacher-led system then that should feed up into the regional improvement collaborative improvement plans whether or not there is an opportunity I have a meeting I think in the next couple of weeks with Joanne who I think is still in the audience to consider how parental engagement in the National Parent Forum for Scotland can help and support and considering those views at the moment we don't have parental involvement or engagement and I'm not sure that in a region so large that it is going to be something that needs to be considered but certainly if it is going to be considered it has to be meaningful it can't just be parent council chairs getting together and saying these are the things we think you should do Thank you very much for that just for the record could you give us Joanne's full name Joanne? Thank you Very briefly, we've only got five minutes too late, you're on the record Joanne Very briefly Very briefly, thank you convener and it's on family and parent involvement and how you communicate and involve with the very very hard to reach parents and there could be a number of reasons we heard earlier on today one of the possible reasons could be parents that have a particularly poor educational experience themselves and they're very very difficult to engage with and there is a key role there for the family support worker and we spoke to our family support worker today and do you think more emphasis should be put into family support workers and the crucial role that they can play in bringing difficult or hard to reach parents into the communication circle of the school? I suppose I have a question over whether it's a family support worker what is a family support worker I think we would have to be very clear about the definition of that but I do think that there is a very strong role for our third sector partners to work very closely with our families and with our schools and to act as that bridge between home and school our schools and our teachers are outstanding at delivering education but family support is not their bellywick and they need to have I think a third sector role is very strong and very powerful there and that's what we should be putting our energies into and I think Just absolutely agreeing and expanding on that point this is not a one person one job role there are varieties of supports that are harder to reach families need children services, the third sector all sorts of imaginative approaches that schools are currently beginning to use for that I think there's a real danger that it's one it's described as one job description and it becomes one role and that's simply not going to work I think there is some very very good practice around the country at the moment in that aspect Fnath Joanne and then Tavish I'm going to say I don't think I agree with Maureen McKenna on this issue about home links and how you work between schools and families as someone who did part of my teaching job that engagement with families I actually think it would be the responsibility of the whole school rather than just the third sector to be concerned that that was something that wasn't seen as part of a central role I'm interested in this issue about participation again from the group earlier headteachers felt very strongly that they worked very hard on pupil engagement and involvement and parental engagement involvement I wonder what you think a duty to do these things would look like and what consequences would it be how would you judge a headteacher wasn't fulfilling that duty because if it can't be assessed and dealt with then it's not a meaningful duty to impose on a headteacher and do you think our headteachers today were right to be a. concerned that the seem to be suggestions wasn't happening and b. that they needed there to be a duty placed on them in order to ensure that they actually fulfilled his role Can I have very brief answers please because we're just coming in I mean I do think there is emerging practice I do think that schools are using the PEF funding essentially but you know if headteachers are going to be in charge of their staffing and they determine that that is going to bring about outcomes then they will bring in other bodies in my experience parents haven't always had good relationships with teachers not just because of their own experience of school but indeed because some teachers find it difficult to relate to parents so I think that that is something that can be then delivered by other partners where there's not the same baggage for instance but Education Scotland is tasked with evaluating a school in all aspects of the duties that they have to deliver and it will be interesting to watch how their practice in inspecting schools evolves and how they evaluate family learning and family engagement that certainly will be one to watch I'm just going to grieve you my parents and teachers sometimes don't get on but that may have been me as a parent but anyway can I just thank you all three of you for what you said earlier on about governance because I think you've been very helpful on trying to clarify where the lines of accountability are so I guess I've got one final question convener and that is that I very much understand from your evidence today where local authorities sit and where now your west regional collaborative sit what's the point of Education Scotland in all this what will they add to your party? I do think that Education Scotland has a role to play in this and we have a national picture that we don't necessarily have and we'll be able to identify where there is practice and opportunity to learn from elsewhere in the country Thank you very much then that takes us to the end of this and I thank you all for the evidence you've given today and I hope we will stay for the informal discussions on their forums and that is the end of the formal meeting thank you again