Partnership Schools - what have we learnt?

The first year of Partnership Schools Scotland (PSS) has been full of exciting ideas and activities as well as challenges – for us they are an opportunity to learn and find new ways of approaching the work ahead. 

When there is talk of disengaged parents many people often think of those families who live in deprived areas or have chaotic lives - maybe those living with substance abuse, for example.  But we’ve learned that’s not always the case; there are parents who do not get personally involved with their child’s education but are happy to pay for tutors to provide extra support and then blame the school for not doing their job!

In one school we met parents who were initially very cautious about getting involved with Partnership Schools: they were happy for the school to take the lead as they know best.  After working with PSS, these parents are taking the lead on Golden Time activities and have been successful in implementing a No Smoking rule at the school gates.  It’s been great to see parents growing in confidence and having a sense of achievement.

We’ve also learned that the connection with the School Improvement Plan, a critical part of Partnership Schools, is indeed critical and we’re working hard right now to make sure our teams are working on their plans for next year as part of the improvement planning process.

Our other major piece of learning is that active involvement of the local authority improvement team is an important part of the jigsaw, supporting the schools and helping to keep the focus strong at local level.

You can find out more about Partnership Schools Scotland on our website.

Or you can contact Partnership Development Officer Eleanor Coner at eleanor@sptcinfo

Named Person - why we're opposed

There has been a lot in the papers and elsewhere this last week or two about Named Person, including some good analysis of the issues, but also inevitably some rubbish has been written!

SPTC and a diverse range of other organisations have opposed the introduction of the Named Person. It’s not always been a popular stance but it’s one that we believe is right and reflects the feedback we have had from parents.

We have read all the consultation documents, the various drafts of Guidance, the Bill and its amendments very carefully, but we have been consistently worried about NP. There are a number of reasons for that:

• the place of the child within the context of his or her family is mostly ignored. We believe that leads to a context which sees families as being in deficit or even a risk. This is reflected in the consultation responses from many of the Children’s charities. For the most part they deal with families – and children – who are having difficulties or are in crisis. That is their world view, and understandable, but it is not representative (thank goodness) of the majority of children and families. Most families are trying to raise their children as best they can and have their children’s health and happiness at the top of their priorities.
• it places the state where parents should be. If a school teacher or a health professional has worries about a 15 year old, the first point of contact should be the parent(s) because, legally, they are responsible for that young person. Under NP, the first point of contact will be the health worker or teacher who is the NP.  

Read our news roundup on Named Person

This legislation obliges families to rely on the judgement of every professional to use and share the information they have about a young person or family in a discerning way. That covers the GP who may treat any member of the family, who will be obliged to share information with the NP if they feel it is relevant. Or the school nurse who has a conversation with a teenager, or a youth worker who sees signs of issues. 

We believe there is a fundamental right to confidentiality in a conversation between an individual and their GP, for instance. It should only be where there is clear evidence of potential harm that this confidentiality should be breached, and even then the situation should be explained to those involved.

The new Act also lowers the bar a great deal: where professionals previously were obliged to act where they judged there was risk of harm, we are now in a position where information can be shared – with or without permission – where they have concerns about the child’s wellbeing.  This is so woolly that we are concerned the judgement will too often be to share information ‘just in case’.

The impact of this could well be that families and young people don’t ask for help when they need it, because they don’t want information to be shared. This is particularly true for teenagers of course, where there is already a difficult balance between the rights of the young person and the responsibilities of parent.

Read our survey of parents' opinions on Named Person

A lot of the coverage has focused on the cases over the last few years where children have suffered neglect, abuse or been killed by their parents. The suggestion is that NP will stop these things happening in the future. We believe this is dishonest, firstly because the average head or guidance teacher does not have the time to do this, and also because there is another role – identified in the Guidance but not in the legislation – which has the potential to make a difference:

Where a child needs different services to be co-ordinated to support them or their family (health, social work, housing for instance) they will have a Lead Professional who will be responsible for doing that. According to the Guidance, the NP will hand over the responsibility to this person (except where they also take on the Lead Professional role because they come from the primary service, ie the one that gives the most support).

In each of the tragic cases that keep being highlighted, had the NP scheme been in place, there would have been a Lead Professional whose very difficult job would be to work across authority and health board boundaries if necessary, with a wide range of services, to make sure the child did not slip between the cracks of different services and that each service is actually doing what is required.

It's the Lead Professional who has the potential to make a difference to what happens in the lives of the children whose lives are blighted by parents or other adults who neglect or abuse them, not the Named Person.  In our view the Government should focus its energies on resourcing this role (which is of course another issue, as resources in each and every local authority and public service are under increased pressure due to shrinking budgets).

The government says parents asked for the Named Person as someone who could co-ordinate the various services they need for their child: we would argue that the Lead Professional is the role that meets this need, not the NP.

Find out more about the No To Named Person campaign here

Finally, the process in place to handle complaints is much like the standard complaints process against local authorities. In other words, it is slow, lacks teeth and is deeply unsatisfactory for families. SPTC was asked what kind of complaints process we would like to see: our response was that it should be local, quick and use a dispute resolution rather than a complaints model. The government chose to do the exact opposite.

We know, because families tell us, that local authority complaints processes are slow and unsatisfactory: families are left with a judgement but no real solution (even if they win).  It's a disgrace and against the interests of children and families.

'Success for children and young people - the role of parents and employers' - SPTC Lecture and AGM 2016

Thanks to everyone who attended our AGM and lecture last Tuesday! Your attendance made the event a great success and we enjoyed meeting some new faces as well as letting you know about our plans for the next year. Thanks also to the wonderful Liz Cameron OBE, Chief Executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, who delivered a stirring speech on Developing the Young Workforce and what we need to do to help young people in Scotland be the best they can be. And thanks to Joan Mackay, Education Scotland's Assistant Director of Children and Families, who moderated our discussion after the lecture - a discussion that heavily centered around gender issues in education - very appropriate for International Women's Day!

You can listen to the lecture on Radio Edutalk, as well as reading feedback from the event and seeing some photos from the night. 

Feedback from attendees

What more could SPTC do for your Parent Council/Organisation?

• Set a fire under PC’s to act in support of schools
• Provide training/workshops on effective PC organisation and activities
• Focus on citizenship/activism to help challenge injustices, e.g., gender & economics etc.
• Set the educational Agenda, rather than just react to Scottish Government priorities.

What will you take forward with your Parent Council/Organisation?

• Get parents to use their employer/employee role to support the school and young people
• Parents to get involved with local authority and government as well
• Get PC to be more proactive on issues like gender
• Encourage schools to make more connections with local businesses
• Need to continue to look at why gender segregation still exists in 2016.  And take urgent steps to change this.
• Work with Academy Senior Management Team to engage with a wider range of parental voices / opinions using a range of communications techniques.

What did you find useful this evening?

• Scottish Chambers of Commerce vision of working with Developing the Young Workforce
• Hearing about partnerships with parents, business, education etc and the importance of IT in every workplace.

Update on Named Person

There's been lots in the news recently about the Named Person initiative, the Scottish Government’s plan to introduce a single named professional for every child in Scotland. The BBC has this handy guide to the ins and outs of the scheme, including criticisms and concerns of the proposal. 

This week the official challenge against Named Person is being heard at the Supreme Court. The case is being brought by three individuals and the Christian Institute, Family Education Trust, The Young ME Sufferers ("Tymes") Trust and Care (Christian Action Research & Education). You can read more on the BBC website and the Herald Scotland. If you fancy a longer read then Dr Stuart Waiton from the University of Abertay has written an article about what the introduction of Named Person means for parenting in Scotland. Read his piece here. 

As you may know we have been vocal with our concerns about the Named Person. When we surveyed parents in 2013, we found that 74% of the respondents were not happy with the idea of a named person. We still remain concerned about the threats to the human rights of families, to their privacy and also around breaches of data protection laws as confidential information about children and parents is passed between public bodies.

You can read about the work we've done on the Named Person, including our survey and report on our website.

We would strongly welcome your opinions on this topic - whether you view Named Person as a positive or negative development, please let us know what you think! If you don't want your comment to be published then please email at sptc@sptc.info

You can find out more about the No to Named Person Campaign on their website.

Scottish Modern Apprenticeships - what about women in STEM?

A blog post from Talat Yaqoob, Director, Equate Scotland

Scottish Modern Apprenticeship week gives us an opportunity to highlight the fantastic alternative routes into careers that young people have open to them. Often there is an assumption that our young people only have a set route into work; from school to university to a job, but in an ever changing economy and workforce, there is no longer a set way, there are more routes into a successful future than ever before.

Modern Apprenticeships give young people an insight into industry whilst being trained and in the majority of cases (almost 70% for people aged 16-21) pursue a job with the same company after completion. But there are many myths around what modern apprenticeships involve and who they are for. Modern apprenticeships are for everyone, they are not for those less academically able, they are not only for boys and they do not always involve some form of manual labour – modern apprenticeships are as diverse as Scotland’s young people, we should view them as a door to opportunity.

At Equate Scotland we work to support girls and women to pursue and progress in the science, engineering and technology (STEM) industries. Modern apprenticeships are a great way for young women to consider a STEM career, but despite efforts, women are still lagging behind the boys in technology, construction and engineering. In the last 3 months less than 1% of construction apprentices were women.

You might think this isn’t a big deal, maybe women just aren’t interested in science or construction but it’s not that simple. From a young age, girls are given messages to tell them these industries are not for them. From being gifted a toy hoover over a toy tractor, from boys being encouraged to pursue physics in secondary school and girls encouraged to focus on biology, we subconsciously tell them what their ambitions should be. It has been this way for generations. But as the workforce changes, this channelling of ambition is actually cutting young women off to the jobs of tomorrow.

We need 140,000 more engineers in Scotland by 2020 and yet only 8% of engineering students are women. By changing the conversations we have with girls and young women, we can change this and give them the full choice of opportunities they deserve. We can make the most of their talents and ambitions. This is where you as parents are so vital as parents are one of the biggest influencers in a young person’s life! According to a study by Target Jobs in 2014, over half of students stated their parents influenced their subject choices and even more interestingly, 66% of students felt it was right for their parents to discuss choices with them and influence their decisions.

By parents, educators and supporters talking about alternative routes into a careers and particularly, by talking to girls about the possibility of having a science, engineering or technology based career we can change the face of STEM in Scotland and let our daughters know that there is no limit to their ambition.

Talat Yaqoob, Director, Equate Scotland

You can find out more about Modern Apprenticeships and how to get in touch with Equate Scotland on their leaflet for parents