I welcome everyone to the third meeting of the Education and Culture Committee in 2015. I remind everybody present to ensure that all electronic devices, particularly phones, are switched off. They do interfere with the sound system and they are also an interruption if they do ring. I move on to item 1 on the agenda this morning on curriculum for excellence. This parliamentary session of the Education and Culture Committee has held a number of meetings on CFE and the progress that is hopefully being made. One of the most significant changes to Scottish education, I think that we would all agree in recent years. It's important certainly to not only to this committee in the Parliament but also parents, peoples and I'm sure teachers to ensure that we're making satisfactory progress. Can I also at this stage thank those members of the public who responded to the online request for questions and submissions? We've had some and I'm sure members may pick up one or two of those as we go along. Today's meeting is specifically to look at the implementation of the new higher qualifications, but we'd also like to discuss some of the other topical CFE issues as we go along. Can I welcome this morning Graham Logan from Education Scotland, Larry Flanagan from the EIS, Jane Peckham from the National Association of School Masters Union of Women Teachers, Dr Janet Brown from the SQA and Robert Macmillan from the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association. Welcome to all of you this morning. Obviously it's like a large panel, I will reiterate that not everybody has to answer every question. I do try. You don't always respond that well to that particular comment, but hopefully if somebody has covered it then I would appreciate if you don't have to and please don't. However, if you get something to add then by all means let me know and we'll get you in. Members I know have a number of questions this morning, but I'm going to start off with Mary Scanlon. We have a significant amount of evidence here today. I couldn't help reading the one from Mary Erskine in this curriculum. It's far from excellent. I think that Jeane Brody couldn't have put it better herself. We've still got the problems running through bog down with bureaucracy and assessment, teachers being stressed and a bit of a patchwork solution, but to be fair we are where we are and we have to look forward at certainly what I would want to do on behalf of pupils. Looking forward, my main concern would be the articulation between the new hire and the advanced hire, or I should really say the articulation between the old hire and the new advanced hire. Although 45 per cent of pupils this year are doing the old hire, if you look at the STEM subjects and we took evidence on that last week, biology, physics and chemistry, those doing the new hire 40 per cent 39 and 38 per cent. My concern is does doing the old hire put pupils at a disadvantage that they've suddenly got to jump in to the new hire because the new advanced hire, because I understand that there's not going to be any postponement or any choice next year. My understanding is that everyone must do the advanced hire, but throughout the papers that we've got today, from head teachers, principal teachers and others, there is an underlying concern about pupils having done the old hire this year and having to jump next year at such a critical time of their learning. I'm looking for an assurance about what you're doing there. We respond to what's happening and where we are with it, and then I'll come to Larry. I think firstly to say that there's been extensive engagement with teachers to create support materials around the new hire advanced hire courses, and those will all be published online in March. There is subject specific support in all areas as well to support that. The sciences that Ms Scanlon mentioned in particular have had an enhanced package of support, so the online service there in Globe for Sciences has been our most popular teacher sharing their materials. There's collaborative writing networks where teachers are getting together to write materials and to support one another. Our subject specialists have been looking at the content of both the existing and the new hire and the articulation to the advanced hire to see how the content compares, how the learner progression also articulates and then providing further guidance to the schools there as well. There will be no disadvantage for children who are sitting hires this year, because remember the quality of a hire, the standard of the hire is a hire, whether it's existing or new, and in fact teachers have made a local professional decision as to which course to pursue. That's very much in line with the spirit of curriculum for excellence, and we also know that our teachers are very skilled at planning progression and are looking very closely at the content of courses. In the case of sciences, everyone recognised that the content needed to be updated quite significantly, and that has happened. There is a huge amount of additional support in that area to support teachers to make that change. The whole nature of advanced hire is very different. It's pre-university learning. At that level, young people are studying largely independently. There's a lot more investigative skills, all the skills that they've been developing through curriculum for excellence. They'll be able to use and apply at that level. Remember the numbers of young people, much smaller numbers, doing that. The schools work together through local consortias and so on to deliver advanced hires. I think that a big emphasis and focus from the SQA and ourselves to support the transition from hire to advanced hire, whether it's the existing course or the new course. I've heard about the help and support before, but if I just read out a short statement from the chair of Madras College St Andrews, Parent Council, we've been given to understand that, in many subjects, the old hires do not articulate well with the new advanced hire. It's just a little bit more. Will those who have done the old hire be a disadvantage doing the new advanced hire? That runs through the briefing papers that we've got today. We can't turn the clock back, but we could surely learn lessons to help and support. These schools are worried about it, so we should be worried, too. That's why there's a huge amount of additional support going in to look at the progression from existing or new hire to advanced hire. That's where all the energy and all the support is going, to look at how the content progresses and compares. That's why we're producing materials that teachers are writing themselves and we're supporting that. That's where there's a really clear focus to make sure that young people aren't disadvantaged, to look at the lines of progression, subject-specific lines to provide additional support. We know, as I say, that teachers are very skilled in doing that, but all available support is going to look at the articulation. You would acknowledge that they are worried, as of today. Hopefully, that will come forward, but, as of today, the evidence that we have today is worried. A small number of schools have responded, and they are anxious because teachers want to do their best. Last year, we were in a similar situation with the introduction of the new nationals. We're in the middle of a series of headteacher events that we've seen in the last week, about 600 secondary heads and deputes, and we'll see the remaining over the next two weeks. We'll have seen every secondary headteacher in Scotland to look at the support that's available, to look at those issues. In fact, we've got headteachers showcasing and sharing the ways that they're going around planning for progression. Remember, that's an area that teachers in Scotland are very skilled at doing, planning progression from one qualification to the next, or through curriculum for excellence levels. You will ensure that those who did the old higher... Rather than having a conversation between the two of you, I want to bring in some of the other members of the panel, and I'll come back to you, Mary, Larry and then Janet. Jeane Brodie was quite a reactionary educational thinker, just as a passing comment. I think that in relation to this year, one of the points that we'd be keen to stress is that the decision by the Cabinet Secretary, the previous Cabinet Secretary, to allow schools to choose between the revised old higher and the new CFE higher. Has actually been crucial to ensuring that we have a relatively stable situation in schools. Once that decision was made, we immediately raised our concern that, therefore, logically, there should be the same ability to defer between the existing advanced higher and the new advanced higher, partly because of the issues of articulation. Although there would be a debate around how well all the current advanced higher articulate with higher, because they are a different type of qualification. However, the big issue for us, I think, is that there is a workload issue around developing a new course. If 45 per cent of departments have deferred on the current higher, that means that next year they will be delivering for the first time the new CFE higher. The idea that, alongside that, they also have to deliver the new advanced higher to me just creates an additional workload problem and a capacity issue. There are a number of reasons why schools have deferred in terms of the CFE higher this year. Some of it is to do with content change, but a lot of it is to do with workload, because a lot of schools this year are concentrating on learning the lessons of national 4 and national 5 last year. The last time we were here, we recognised that there had been a challenging agenda and a number of revisions in terms of how options were presented to pupils and so forth had to be looked at. The workload concerns that we had raised last year around national 4 and national 5, which I think we are generally acknowledged. We have not particularly abated this year around the higher, because even where people are delivering the old higher, they are reviewing the broad general education S1 to S3 and its articulation with national 4 and national 5, the review of national 4 and national 5. SQA has helped to streamline the verification process, but there is still a lot of concern that there is over-assessment around national 4 and national 5, just in terms of the unit assessments. There is no evidence coming to us from our members that the workload pressures of last year have abated in any view sense. It is in that context, I think, that we are concerned that the option around deferring the new advanced higher for a further year to articulate with any decisions that are made this year is not being presented. We recognise that that represents a challenge for SQA, because it has planned to turn off the tap in relation to the old advanced higher this year. However, I think that the consequence will be, if there is no option around that, that because of the workload pressures and the staffing pressures that are on in terms of school timetables, a lot of schools will just drop the advanced higher. It is already under huge pressure to run an advanced higher class. You are normally looking for between 10 and 20 pupils for a viable class. Advanced higher has already been dropped in a whole range of subject areas. In Glasgow, kids have to go to university on Wednesday afternoon to sit on advanced higher because they cannot get viable classes in the schools. So, the danger here is not that people will push ahead with advanced higher and take on board the workload pressure. I think the danger is that they will turn away from it and advanced higher will be marginalised in terms of being on offer in our secondary schools. I have got a number of members. I am presuming by their specific supplementaries on what has just been said. I will come back to me in a second. I am bringing them very quickly supplementaries. Good morning. I wonder, just on the basis of what we had, this is a major step change, as we all know, in education. I wonder if, Dr Brown, we have a quote from you saying that the first year is always difficult. The second year will be better. Is not the case of the programme in your experience that that is exactly where we are, that the first year is difficult, the second year will be better and better still? I think what we are seeing and what Larry and Graham have articulated is that, in terms of the first year of any qualification, there is always an understanding developed during the course of running that qualification and understanding how it operates. That lesson has been learned during the course of this year. If you taught to teachers that the temperature seems to be a lot cooler than it was, I am not saying that it is cold, I am not saying that there are challenges, but I am saying that there is more of an understanding of what the nature of the change is. The questions are much more concise and we are able to address some of them through some of the support that is being undertaken, either by us or by other bodies. I would stand by that statement that says that the very first year is always difficult of any change, I think, in anything. Understanding and seeing and going through the process makes people able to articulate their questions in a better way, enables people to be able to respond to those questions and put in place changes, such as the change to verification that we undertook as a result of really looking at what do we still need to do to maintain standards, but what have we learned from the first round that enables us to take a different sampling regime and has changed the approach that we are undertaking this year, where we are actually, in this first round, we are not doing verification, we are actually doing training, which will allow those teachers to go back into the system to train others and we are using candidate exemplification, candidate material to be able to do that training. We have learned, the teachers have learned, other people have learned. I think that this year is more manageable, I think. I think that the work pressure is still a challenge, but I think that people know what they are doing, including us. Graham Logan, given that circumstance, in your report, we talked about the range of activities including challenging over bureaucratic approaches found during inspection, and local authorities are taking forward actions in the working group's report on tackling bureaucracy. Can you perhaps give an example of a particular, I mean, I've got your report here and I won't ask you about the outcomes on that in a minute, but again, in any new, in a major programme like this, that one could say, well, you know, all of the bureaucratic wrinkles should have been taken out at the beginning. It never works that way in any major project. How is that progressing? Can you give an example? Yes, absolutely. I mean, we're seeing significant progress with tackling bureaucracy. As you say, initially, teachers want to do their best so that they're looking in depth at approaches to planning and assessing, but the report was very clear that we need to challenge that to prioritise time for teaching and learning. So, you know, some of the IT systems, for example, we've been looking at and we've been sporting schools to streamline those and clarify and simplify what they've been doing in inspections. We had a primary school recently in Dundee, for example, where there was a main point for action to reduce the amount of time teachers are spending with planning and assessment systems so that they can focus on learning and teaching. Each local authority in Scotland has given a response about how they are taking forward the recommendations of the report and we're monitoring that through our team of area lead officers. We're also really helping to simplify and clarify what teachers need to do. So, route maps through assessment, for example, give teachers a sequence list of the key documents they need to consult in order to plan and assess young people's progress and they've been used extensively across Scotland. We've got a new key curriculum support website, which highlights the key support and advice for teachers when they have time for planning and assessment. Finally, we've recently published significant aspects of learning in each curriculum area, which in one side of A4 summarise the key steps of progression in each curriculum area. There's still work to do to challenge unnecessary bureaucracy, but we've seen significant progress and we continue to work together to make sure that that does improve. It was supposed to be a supplementary, Mr Hambrody. Let's gladly bring in Robert and Jane at this stage. They've been waiting to come in, so Robert. It's just a quick point in terms of the echo some of the things that Larry was saying and also to some example of Janet said. There can be all sorts of material published to support teachers, but the challenges that they face, as well as spinning all the plates they have to do in a day-to-day basis, is first of all accessing that information, making sense of it, and having an impact in terms of their practice and what they do. When I had a look last night at Education Scotland's website and just in terms of one page in terms of learning, teaching and assessment, there's about 20 different links to things that you could be looking at in terms of just improving your practice. If we look as a subject specialist in terms of the SQA's resources and support, it's a similar picture. People don't have the time to assimilate all of these things. That's partly why there's a fear in terms of the change in why people are hesitant moving forward. Also in terms of some of the changes that have taken place, teachers traditionally would have time during the study leave period after Easter when many of their senior pupils would be away undertaking exams, and that traditionally would be a time where people would be able to come together to plan what they were doing, to undertake some of the work that they were doing, but that time has been taken away because a huge cohort in some schools in terms of national four candidates don't have external exams, so schools or authorities are making arrangements to work with those pupils on other things. Again, those pupils have to be taught, those pupils have to be looked after, so the time that teachers would ordinarily have to come together has been taken away from there. There's a pressure in terms of workload, but that is made worse and much more of a greater pressure because people are having to do so much. Esquire and ourselves share a concern over those subjects whereby traditionally and currently they're being taught by very small departments or a single teacher delivery, and the pressure on those teachers is huge at a time when local authorities have taken away advisors, have taken away subject support centrally, and so many of the pressures that perhaps could be relieved have actually been taken away and are becoming much more of a constraint on people. How we work through that is actually going to be very challenging over the period ahead. It was just a point in terms of the tackling bureaucracy issues. A huge amount of work has gone into reviewing how the first year went to reducing all the bureaucracy and needless work that's being done. We've been in full support of that, but it's still not translating to the classroom at the moment. The concern that we have is that it's taking a long time to translate the recommendations from those two working groups down to the classroom. We're currently doing some research into just how quickly the local authority responses are being understood and recognised at school level because the evidence that we have from members at the moment is that it's not, in fact, impacting positively in the way that it should be. I know that the CFRE management board is looking again at this and how the message can be strengthened, but I think that it would be wrong to just tick that box and say, well, we've dealt with bureaucracy, let's move on. Thank you.  Just my final question, convener. It was just to say that we don't want to not take any evidence today from parents, so I think that it's only fair to read out a comment from the National Parent Forum for Scotland and it would relate to the SQA website. It may well be that there are plans to update the information, but it is unfortunate that there's nothing currently available. As many parents will be looking for this now, as prelims are under way in many schools, parents will be looking for this information now to support their children to revise in April. Despite all your warm words, parents out there are looking for some information, some guidance, some advice. Every parent wants to do the best for their children, nothing available. Can I just add on my final question so that you could answer it at the same time? I have no doubt that you watched or heard the evidence session last week from the learned societies about the STEM, the lack of teachers, the reduction in teachers. I don't need to go over all the information, but Colin Beattie and I were in Inverness yesterday with the Public Audit Committee, and we were taking evidence about the shortage of doctors in the afternoon, convener, but one of the problems was the lack of qualifications to get into Scottish medical schools, so there is a further implication of this, particularly in remote and rural areas. A, is there such a shortage of teachers in the science, computing and maths subjects? We've got a comment here. I know a lot of teachers chucking in the towel, and CFE is the reason. Is there a shortage of teachers? I saw you last night on Newsnight, Larry. I think that you said that Murray is the tip of the iceberg. In my lifetime, I've never heard of schools having to close and send pupils home due to a lack of teachers. I'm seriously concerned about that, but also about the STEM subjects in particular. If it's a problem in Murray, goodness knows what it's like in north-west Sutherland and some of the islands, so looking forward, just if you could answer that question, and also on the SQA website, because despite what you're saying, parents are desperately looking for support, and according to the briefing that we've got, it's not there. The particular point that you were raising from the parents submission was around the exam practice papers. In any new qualification, unfortunately, there are no past papers, because no papers have been produced over time. What we have done in terms of hires, for instance, this year, is added as a result of all the feedback that we've got and an additional exemplar higher paper for every subject. As part of that exemplification, it helps teachers to be able to build their own question papers using past questions from previous... Don't mention papers, paragraph 2.4. They do not mention that they want a list of past papers. They are asking for clear, easily accessible information. They are just asking for information. Okay, let me just clarify then. Sorry, I had obviously mis-remembered that, but just to finish that point, we have published previous questions from previous papers that fit in the new curriculum for excellence qualifications, so that enables teachers to have a broader set of work to undertake, which then can also be used by parents and by candidates themselves as examination practice. In terms of communication to parents in general, there's been a very, very strong collaboration with the National Parent Forum. We meet with them on a regular basis. We talk through with them. We provide specific information either through ourselves or through Education Scotland for parents on what the new qualifications mean, what the changes as a result of curriculum for excellence have resulted in, and that communication has gone out either through the website or through leaflets to individual, through the schools to parents, or I think last year, I actually sent out a flyer to every single student who was undertaking qualifications last year, so we are trying as much as we can to make sure that parents are fully aware of the changes. Not only parents as well, but also employers who are looking to see these students come out of the schools and need to understand what the qualifications mean to them. I want to come in on this. Briefly, as I can, convener, just very quickly first of all, Graham said that attacking bureaucracy we were making significant progress. I'm sorry, I have to disagree with Graham. The attacking bureaucracy working group met in this building last week, and its conclusion was that, whilst the key messages in the report are the correct messages, the progress has been patchy at best. In fact, the group is looking to relaunch the key messages in order to try and make the significant progress that Graham is alluding to. In relation to Mary's point, although the question wasn't directly around practice papers, one of the concerns that I think the national parent forum have expressed is the fact that, as parents, they are looking for practical ways to support their children preparing for the exams. I think that they do reference the fact that there's an absence of practice papers. I don't accept Janet's proposal that you can't have practice papers until after the exams, because in a different timeframe you would pilot the exams and you would produce exemplification for schools. If you look at, on page 33 of your documents, the bottom paragraph, SQA is saying that next year they will provide full exemplification for the new hire and will do the same the following year for advanced hire. That's a year too late. That's a year after the exams have actually been implemented. The last time we were all here, we did press for SQA to produce at least four practice papers in each subject area. I know that they have a 100 per cent increase on national 4 and national 5 in that there are two rather than one this year, and there have been some useful additional questions produced. I was back at my old school last week and I took the chance to speak to some higher pupils. They were remarkably sanguine about the whole process, but the key point that they made was that they feel that they lack practice in exam technique. Although there are questions from past papers that they can use as coursework, their prelims came as a shock to them having to do an exam paper in a time circumstance. The difficulty is that there is limited resource there in terms of SQA because we have two practice papers on the website. If you use one as a practice and one as a prelim, you have used up your resource. One of the things that the Scottish Government could helpfully do here is provide some additional funding to schools in terms of their per capita budgets. In the run-up to national 4 and national 5, might Russell release £1 million to schools per capita budgets in order to allow schools to buy textbooks for pupils who are moving into national 4 and national 5. When will it last, we talked about the fact that a lot of the commercial products have been put on hold to allow for the final changes to be made to the hires. Most of that material is now available, most of it became available in the autumn, but any department in a school to buy a full set of textbooks would use up almost its entire per capita. If you are looking for a practical step that would help young people who are sitting in the new hires, I would suggest that the Scottish Government could fund at least one textbook for all those pupils so that they can build towards them. It is replicating what was done last time in national 4 and national 5. On the final point, convener, on the STEM subjects, I read with interest the comments that I made last week. I do not think that the comments on science subjects and maths had as much purchase in Scottish terms as they do in UK terms. A lot of that research was largely based upon England, but I do think that there is an issue, and the Murray scenario does highlight it, that teaching is becoming a less attractive job option for a lot of graduates who are aware that wages have slipped, that workload is there, that stress levels are high. In our survey last year, only one in two of our members said that they would recommend teaching as a profession. If teachers are not advocating teaching as a work well profession, I think that that reflects the amount of pressures that there is in the system. Certainly, we are keen for the Scottish Government to conclude an agreement with COS around protecting teacher numbers, because that at least gives out a message that this is a priority for the Scottish Government and for local government. There are a lot of members, and I am sure that panel members also want to come in here. If I remember rightly, you were on Scotland 2015 last night, Larry. I heard you say that you made those comments, the same ones that you just made just now. Are there any vacancies? Are we short of applicants for teacher training at the moment? Have we got a teacher training course that has fewer people in it than we have places available? No, and I think that one of the things that the Scottish Government has usefully done is that through the teacher workforce planning group, the number of student probationary places in the north-east in Aberdeen has been increased in the hope that it will attract more local applicants—it is not an absolute—but in the hope that it will attract more local applicants who might be more inclined to stay in the north-east and address some of the shortages. There is no shortage of applications to teacher training. The difficulty is that there is no tracking system for where those teachers go after they have finished their probation year. There is clear evidence—if you look at the numbers—that we are training people who are then not going into the profession. That is where we have raised with the Scottish Government the need to track where some young people head off to teach abroad as part of their life plan, and a number head down to England. We are training teachers who are not actually seeing them materialise in the system. There is an issue there. It is not around the numbers that are applied to college or being enrolled in college. It is actually translating that group into teachers in our classrooms, because there is definitely slippage there. It is quite significant. The point is that it is clearly still attractive for young people to apply to go through teacher training. Young people have always gone abroad or down south. I know that teachers who have come from down south are abroad to teach here, so that has always been the case. There may be particular issues that I accept around the current situation with workload, but I am concerned that we are giving perhaps unintentionally an impression that there is no demand for teacher training. That is not true, is it? I think that there is a demand for teacher training. I think that young people are still looking at it. The bigger issue, I think, is translating that training into teachers working in our schools. Okay, I get the point now. There are a number of the panel members. Janet, I know that you wanted to come in, and Graham, and Robert, and possibly Jane, but let Janet. I think that just on the support for STEM subjects in general, I think that that is one area that we recognise that we play a significant part in, and we are very involved in putting on CPD for science because of the significant changes that have occurred, because the curriculum moves so much faster in science. What I learned as a physics graduate is not what people are learning as physics graduates now, so I think that that is one thing. I think that the other area that teachers get really strong support from are the learners' societies. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has done a lot of work in terms of chemistry, in terms of computing, and the Institute of Physics is very heavily involved in supporting physics teachers in Scotland. I think that the plan C activity that has been funded through Scottish Government for developing computing teachers is very positive. Again, it is about making sure that that touches every teacher because there has been a significant and should be a significant change in the nature of the science learning that is going on in schools because of the fast-moving pace that happens in those subjects. Graeme MacDonald, I want to go back to Ms Scanlon's point about parents. I just wanted to draw your attention on page 78 to the survey results from Education Scotland questionnaires, which are a national sample of schools across the full country. At parental satisfaction with education, you can see that 91 per cent agree or strongly agree that they are happy with the school. 77 per cent agree or strongly agree that the school keeps them well informed about children's progress. We have seen very high and positive trends. Just to go back to the national parent forum for Scotland, we work really closely with them, as Janet was saying. For example, we have collaborated to produce nutshells, so nationals on nutshell, higher on nutshell, which is really clear, simple advice about the content of courses and where young people and parents can seek revision material. Again, that has been positively received and very well used. I think that we also need to keep encouraging schools and local authorities to communicate with parents as much as possible. Of course, parents get most of their information from talking with their own teachers, but there is certainly an extensive programme to communicate and to support parents with revision. The STEM subjects are a major priority for us in terms of training support. For example, we are working with CERC on mentoring. We have 240 primary mentors trained. There is extensive support. Janet mentioned work with the Royal Society of Edinburgh. For example, Jeremy Scott helped to write the national 4 and 5 computing science materials. There is extensive collaboration across the system, and there is more work to continue to do. First, in terms of the production of additional specimen question papers, a lot of teachers have welcomed that. Colleagues, for example, in RNPS, have been concerned that the second new specimen question paper changed the goalpost in terms of what looked likely to be in the exam. As a result of that, the RNPS teachers have come together and have written formulae to SQA about their concerns on that. Secondly, in terms of the support, I was looking at publishers' information yesterday for a range of subjects, some of the support materials that I think are the sorts of things that parents would be looking to purchase to support their children are either unpublished just now or, for the current higher, are being published next month or April or in May, just at the same time as pupils are actually undertaking the examinations themselves. In terms of some of the wider issues, colleagues in my union have concerned in the north-east about pupils undertaking higher courses where they have not actually had a science specialist teacher. The only way that the school and the teachers can work around that is through study support. Purples are coming into school on a Saturday and they are seeking to get colleagues in from other schools because they simply do not have a subject specialist in one of the science subjects. There is also the wider issue in terms of attracting people to the north-east. One of my former colleagues who was a probation with me got a full-time permanent post in Aberdeen. She is looking to move south because she simply cannot afford to stay there and is looking to try and get a job in the central belt because of the cost of living there. All of the sorts of things, all of the pressures that we have spoken about are the sorts of things that have an impact on whether someone is considering having a career in teaching. Yes, there are so many benefits and so many wonderful opportunities that we have as teachers—maybe I am alone in that because I am the only teacher here—but the constraints that people are facing just now make that an extreme barrier. Members of the panel this morning have spoken about teachers workload and, indeed, some of the submissions that we have got here refer to that. I recall in previous sessions that we have had that discussion. Has anyone ever tried to quantify by way a breakdown of exactly what is contributing to that workload? We have heard bits here and bits there, but I am a layman. You cannot expect me to fully understand what a teacher does and respect what additional work they might be doing on a day to day basis. Is there some sort of breakdown? Is there a way that we can understand the different elements that come together to add to that workload? In terms of a breakdown, what we asked members to do was to record everything that they did in terms of their working hours, their additional things that they did, their preparation and a lot of the bureaucratic stuff that we have talked about before—the data collection, the numerous reports that need to be filled out and recording and so on. We have covered that in previous sessions. The teacher's role is to teach. I think that you have to look at as much of the extra duties—well, not duties because they are not duties—but to remove as much as you can to allow them to focus on that. The preparation for courses increases because it is a new thing. They are having to cover the national fours and ffifes from last year and improve on that. One of the main comments that members have fed back to us recently was the acceptance that there was a lot more available than there had been last year, but that even still something will come out and then the content will change. They are teaching something that is then changing again and so on. It is constantly having to revise what you do, not being able to rely on your skills of well, I have taught this for a few years and I know what I am doing, because everything is changing and having to chase to keep up with it. In order for the new qualifications to be successful, they clearly have to be implemented as well as they can. It is our view that that needs to take time and it needs to be given more time than is available at the moment. There is a danger that if you rush through the one example being the new advanced hire everyone coming to that next year, you will miss a trick somewhere and cause issues further down the line. We are not saying that the workload will always be high because that is the nature of the job, but the evidence that we have at the moment is that more and more is just being piled on without the weeding out of perhaps less important things than we previously thought. As well as all the things that Jane has spoken about, we now have a Government commitment in terms of working towards using data to reduce the attainment gap, with very little consideration as to who will need to be doing the analysis and how that will impact on teachers. The fundamental question that teachers always ask is what do I not to do and very often, whether it is precious from local authorities, precious from headteachers, in terms of their accountability, very few things are actually taken off. I know that Larry spoke previously about when he was in his previous role, his headteacher, saying that we are going to remove things from the improvement plan this year in order to focus on the new qualifications and what should actually be the school's priorities. That is not happening enough in our experience that things are just being added constantly and constantly and whilst people are struggling to try and find their feet, something else is going to come along. We have spoken a lot about implementation of new qualifications. What we have not spoken about are the changes to pedagogy, the changes to teachers' practice, the development of new technology and implementation of new technology and approaching that. All of those things, we are asking teachers to do those things and more and tick all the boxes, complete all the forms that we have always asked them to do. Again, I would echo what Focal said previously, that we are not seeing a reduction now, that if systems are going to be looked at in terms of local authorities tracking and target setting, that is great, but they have a budgetary commitment to that and they have a contract in terms of a system. They cannot suddenly undo that because a bureaucracy report says, we may need to do less of this. It is the actual impact that is not happening in terms of people's daily work, in terms of seeing a reduction in the burdens that are placed on them or the expectations that are placed on them. One of the key elements that came out in terms of implementation of curriculum for excellence, and it is repeated in some of the submissions here, is the question of over-assessment. At the time that it was discussed previously, there seemed to be an indication that that was a one-off that, as more confidence came in about the process, that that would fall away. Therefore, the workload for teachers would drop considerably. Is that the case? If we are talking particularly about the qualifications, that is not the case. The national 4 and national 5 issue was an over-assessment, as a result of pupils having to do national 4 and national 5, where they might have more productively just focused on their national 5 qualification. I am interested in speaking to Diana just before we came in. I said that one of the key issues around the qualifications is that the unit assessment is perceived by teachers as being excessive. One of the key objectives of the senior phase was to reduce the burden of assessment on staff and pupils. That objective has not been achieved because the unit assessments are perceived by teachers as being more laborious than the previous unit assessments that existed around intermediate 1-2 and higher. The intermediate 1-2 and higher assessments were replicated much of what would be in the exam paper, so there was an element of practice around them. The unit assessment that is meant to be in place was that the objective is to get to the point where that is a teacher's professional judgment based upon the class work that is there. The difficulty is that the pressure around the introduction—the timetable around the introduction—has not allowed for schools to assimilate that message or to adopt the periological changes that Robert MacDonald referred to in terms of implementing that. What has happened in schools is that people are looking in nearly all subjects at three unit assessments and trying to factor them in. Unit assessments tend to happen towards the end of a course, because, except for science and maths, content determines the units. In a skills-based course, like English, they tend to come towards the end of the course so that pupils have had the most opportunity to develop their skills. What that leads to in schools—what is happening just now—is that pupils are going in and every second day they are having to do a unit assessment to get through all the unit assessments in all of their subjects. That creates a weariness amongst the pupils, which is not the best preparation for sitting in their exams come May. The reflections group, which reviewed the first year, identified the need to address that objective by reducing the level of assessment that takes place in the course. It is an objective that has not been realised at all. In fact, I would say that the experience of most pupils is that assessment has increased under the new qualification regime, rather than decreased as was intended. What Larry has articulated is probably what is being seen on the ground and was seen on the ground last year. He also said that the aim of the new assessment was to capture the material that students were generating during the course of their work, which would then be able to be used to make sure that they had passed the units. That is the goal and that is the direction of travel. We learned from last year that teachers were trying to assess in a very overstructured way. During the course of this session, the last term, what we did in terms of the verification rounds that we had done last year—we did not do verification, that is what I mentioned earlier—was training on unit assessments. We have focused the nominees that we train that then go out and disseminate that information into the schools. We have worked with them extensively to try and make sure that they understand the approach to unit assessment so that we allow this year to be one in which we move down that road of moving to the point where we are assessing material on an on-going basis and not doing individual assessments for individual outcomes. I will add that, as I mentioned earlier, we are in the middle of a programme of seeing all secondary head teachers across the country and deputes. In fact, this is a key area for discussion. We are seeing some really good practice where schools are looking at assessment hotspots across the year, so by looking across a year group, there are points in the year where children are getting too much assessment, and then they are changing the rhythm of assessment at school level. That is working very well where schools are looking at that. It is all back to the design of the curriculum. At those events, we are showcasing strong practice where schools have updated their assessment policy and strategies based on national advice to significantly reduce the burden of assessment and to get assessment as part of teaching and learning. That is a key aspect of the broad general education from ages 3 to 15. Teachers make overall judgments about children's progress, and that is recognised internationally from the OECD and others. That is a really positive thing, because it is not introducing lots of tests with perverse incentives, but we are investing a lot in building up teachers' confidence to make judgments based on classwork. We see that as a real strength of curriculum for excellence, certainly through those broad general education phases. Of course, we are still supporting teachers to increase their understanding of standards and expectations, and that will continue to be something that we will all be working in partnership to do. Just a couple of supplementaries based on what Colin has been speaking about. We have heard a lot this morning about teachers' workload and the bureaucracy levels and so on. I was struck by one of the comments that is in the submission by James Union. Paragraph 15 says, the union acknowledges the work of the CFE management board working group in this regard, but remains concerned that some local authorities have done very little to action the recommendations of both the tackling bureaucracy and reflections report. Given that these recommendations were published in November 2013, is there any underlying reason that you are aware of of why the recommendations are not being implemented? We are looking at, and as Larry referred to earlier, the group has met again since and realised that. That was part of the point that I made earlier. The recommendations that we all applauded and were part of the negotiation around them. Again, it is with pressures on local authorities from all aspects as well. They have to be emphasised to the point where we have no option but to do this. Until the bureaucracy is reduced and the teachers' workload becomes more manageable, the system will not flow properly. We need to emphasise both the report's recommendations and do a bit of work ourselves along with other agencies to assess. We did get the report from each local authority recently, but the members that we are speaking to in that authority are not aware that this is happening. We have to unpick that a bit more. To local authorities, and presumably some of them are implementing the recommendation, why are some implementing the recommendations that others are not? I think that it is about how much they are attaching the level of importance to it. It has to be strongly emphasised that the levels of workload are unsustainable. We cannot keep asking the profession to keep delivering year on year, because they will do their very best to do it. That is largely the success of national 4s and 5s. We are on the teachers solely delivering what they could do. Just to be clear, some local authorities are choosing not to tackle the levels of bureaucracy. I could not say that they are choosing not to, but perhaps they are not attaching the same level of importance. I think that it depends on the local authority and the work that is going on within that. I think that we would have to ask each local authority that question. I took two rounds of requests before we got replies from all 32 local authorities. There are some good examples of what local authorities have done. Perth and Conross have reduced their development plan to three objectives. It means that they have parked some things that are important, but they recognise that we have to focus on a reduced number of objectives to concentrate on them. If you read through the documents, there are a number of others that caused me to say that I had not seen so much creative writing since I stopped marking higher English. I think that it is a question of priorities. There is no one who is resistant to the idea that we should tackle bureaucracy, but it is a question of priorities. Sometimes people are kind of thorough to the way that they are currently doing things. It takes something to shake that up. What the tackling bureaucracy working group intends to do is to reissue the key messages, but it is going to exemplify from the good practice that has come back from local authorities, here is a practical way in which you can do that in order to try and trigger some action. Where schools had spent time discussing the report, it had the consequence of seeing some progress in tackling the bureaucracy. The key messages are there, but it is this thing about that everybody is overworked from directors down. Everybody is overworked. It is managing to get their attention around whether the agenda is the important agenda. Some authorities have not addressed it as thoroughly as they would have hoped. Some schools have not addressed it as thoroughly as they would have hoped. The relaunch is intended to try to underline those key messages and get some progress on that, because I think that there is a willingness to tackle that. We have made, through the school inspection programme, a very clear expectation that inspectors will look at planning and assessment, and they will challenge any unnecessary bureaucracy. In fact, it has been a main point for action in one school, and it has been mentioned to several others, so there is an absolute commitment to do that. In terms of our own online service, as I mentioned earlier, we will be launching a new website by the end of March, which is streamlining the advice and support to schools trying to illustrate ways in which planning and assessment can be reduced. There are a number of very helpful case studies. In November, we saw about 800 primary practitioners, so around 40 per cent of Scotland's primary school head teachers. Again, a main focus of that conference was reducing bureaucracies that we had head teacher, for example, from Dumfries and Galloway, showcasing how she had significantly reduced teachers' planning to improve time available for teaching and learning. There is a real major national effort to take that forward, and we are seeing progress. We would want to continue through our area lead officers who work with each of the 32 local authorities to increase further the scrutiny around the agenda. Now that we have the statements from the local authorities to really improve the consistency in the way that they are taking the recommendations forward. Again, it is referring to the written evidence that I referred to earlier. Paragraph 10 said, some problems that there is in the result of poor practices that originated in schools. I am just wondering what has been done to address poor practice in schools, about trying to resolve the bureaucracy and what level there is a lack of leadership in what is this situation? I think that it is about exemplifying what is better practice. We have had a number of joint sessions with EIS and Education Scotland where we have looked in practical workshops at schools that are developing good practice. Rather than just saying that this is poor, you are actually saying that we have a different way of doing it, that is going to be more productive. It is about everyone talking to one another because, interestingly, one of the things that the Tally and Biroxy working group identified as one of the key drivers of workload was a system called on-track with learning, which is an IT system that, despite the best intentions around its design, was clearly identified as one of the main drivers of workload because of the capacity. Some of the local authorities in their response indicated that they were reviewing their use of that or streamlining the use of it. Two local authorities in their response actually said that they were targeting Biroxy by introducing on-track with learning. You are saying that there is nobody to talk to one another. This was identified as the problem. Two authorities were saying that here is the solution. The letter is on the way, but it is a thing about sharing the practice so that we are focusing on the things that work rather than making the same mistakes again. We are talking about whether it is in terms of advice to local authorities or schools to reduce bureaucracy, advice to teachers as to how to improve their practice or advice to teachers in terms of supporting pupils. It is the same thing. We need exemplification, we need a shared understanding of what works and what does not work and the time available at all levels for people to share practice with one another. So much of the development opportunities that teachers have are on their own behest, whether it is through online things like pedagoo, a website where teachers collaborate and share their practice with one another. We need to provide every and any opportunity for people to reflect on where they are, and I would echo what Jane said earlier on that, even within a school, having the time for example with the headteacher in the union reps to sit down and say, let's look at this report, let's see what we can do, to then have a discussion within the partners and say, okay, what bureaucracy do we not do? Well, if I'm the headteacher and I want to make sure that I'm quality assured in the work of the school, I'll have bureaucracy that relates to that. Similarly, if a department head wants to do that, so which parts of these things are we going to sacrifice to get to the absolute core of what needs to be done in order that people can get on with the job of teaching and learning to the best of their ability with the best resource that's got available to them? Thank you very much, Shabon. Mr Logan, I heard you talk about the subway results of parents and their experience roughly about schools. You said that you work with the National Parent Forum of Scotland, and they obviously made a submission to us for today. At 2.3, they say that many parents feel that they have not been sufficiently involved in decisions about which hires are being offered, and they do not have enough information about what is happening. Clearly, that's the National Forum saying that, the people that you said that you work with. Given that I've read both the survey results and I've read their submission, it leads me to think that most parents are satisfied with what their school is doing, but they're asking for leadership from those above the school. Would that be correct and central? I think that overall satisfaction rates among parents are very high, as I discussed earlier, and that's evident from the survey results. That's a combination of primary and secondary schools from across Scotland based on a national sample. So, as I was saying earlier, 91 per cent strongly agree or agree that they're happy with the school. 77 per cent also agree or strongly agree that the school keeps them well informed about their child's progress. A main area of focus for us is to work with the National Parent Forum to provide national support and advice around that. I talked about the nutshells and the other work. I think that we've got to recognise that most parents get most of their information from their own school. That's the source that they engage with most. Talking with their own teachers and their own headteachers is really important. The National Parent Forum has a very strong network of local reps who work with parent forums and schools. We all continue to work together to strengthen that and to improve it further. There has been a lot of discussion at school level about which higher course to pursue, whether it's the existing or the new higher. The evidence suggests that teachers have made that decision based on their own local context and their own local circumstances. That's one of the benefits of curriculum for excellence that a lot of decisions are made at local level. That was a decision that was made some time ago. Young people are now most of the way through those courses. There's very much of recognition that all the higher qualifications—remember, we've seen a record number of entries for higher again this year—have the same value and the same currency. On the certificate, it will say higher English. You won't differentiate between the two. The standard of the courses are there, and teachers have made that decision locally based on a whole variety of factors. I'm looking for leadership out with the schools. That was the question. Given that only 40 or just over 40 per cent responded to the survey, that's a cause for concern there. The evidence this morning, we've had an hour and a bit on the new higher, the advanced higher. I'm trying to go further than that, and I'm trying to get to the points of where we should be looking. We should be going to the local authorities and asking for more support there. If 42 per cent of parents are saying that they will respond to a survey and that they think that their schools are doing okay, but the national parent forum is saying that they haven't got the information that they require, then where should the pertinent question be? I think that our strength in terms of leadership that parents are looking for is that the national parent forum or on all the national body groups are on the CFE management board. We work closely with them, so I think that we're always trying to look at new ways of working together to strengthen communication. I think that a lot of progress has been made with communication, but we still will continue to work on that. In your submission on the primary specific support, you mentioned that you worked with 16 local authorities in September to provide primary specific support. I was just wondering why those 16, because there's no information as to why those 16 were chosen. The tailored support for different schools and local authorities comes through requests from our area lead officers who develop a partnership agreement with each council on what it is that they want from us in terms of tailored support for their own local needs. In primary schools, for example, where there hasn't been a positive inspection, there will be a tailored package of support around what that school needs with ourselves and the local authority in order to improve further. The priorities at any point in time for a local authority are based on that partnership agreement and on that discussion about what they need. That's the targeted support, and then there's the universal support that's available to everyone. Is the targeted support what they would make the case to you rather than the other way about? Yes, and the discussion would take place on that absolutely between our area officer and that local authority. That's helpful, thank you. On another subject in the wood commission, we've seen the requirement of careers advice and employers going into school and that drive that will continue over the next few years for schools to implement that through, obviously, the curriculum for excellence, but in other ways as well. I was just wondering, in the careers advice that's on offer, do we think that face-to-face careers advice is best or should we be looking at other approaches? I think that we have discussed this previously. We are certainly concerned at the cuts that are taking place around the careers advice service in schools and the introduction of the traffic light system, where the only guaranteed face-to-face interview is if you are a red on the traffic light system. We acknowledge that there has been a lot of good work done in terms of world of work and the use of online programmes to support young people making their choices, but there is a concern that the service has been cut back to the point where its ability to support the sustained destinations agenda around senior phase and around the woods commission has been slightly marginalized. The woods commission, I think, helpfully builds upon the objectives of the senior phase, particularly in relation to those young people who previously might have disengaged from education. One of the other areas that we have to, I know that you are looking particularly at national higher this morning, but one of the other areas that needs to have some attention paid to it is the group of pupils who, at the end of their broad education, are not looking to do a suite of national qualifications but are perhaps looking at an alternative route. CFE senior phase opens up the possibility for those young people, for example, to transfer their final year of schooling into a college environment or to look at an apprenticeship route as a career avenue. In fact, that was one of the big objectives of the whole senior phase. That has been marginalised in terms of the focus on qualifications. Qualifications are part of the options here as well, but I think that woods potentially might be a catalyst to more attention being paid to that particular agenda around alternatives to the university route, which is where a lot of the debate has been being previously. We are certainly keen to see that develop. The one point that I would make around that is that it is simply a fact that, over the past few years, school, college, liaison budgets have been cut. If we want to build on that aspect of the options for young people, it needs to be funded. I do not want to get a huge debate about this, because we have covered it in a recent full evidence session, but I am more than happy to take views from Janet McLean. In terms of the availability of career counselling, you have to have multiple channels. I think that face-to-face works for some people and my world of work works for others. The whole developing Scotland's young workforce agenda really helps in bringing employers into the school, getting the school engaged with local employers, which in effect broadens the opportunity for kids to be able to know what is going on. In terms of what they do in the senior phase, Larry is absolutely right. CFE is very broad and should be broad and really dovetails well. Taster courses such as skills for work, national courses doing HNCs, HNDs either in the school or with the college is something that is really very positive. The different pathways are very important, but people will only choose different pathways if they know they exist and if they know where it is going to lead them. I think that engagement with local businesses is very, very key to that as well. Mr McLean's question directly. I think that a variety of different approaches work, so yes, face-to-face career coaching is helpful, as Janet McLean was saying, also my world of work. We have to remember that young people's career choices are hugely influenced by their parents and teachers. We are looking at new ways of teachers working together with careers coaches, and we have launched a new model of inspection. We are looking in a local area at the quality of careers information and guidance that is available from all the different partners for young people. That is in a pilot phase just now, but it is intended to improve further the quality of career support that young people get. Just finally, on Mr Lean's point about teachers being influential in careers guidance, given what you have said to Mr McLean this morning about what teachers are required to do, the workloads that are already there, the continuous assessments, etc, etc, did they have the capacity at the minute to take that role? A lot of teachers will be doing that, but we have heard in previous evidence that the capacity to do that might not necessarily be there. Do you think that that is the case in order that the implementation of the Scottish Government's response was in December, so that added to it? Do you think that we have already got the capacity to help with that? I think that it depends, because in some respects it is looking at the links that exist in terms of, say, as Larry said, school college links that are available in terms of that avenue, the opportunities for young people to access a careers advisor, but also the capacity of schools guidance staff in terms of the work that they do, various points in terms of course choice. I think that there are tremendous opportunities and routes to get the information to young people. A number of schools in my experience have looked at developing opportunities in terms of employability. There are a number of schools that are doing a lot of good work with local employers that are a sector leading in terms of what they are doing. The issue and the challenge therefore is how do you spread that to the other schools, because what it is dependent upon is the buy-in from local employers. In terms of my own school, Lloch Eilih, High School and Fife, we have been affected recently as a local employer has just closed with the loss of 180 jobs, the test school and Cercodi is closing again with a loss of nearly 200 jobs. These are the sorts of circumstances where these are the sorts of employers that we will be looking to come into schools to work with our young people, whether it's in terms of interview skills, whether it's in terms of job applications and the sorts of things that we really want to work with them to do. The positive destination might not be there at the end of the day if we don't have the avenues for training, if we don't have the avenues for college places, if we don't have the avenues for all the things that we're doing in schools to lead to a positive destination at the end of the day. I think that that in some respects is where the challenge is, but you're right in terms of your question that there are tremendous constraints on all the agencies and all the agents that are trying to support our young people in making the best career choices and decisions for themselves in the future. Okay, thank you. I've got very little time and I've still got three members who want to come in, so I'm going to have to be quick questions and answers, Chick and then Mark and then George. We talked about communication, and when I listened to some of the answers today and written them down, I questioned how much communication there is at the senior level of achieving our objectives. I mean, Larry says that progress has been patchy, Graham says that things are improving. We hear about some local authorities doing what they're supposed to do, some local authorities not, and there might be a shame and blame mechanism somewhere in there. I just wonder, Mr Logan, based on the Education Scotland implementation plan, are you going to achieve the outcomes that are in there and how much communication have you had with the rest of the body in the working group to ensure that these outcomes are established? Can I suggest that on an a priori basis that you look at these in terms of saying where we can get the biggest bang for our buck in ensuring that local authorities implement those changes that will reduce major elements of bureaucracy as quickly as possible? Are you going to achieve the outcomes? Yeah, I mean, I think it would be worth just remembering that curriculum for excellence is based on a broad national framework which is developed locally, so that's a deliberate design feature that schools and local authorities have more autonomy within that broad national framework to design a curriculum that meets the needs of different groups of young people, and certainly through our inspection programme and other engagement, that's the thing that we look at and we evaluate. What is the story of the curriculum in this area? How have teachers and others worked together to maximise the autonomy? I think that that's important to bear that in mind. I think that it's also worth saying that a real strength of our approach is the partnership working across the different agencies. We don't always all agree that there's challenges, but through the curriculum for excellence management board, the implementation group, all the different national groups, we're actually all working together. That's the local authority in terms of the ways in which they're reducing bureaucracy. The progress there has been patchy, as we discussed earlier, but we do joint events that Larry mentioned earlier, joint national events with the EIS and ourselves to look at the best practice in reducing bureaucracy as well. By continuing to work together, we will achieve the outcomes that we've set. I think that it's recognised as a strength of the approach to CFE that we are all genuinely trying to work together and communicate. Robert Cymru. For several years ago, the SSTA was removed from the CFE management board. One of the ways that perhaps we could have a greater involvement in the support of partners is in those councils that exist at a national level to get a place back at the table. I would support that, although we actually think that the CFE management board should be winding up soon, because we've got to stop implementing at some point. You should come on, just at the point. Come on, it's HRO. A day. Two very, very quick points. One of the issues around Scottish education that doesn't exist south of the board, for example, is that there is a genuine social dialogue around education policy. We wouldn't complain about not having opportunities to put our position to either Education Scotland or SQA or Scottish Government. We think that you should listen to us more often, but we certainly get the opportunity to engage with them. I genuinely think that one of the issues that we'll have to look at in the future—this is potentially where I think there's a communication gap—is the translating national policy into local action, because the lower IDEs are represented in all those bodies. COSLA is a group that is usually deferred to IDEs in terms of representation. I think that a number of the issues in attacking bureaucracy are a classic example of it. In attacking bureaucracy working group, you have all the teacher unions, COSLA, IDEs, Education Scotland, SQA, Scottish Government, everyone signed up to all those key messages. When those messages are going out, there's an implementation gap when it goes to local authorities because local authorities, as an employer, often have their own priorities, their own agenda. I think that's where there's an issue to be addressed in the future. Janet, did you want to—? Just a really quick thing to say. I think that communication across the people involved in implementing CFE is absolutely critical. We do have very challenging conversations, and I don't think that anybody is shy in saying what they are able to do, what they need, what they really think are problems. I think that it is one of the good things. Agreeing with Larry, it is the best thing about Scottish education that we do talk to each other. Mark Ruskell Just a few brief questions about the uptake of the new hire. Scottish ministers had previously said that they didn't expect a large proportion of pupils to stick with the old hire. Given that the organisation is here today, I would expect to be feeding into the Scottish minister's opinion on that just to ask whether members of the panel expected as many as 45 per cent of pupils to stick to the old hire. In the last member survey that we undertook in the autumn, we're currently surveying our members again. The response was that 60 per cent of folks would be pressing ahead with the new hire and 40 per cent would be continuing with the old hire. In some respects, the recent figures that Janet has produced are in line with what the expectations are about, perhaps not with the degree of accuracy that has turned out, but that was based on a sample of our members rather than the entire cohort. That explains the difference, but it certainly was the case in what people were expecting to do as something like a 40 to 45 per cent retaining of the previous system rather than moving ahead to the new one. It came as no surprise because, depending on the subject area, that affected whether it was the older new hire and the course content and so on. Where teachers were asked their opinion, the vast majority have stuck with the old hire, and I think that's quite a telling statistic, whereas some areas just made a blanket decision to fire on with the new hire. The differential between the different subjects is quite interesting to look at, where they've tended to stick with the old biologies, particularly one subject where virtually no-one felt ready to progress for the reasons that we've outlined in previous sessions. It also gives teachers the chance to consolidate the work that they did last year and to move on, as I say, with the new hire next year. However, I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is to consider a delay to the advanced hire for those sitting old hire this year. I think that for teachers to be able to make that choice was the right and appropriate decision to be made, because teachers, as we all understand and know, are the ones who understand what's best for their students. In consultation with their parents, I think that they've made appropriate choices. I think that the difference between the subjects that have had significant change versus the subjects that arguably are ones that people are getting excited about the change in the new qualifications. The difference in the numbers staying with the existing hire and moving to the new hire is pretty explainable, but it is very different for different schools. You can go to one school where the vast majority of subjects that they're undertaking are new hires, and they're making very specific decisions about why and understand why they're sticking with the existing ones. I think that that's the important thing. It's teachers' judgment, it's the fact that they are professionals, they know what they're doing, they know what's best, we can handle whatever the mix is, and I think that it's an appropriate thing to have done. Can I just check for a comment on Larry? Janet, that seems at odds with what Jane has just said. Jane used the word blanket to describe the decisions being made, but you seem to be suggesting, which was certainly, I think, our understanding that it was a decision about flexibility based on a very individual set of circumstances, whether they move on to the new hire or whether they stick with the old hire. Why is there a difference of view here? My understanding is that it is being made by teachers in schools in the consultation with the parents. I said I would come to Larry next so long. Just on that point, all local authorities in theory allowed a delegation of decision making to schools, and most did in practice. I think that in some local authorities, our members would say that there was significant pressure put on through the headteacher network for principal teachers to go with the new hire. By and large, I think that most local authorities allowed a delegation down. We were a little surprised in the EIS at the balance of the new hire and old hire. People should bear in mind, however, that within that 45 per cent for the existing hire, you also have all the six-year presentations. All of the six-year presentations will be the old hire automatically, so the actual balance is slightly higher in terms of those who had a fifth-year option. The point that I really want to emphasise in terms of communicating key messages is to reiterate what Graham Swead earlier. The higher is the higher. It makes no difference to young people in terms of their future prospects whether they are sitting in the new hire or the old hire, what makes the difference whether they pass it or not. Any suggestion—I did see some in the papers that some people would be disadvantaged if they sat a different hire—was introduced back in 2001. We had dual running between the higher still and the old hire, and it didn't make a bit of a difference. At the same SQF level and in terms of communicating to parents that they shouldn't be concerned as to which hire they are doing, that's really important because we don't want youngsters to be panicked. Graham, did you have a comment to make? Just to come back to Mr Griffin's original point, we were always expecting it to be a mixed picture. In previous sessions, we said that we wouldn't know the figures until we had the SQA provisional data, but certainly we did 45 visits to secondary schools between September and December, and teachers have appreciated that flexibility locally. The robustness of how the decision was made did vary to some extent. However, as Janet Brown said, the evidence that we've got overall suggests that it was made locally in line with what the individual circumstances of the school were, and there were a whole range of individual factors that I've covered in the paper here. It's important to emphasise Larry's point that the higher is the gold standard, it will have the same currency and value as young people move forward. It's internationally recognised and we have a higher number of entries once again this year by about another 5 per cent than we've had before, so standards and ambitions are rising further. Did you have a very specific point? Just to remind everyone that the figures are provisional, they are not finalised figures, and as long as everyone is aware about that. Okay, that's helpful, thank you. Robert, you did indicate that it's been covered there. I think that Larry has been covered. Okay, thanks, Mark. Dr Brown, you've touched on this already. It was just a question around the variance across subjects of pupils taking the new higher, sticking to the old higher, just to ask a question about drilling down into the reasons for that, whether that's just because a particular subject lends itself well to translating to the new higher or whether there was some support issues with some of the stem subjects perhaps in moving to the new higher, just if you have any comments as to why there's such a wide variation across subjects of pupils taking the new higher versus old higher. Mark, in the reason I wanted to ask a supplementary on Mark's question, is the point that I think Graeme you made earlier on, which is slightly concerned, I mean it was also when you written evidence about the fact that the stem subjects in particular did require, you know, were overdue an update, maybe I'm paraphrasing there, but effectively, could you explain that when you're answering Mark's question? Sorry, Janet? Can I first and foremost say, it just remind everyone how the hires were developed. The hires were developed in consultation with teachers, with employers, with universities, with colleges. So not only the people who are delivering the course but also the people who are going to be receiving the students who've undertaken and achieved the qualification. So they're very much around what is needed in terms of skills and knowledge that would take that individual from the point of hire into the next destination, whether that's school, college or university. So yes, it's not surprising that since we did the higher still qualifications that there was change, particularly in the science subjects, because that's obviously an area that moves a lot faster than other areas. I won't mention English, because Larry will make some noise. So I think from the point of view of content change and to some extent the skills development, that is very specifically in certain subjects. I think the teachers that we've talked to have made the decision based on whether they feel confident that they are ready to teach those courses or not, that they are able to, some of the course has changed significantly and part of the reason why we're doing a lot of CPD around that is to make sure that teachers are as comfortable as they should be. I think some of the other reasons that we're hearing why people have chosen the new qualification is because it's exciting, because they are able to make the learning relevant, that the learning can be contextualised for each individual student. So some of the work that's being undertaken in hire now can be individual. They can learn a particular aspect of a science subject by undertaking something they're extremely interested in. That is something that the new qualifications really enable and really allow. So some of the people are choosing new qualifications because they want to, because they're exciting, they see the opportunity in it. Others are seeing the very smooth transition from national 5 to the new hire, but others are saying, no, we really want another year to get us under our belt and we'll go forward next year into the new hire. Okay, Robert. In a small number of cases where schools and departments had moved on to teach national 4-5, that didn't particularly articulate well with the old hire and so there was automatically a pressure if you'd gone down the road of implementing national 4-5. You had to then implement the new hire because to do so would potentially be detrimental to the students you had in front of you or the content would be so variously different. So in some respects it's the same issue that people are now facing with regards to advanced hire in terms of next year. Okay, thank you. Graham. Yep, just to come back to your point specifically, convener. I think it was recognised, particularly in the science community, that we do need to update the contents of these examinations more frequently. So there's new curriculum forums have been set up that will keep curriculum content under review on an on-going basis rather than just stopping at a point in time in updating content. So I think that that will be really helpful moving forward so that the qualifications do get refreshed and the content gets refreshed as subjects move forward. Thank you. Very, very briefly. I was just on the point that Mr Flanagan made and was touched on earlier as well by Dr Brown about information going out to colleges, universities and employers about the pupils potentially applying for jobs or places with the same subject but different hire. What information is going out to employers and institutions? They're clear that it's a higher qualification, it's still at that high standard and the pupils are still going to have the right skills for that job or place. Can you explain that? Yes. We're obviously working very closely with the university sector, both north and south of the border, to make sure that everyone understands that the new hire is of the equivalent standard as the old hire, that the nature of the curriculum for excellence is and making sure that the universities across the piece understand that. There's been very, very close interaction for a long period of time with the universities in Scotland on curriculum for excellence, so they're fully aware of the comparability. UKAS is also fully aware of what's going on in terms of the entry requirements for universities, colleges as well. We also have a very significant engagement programme with employers across the country in terms of making sure that they understand not only the new hires but also the national four, national five qualifications to make sure that they're aware of the nature of the skills and the knowledge that's being developed and what they should be expecting, what they should be looking for in the new employees that they're going to be hiring. Just for clarity, it will see on the certificate higher English. It will say what it is, which is a higher English or a higher maths. Which I think is a point that I'm not even sure I need it. Because a higher is a higher. It's got the same number of UKAS points. As all qualifications are, they have a different content. Thank you very much. George Annum, final question. Thank you, convener. I'll just skip my other four or five questions that I had at this stage, convener, but Larry brought up a very important point, and I think it's the crux to a lot of the issues that we're talking about here about delivery. You know, you're saying how do we get national policy delivered at local level. Now, as a former councillor, I've sat through hours of education meetings where we talk about best practice and how we can sort it. And from some of the evidence that we're getting here, we're still at a situation where we're not actually taking on the best practice from other authorities in other areas as well. And I'm a very practical person and I'm aware that there will be local authorities. Larry quite likely says it'll create bureaucracy just to actually talk about bureaucracy to try and sort it out. So I'm saying how recently we also had parents groups talking to us during the budget process about how we deliver education at a local level. But that's a debate for another day, but it's maybe something to mention at this stage. But how do we actually deal with this situation to get local authorities to start working together to ensure that they actually do take some of the good practices that are out there and ensure that we do get it across the board and all 32 authorities, if possible. Henry, you want to solve that one? I think there's a couple of key points in that. From an EIS point of view, we're very clear that we think local authorities are a key element of our education system. So we think that local democracy is a key part of something that's disappearing in England through the academy programme. So we wouldn't want to see that being marginalised in any way. I think there will be a debate now that the referendum is out the way to be honest. I think there will be a debate moving into the 2016 Scottish elections about the mechanisms that might be used to ensure that we are maximising the delivery impact of education services. My particular view is that one of the bodies that we've got as an EIS, one of the bodies that we've got limited contact with, is the causal education committee, which I think should actually be a key forum for us. Our engagement with COSLA tends to be through the SNCT, which is focused on paying conditions. At a local level, some councils have got consultative committees that look at curricular issues and some have actually got LNCTs, which only look at conditions of service issues. I think that it's about creating the platforms whereby we're having education discussions because I have absolutely no doubt that I have not met anyone in Scottish education who knows what to deliver a good quality service for young people. I think that it's about creating the platforms where we can share the expertise and the information. I'm not sure that at a local authority level, the way education committee is currently working, it really embraces that shared agenda. Sometimes they're far too closed and they focus far too much on number crunching around statistics, rather than thinking about the broader services that should be there. It's not a solution, but it's just the same. I think that from the point of view of the way we engage with local authorities, we meet with all of the directors of education and the people involved in the delivery on a regular basis to get their feedback, to try and understand what the issues are, to make sure that we tell them what we've learnt, to again say, this is a good idea, this is... Nominies is a classic example. One of the roles is people come to us, they're trained to be verifiers, to be able to understand standards, really, really get to the knob of what it means to teach to a standard. One of the roles of those people is to go back into the local authority, to go back to the schools and to share that expertise. Some local authorities are using those people really, really, really well. Others are finding it difficult to be able to work out how to do that, or maybe they've got a different approach to it. One of the things we're doing is really trying to showcase how that's worked in certain areas, to try and again make sure that people don't have to reinvent the wheel every time, that they can actually learn from each other. So from our particular perspective, we try and do that with the things that we need local authorities to be engaged with us on. George, you okay? Any final comment? Convener, I'll echo something that Janet said there, which is that, for too often, I think, teachers are engaging not in curricular innovation but on wheel reinvention. I think that what we have to do is find ways of that stopping, of ensuring that the collaborative opportunities that can exist are created. That's not only for clashing teachers within schools and between schools, but also, clearly, what's with the other partners that are involved in the education service throughout the country. But it's something that, from a trade union point of view, one of the things that we'll have to think about is how we put pressure on elected members locally to come to the table and have these sorts of discussions of the type that Larry was talking about a moment ago. I wasn't the one who opened this up again, Larry. Just a final comment, convener, because it's back to the point that I raised earlier around a practical step forward in terms of resourcing of a young person with at least one textbook in relation to the new hire. I'm aware that the Cabinet Secretary is coming in to face you next. I think about a million would probably cover it, so just if you're looking for a figure. He's probably got it with him, Larry. Can I thank all of you for coming along this morning and giving your time to the committee? We really appreciate it, and I briefly suspend so we can change over the witnesses. As Larry said, so we can question the Cabinet Secretary. Thank you. Can I welcome this morning Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary of Education and Lifelong Learning, and particularly because this is your first appearance before the committee as Cabinet Secretary. Obviously, you've been here before as Minister, but congratulations on your appointment. And we're looking forward to working with you on all of the subjects that are much of interest to both you and the committee, so welcome, Cabinet Secretary. Can I also welcome Alan Johnson, who's the Deputy Director of Learning at the Scottish Government, and can I welcome back Graham Logan and Janet Brown as well, who are staying with us for this session? Before we begin, can I just indicate to members that if they would just catch my eye, I'll bring them in as soon as possible, and we'll try and cover all the subjects that we can in around an hour this morning. Cabinet Secretary, I believe that you've got some opening remarks that you want to give us. Indeed, thank you very much, convener. I'm absolutely delighted to provide the committee this morning with an update on curriculum for excellence and our progress with the new qualifications. But firstly, I do want to reflect more broadly and briefly on my priorities for Scottish education. Particularly, as you say, convener, this is my first appearance at committee as the education secretary, and I hope that this will be useful for committee. The committee, I'm sure, is well aware of the progress that has been made to date in our schools. We have, for example, record exam results, more new and refurbished schools, record number of school leavers in positive destinations, and of course all of that is good news. It's to the credit of my predecessor and, of course, the immense credit to the thousands working in the front line in the Scottish education system that we have made so much progress and, of course, the hard work of pupils themselves in the support of their parents. Of course, convener, this is only a start. I have already said that my number one priority is to raise attainment for all and to close the equity gap. In the Scotland we seek, your background should never determine how well you do in education or life, yet we know that all too often it still does. We need to do much more to ensure that all of our children and young people, regardless of their background, have an equal opportunity to succeed. The committee has already heard about our attainment for all programme. At future point, I'll be pleased to provide an update on that programme, as well as the progress that we're making on the early years collaborative family nurse partnership and our quality expansion of childcare. Members will, of course, be aware that the First Minister announced last month that we are providing free school meal for every P123 child in Scotland. Of course, above all else, that's an investment in our children's future, because we want every child to be able to concentrate at school and to be able to achieve his or her best. As we go forward, we will be looking for further opportunities to drive up attainment in all of Scotland's school. As committee knows, we plan to introduce the Education Bill to Parliament in March, and I want to make sure that it contains measures to address the attainment gap and promote equity for all our children. It is absolutely right that we back this commitment up with legislation where that is needed and appropriate. Convener, curriculum for excellence is the best possible framework for us to raise attainment and to close the equity gap. Curriculum for excellence is now how we do education in Scotland, and we are seeing steady improvements in outcomes for more children and young people. We are now at a very important milestone with the curriculum, and the introduction of the new qualifications is progressing well. We have successfully introduced the new nationals last year, and we know from the provisional figures provided by SQA that significant numbers of pupils taking hires this year have been studying the new hires. We have planned for this and expected it. Last year, teachers requested flexibility, and the Scottish Government was happy to accommodate that. We know that more young people have been given the chance to sit hires. Provisional entries for hires this year suggest yet another increase, and it is encouraging that those are 5 per cent up on this stage last year. I am sure that committee welcomes the fact that more of our young people are stretching themselves in our schools. That shows that ambition more than ever is alive and well in classrooms across Scotland, but we have to continue with that momentum to deliver on the senior phase and the great promise of curriculum for excellence. We must continue to work with our partners and support those on the front line. In my short time as education secretary, I have been hugely impressed by the motivation, energy and creativity that I have seen in the schools that I have visited. The student teachers from Glasgow and Strathclyde universities that I met a fortnight ago showed that our next generation of teachers will be just as committed and inspiring for our children and young people. I saw the same level of commitment during my visit to Craig Royston community high school last week. Clearly, Scotland is blessed with an outstanding and highly professional teaching workforce that has gone the extra mile in getting curriculum for excellence to where it is. Education Scotland will continue to provide schools with the materials and support that our teachers need at every step of the way. That level of support will be vital for curriculum for excellence if it is to match up to the expectations and ambitions of our young people. Everything that I do as education secretary, my focus will be on the children and young people themselves. That will be the basis of everything and will inform absolutely every decision that I take in this post. I, for one, am sure that it is an aspiration shared by everybody in this committee that we will not rest until we can be assured that each and every child has the best chances through curriculum for excellence and the very best of education. Thank you, convener. I am looking forward to questions from the committee. Thank you very much, cabinet secretary. Before I move to questions from members, I have one myself, which comes directly from Larry Flanagan. I do not know whether you noticed some of the evidence that went just before you, but Mr Flanagan made a specific request. He said that it was a practical measure that the Government could take. I am not quite sure where the figure comes from, but he said that he was looking for £1 million for extra funding for textbooks for the new hire. What is the Government's view on that? As always, the Government listens very closely to the EIS. We will give that suggestion by Mr Flanagan all due consideration. Having the past accommodated such request, Mr Russell at the tail end of 2013 had allocated £1 million for a similar purpose for resources. I have not, convener, come here with my purse or my checkbook. You will understand that. Finances are, of course, very tight and constrained, but I can give committee and the EIS an undertaking that the Government will certainly go away and look very closely at that pragmatic suggestion. A recurring theme has been complaints about teachers' workloads and specifically the workload around the introduction of curriculum for excellence. In previous sessions, there appeared to be an indication that that was expected to lessen as curriculum for excellence buried in, but today we were clearly told that that is not the case and that the workload, in fact, is getting worse. I wondered what the Scottish Government had done in terms of analysing teachers' workloads and whether there were any proposals to reduce it. It is not in anybody's interest, not least our children or teachers themselves, to be overburdened, whether that is with bureaucracy. In terms of workload issues for teachers, we take that very seriously. That is why there is the tackling bureaucracy working group. Dr Allan chaired that group and met last week. Certainly, with the curriculum for excellence, we have seen, in general terms now, that move to more assessment because exams are not the only focus of measuring, learning and attainment. The programme board produced a reflection report, and it is true to say that a point of learning from the past year is that there has been over-assessment, and that is not in the interest of teachers or pupils. The SQA has taken steps to reduce by a third the assessment verification, and I will ask Janet to speak a bit more about that. However, the workload issue and the over-assessment issue are also a matter that Education Scotland takes very seriously when they are inspecting schools. However, it is an area that we have to be vigilant to. I will ask Janet to talk about how the SQA has reduced the assessment burden. I think that it is partly what we discussed in the earlier session around the fact that we last year had three rounds of verification of internal assessment within the school, and what we did as a result of looking at how can we maintain standards, but how can we make sure that we are only doing the amount of verification that we need to? We reduced that from three rounds to two rounds, and we took the opportunity to use the first time slot to be able to do support and development work with the teachers who are sent to us as nominees, to give them exemplification and samples of how to combine assessments so that, instead of doing multiple assessments, you are able to capture the learning outcomes of an individual by using one assessment only. That is what we did in the period in the run-up to Christmas. That is one of the actions that we are undertaking. We also offer to all local authorities the option to be able to request that we go and give them a specific CPD around the new qualifications that we are introduced to. Again, as we talked earlier, we spread best practice in terms of assessment, because that is a change in the way that people are doing assessments. It is a cultural shift from checking every single thing individually to being able to capture someone's abilities in one assessment and to be able to record all those things separately. Over assessment, it is interesting that that was focused on because this has come up before the committee the question of excessive assessment. It was felt that that would fall away again after the introduction of curriculum for excellence, after it got through its teething problems, and a lot of it was described as being teachers over-assessing to try and do the best that they could for their students. However, today, we were told that it was an increasing problem. That is what I took away from the comments that were made, whereas I would have expected it to be the other way around, particularly in view of the comments that Dr Brown made today. You have heard from Dr Brown in terms of the proactive steps taken by the SQA to reduce the assessment and the inevitable burden of that. As I said in my remarks, that in terms of the curriculum for excellence programme board, it undertook a piece of work, a very reflective bit of work, and attached to that work is a very detailed action plan that requires very specific actions of the SQA Government and Education Scotland about what they can actually do to ensure that they learn from the first year of the new exams. I will ask Graeme to speak about the very important role of Education Scotland in inspecting schools to look at the assessment issue and to look at how needless bureaucracy can be tackled. As I outlined earlier, we have seen significant change in schools through the inspection programme and support visits. In fact, all our secondary school inspections between August and Christmas were positive, and inspectors have been challenging and discussing unnecessary bureaucracy, raising it in a number of reports. The national bodies have completed a number of key activities since the Reflections report was published. For example, we have been signalling key documents that teachers need to look at. There have been the route maps through assessment, really practical documents that suggest which pieces of guidance teachers need to look at and in which order. That helps to ensure that the time that teachers have is spent as productively as possible. At the moment, as I mentioned earlier, through our programme of bringing all the head teachers together, we are showcasing schools that have reduced assessment. We have seen progress at building an assessment through the broad general education rather than separating it out. Some of the most outstanding examples that have been showcased nationally through these events are where schools have looked at the rhythm of assessments, looked across S4 and looked for where the different hotspots are and made sure for young people that those were planned and spread across the year as well as possible. We have also produced toolkits as a response to that report that Ms Constance mentioned, which looks at streamlining the curriculum structure in primary and in S1 to 3 and showcasing the best practice that we have seen, where planning has been reduced and the amount of paperwork that teachers have been reduced significantly and the impact that that has to release more time for supporting individual young people. It is also important to highlight and direct response to Mr Beattie's question that the management board, when it next meets, will be looking at the very issue, because the management board for curriculum for excellence will want to evaluate the impact of the work that is being undertaken by Education Scotland and the SQA in terms of the very specific actions that they have on their organisations to reduce bureaucracy. That is very much an issue that will pay very, very close attention to. An issue that was raised by Larry Flanagan in the previous session was the workload of teachers who will be implementing a new higher and a new advanced higher qualification in the same year as a result of delaying and still using the old higher in this current year. Is there going to be any extra support or advice given to schools who are going to be implementing the new higher and advanced higher in the same year as a result of that? That is the point that you are making, Mr Griffin. There has been extensive support in terms of the new hires and in terms of what has already been put in place. One example of that is that the SQA has organised 140 events that have involved more than 7,000 teachers. As we move forward to the next academic year from June onward to the advanced higher, there has been a lot of preparation done by the SQA and others as well. For example, this month there will be various materials and guidance and specimen questions and papers for the advanced hires introduced. Again, the SQA will run a variety of events that more than 4,000 teachers have signed up to. We are doing everything that we can to ensure that teachers are getting the right and very specific support with regard to the new hires but also the revised advanced hires. Do you think that the teachers who have chosen to defer and are using the old hires will then implement new hires and new advanced hires at the same time? Do you think that they have the time outside their class time to attend those seminars and go through that additional material to implement advanced hires and new hires in the one year? Earlier on, the Government introduced increased funding and support for more continuous professional development days. That was very important as part of our progress as we move forward with the new qualifications. It is teachers who make decisions about what is best for their learners and it varies from subject choice to subject choice. Teachers are making decisions about whether to use the new or existing hires. It is very important that those are professional decisions and teachers make those decisions in the round. It is also important to recognise that the number of students who participate in advanced hires is obviously much smaller than students who take hires. The advanced hire is quite different in the sense that it is more about independent learning. The taught component is much smaller. We will always have a watch and brief and listen carefully to the feedback that we get from stakeholders and teachers in particular. However, there is flexibility with the dual running of the new and existing hires for very pragmatic reasons. It would appear to me that schools seem to be using that opportunity very sensibly based on the needs of their learners and the circumstances of their own school. It came up in this morning's evidence that the flexibility that was provided for the introduction of the new hire was very much welcomed. Half have gone for the old hire and half for the new hire. However, the same flexibility has not been introduced for the introduction of the new advanced hire. Obviously, the question is why has it been allowed for the higher but not for the advanced hire. As I said in my initial remarks, convener, there are about 22,000 entries for advanced hire. It is a much smaller cohort, if you like, whereas for hires, you are looking at over 200,000 entries. The course is quite different in terms of advanced hires. There is a less, far smaller taught component. Certainly, when I met with Scottish leader Scotland just before Christmas, it was very clear that there was no need to have a dual system for the advanced hires. It has been part of the timetable. There is a three-year timetable across the piece to introduce the new qualifications. I cannot ask Janet Brown and Graham to speak a bit more about that, but there is certainly a feeling that I have not, as yet, heard a compelling case for a dual running in the advanced hires, given that the numbers are smaller and that the taught component is much smaller as well. Janet Brown, do you want to add? The nature of the advanced hire is a very deep learning. It is at the next SQF level above higher, equivalent to the first year of university. It therefore puts a lot of demands on the individual student and it is something that is about them taking responsibility for their own learning, which is why universities like students to have had an advanced hire because it prepares them for the nature of the learning that they would normally do. When students have finished hires, they will often migrate into a university setting anyway and, therefore, they will face a new curriculum and they will face a new challenge. From a student's perspective, whether it is moving to the new higher or the existing higher, the new advanced higher or the existing advanced higher, if there were to be a new one, it would be no different because they are facing that transition into a university environment anyway. From the point of view of the support that we are providing, one of the things that we have recognised is that the nature of the advanced higher is not changing. We have changed the nature of the higher. We have talked about adding course assessments which are about investigations, so we have brought some of the capacities and the skills development that have historically been in the advanced higher down into the higher, so there is a bigger change in the new higher from the old higher. In the case of advanced higher, it is a very similar structure. The nature of the change is by no means as great. There are obviously some subject issues in terms of the nature of some subjects that face a bigger change in terms of the curriculum. That is why we are focusing on those subjects and that is why we are providing support in the events that actually started last week. We are running advanced higher events from 26 January through to April. Part of those events will focus on what has changed from the existing advanced higher to the new advanced higher. I will bring in a little bit of supplementary on this particular issue. It was another supplementary on following up your own question. You can have one supplementary now. It was getting back to Colin Beattie's point about workload and assessment. I mean, it was interesting here that the comments both from Graeme and Janet about the work that has been done. Nevertheless, that work has been ongoing and yet they have written evidence we have had from a number of different individual headmasters in schools, Birmingham High School, George Watson's, Hamilton Grammar, Glenifer High School and Paisley. All have a similar theme around assessment. If I quote the headteacher for Birmingham High School, one of the points he makes is that the same skills are being tested too frequently. I think a similar point made by the headteacher George Watson said that new assessment requirements place too much emphasis on establishing basic standards rather than enabling pupils to strive for true excellence. I wonder whether there is an issue for the management board that the things being tested or assessed is not necessarily the wrong thing to be testing, but we are perhaps going overboard in requiring that to be proved to the end's degree, rather than having an assessment that deals with a range of different skills that pupils would be expected to develop over the course of whether it is the new hires. I suspect the same issue around national fours and ffifes. The management board has a very important role here, particularly in scrutinising the impact of the actions that are as a result of the reflections report. We always have to be hyper-vigilant when we are getting the right level of assessment on the right aspects. Is there something else that you want to add, Janet? One of the things that we need to make sure is that a particular outcome is not assessed multiple times. That is never the intention. There are really good practices that we are starting to share, because the existence proof now is there from last year's national ffifes, and what we shared just before Christmas was existing student work on hires that gives examples of how you can assess an outcome once that you do not have to keep assessing it. Teachers are using a professional judgment as to when to assess something. If you think about assessment as for learning, it is done during the course of teaching. If we can have that philosophy around how do we ensure that students are meeting the standard at a qualification level, we should be able to take the assessment that kids are doing during their regular work and be able to use that to prove to SQA or to prove to teachers, and then teachers can go on a sampling basis and make sure that teachers are teaching to standard, and that will reduce the amount of assessment. Colin Beattie first made the point that we would rather hope to assume that the problems that we saw last year would be kind of ironed out in due course, and notwithstanding Graham's point about the assessments that have been done or the investigations that have been done by Education Scotland across a range of schools have indicated that the assessment problem is abating. Nevertheless, we are getting this feedback from individual schools. I would have thought that a number of them would see themselves as exemplars, and yet they still seem to be identifying the issue of assessment as a problem, perhaps for different reasons, but nevertheless it is coming up even at this stage as a persistent problem. Can I just say that we do go and talk to schools? We have a CFE liaison team that visits all schools, and so we will follow up on all of these pieces of feedback. One of the things to remember is that schools are not only doing internal assessment for national 5 this year, but they are also doing internal assessment for higher. I think that we need to understand how those two are into play. Can I just say that I will be asking the same two questions that I did earlier, and I have already heard a response from Dr Brown and Graeham to try to save some time, unless there is anything new to add. It was really just on the articulation from the higher to the advanced higher. In particular, we have a paper today from Spice, and for higher courses for more than 3,000 entries, if you look at the percentage that chose to do the new higher at the very bottom, 40 per cent and under, is biology, physics and chemistry. I appreciate that it has been touched on today. We have a paper from St Andrews, Madras College of St Andrews, and to be fair, there is a thread running through our briefing papers today, but this one sums it up. We have been given to understand that, in many subjects, the old hires do not articulate well with the new advanced higher. That would cause concern. I think that it is fair to comment on the Scottish Parents Forum, as it has not been represented today. It is unfortunate that there is nothing currently available on the SQA website, as many parents will be looking for it now, as the prelims are under way, and we will be looking for information to support their children in the exams in April. It is really the lack of information, the concern about STEM subjects, and given that there is a lower percentage for the STEM subjects than others. If the paper from Madras College and others understand that pupils doing the old higher will have greater difficulty articulating to the advanced higher, I would really like to hear what is being said to alleviate and allay those concerns. Mrs Garland is right to draw attention to the fact that there is variance over the range of subjects. In some subjects, 84 per cent are doing the new hires. In some subjects, for example, in computing science, it is 30 per cent. That is to be expected, because I think that with the STEM subjects in computing science and the other sciences, those are the hires that have had the biggest change in terms of assessment and indeed content. That was one of the reasons why there was flexibility allowed in the first place. It is important to state, though, that whether a young person is doing the existing higher or the new higher and wishes to articulate and progress to advanced higher, they will not be disadvantaged. A higher is a higher. Our existing hires are very good. They are gold standard qualifications, highly regarded by students, parents and employers, but, of course, because the world never stands still, we have to revise qualifications before they become out of date. Of course, the new higher will have more synergies with the advanced higher and the curriculum that has been taught throughout the school. We have to recognise that professional teachers are very good at managing progression from one course to the other, so no student should be disadvantaged. It is very important that, when we are explaining and supporting teachers that they are getting the right kind of continuous professional development, particularly for subjects where the change has been biggest. I will ask Janet to speak about the SQA website, if that is okay. There is greater synergy between the new higher and the advanced higher. What is being done to address the lesser synergy between the old higher and the advanced higher is just to make sure that something is in place. I have heard from Janet on the website of the SQA. Unless you have anything else to say. However, it is just that gap. There is a greater synergy between one and another. What about the gap between the old higher and the new advanced? That is perhaps the way to articulate it. Whether it is a new or existing higher, the lead appropriately to the advanced higher is issues for teachers to manage. The classroom teachers are very good at that. The purpose of the many SQA events that have been organised is that thousands of teachers are attending to address the issue that Mrs Scanlon raised to ensure that we get the right level of support to teachers who can then in turn give the right level of support to students. Perhaps you could have a look at the website and make up your own mind about whether you want to do that. Can I just say that, specifically, during January and February, the similarities and differences between the existing advanced higher and the new advanced higher will be published on the website. They are not there now. Some of them are up already and they will be complete by the end of February. I think that we can understand what payments we would want for prelims as well as finals, but we will move on from there. The next one was last week. We heard evidence from the learned societies group. I appreciate what Larry Flanagan said that a lot of it applied UK-wide, but nonetheless there were applications to Scotland. It is back to the STEM subjects again. We have heard significantly about the shortage of teachers for STEM subjects. Colin Beattie and I were in Inverness yesterday and we were hearing about pupils from the Highlands not being able to get into Scottish medical schools. I do not know how much of that is them not being able to do some of the sciences, but the main concern that came up last night was that Murry Council had to close schools, including Elgin High School, because there were no teachers. I have never heard that in my lifetime. Does that apply to Murry? Is that an issue that you know about? We had a conversation about Larry Flanagan saying that there is no problem recruiting to teacher training, but it seems to be retaining the students in the teaching profession. I wonder overall if the scenario is something that you are aware about and what the Government is doing to address the issues, because I do not think that any local authority wants to close schools. Indeed, neither would any parent want to be faced with that experience. I suppose that there are a number of issues here, if you bear with me, convener. I am certainly aware that, in parts of Scotland, there are shortages of teachers in specific subjects. It is more likely to be in STEM subjects and in rural parts of Scotland, although there are issues in places such as Aberdeen as well. Teacher unemployment is very low in Scotland, the lowest in the UK. Although it has to be recognised that local authorities are the employers of teachers, they have a number of options open to them. Within the context of the parameters of national pay bargaining, they can offer some financial inducements to recruit and to help people to relocate to other areas in Scotland. Indeed, I heard someone from Murray Council on the radio yesterday talking about how they are trying to promote Murray as a good place to live, which I am sure is, and how they help with relocation expenses. Some authorities have financial inducements as well. The lady from Murray Council spoke very effectively, and I know that other councils are trying to do that as well. In terms of their non-teaching staff—whether it is classroom assistants who would wish to go on and teach—they find that a very effective way of people already who have invested in their life in a particular area for them to go on and study to become a teacher is quite an effective way of dealing with shortages. From my perspective, I appreciate Mrs Garman that that does not necessarily help with the hearing now, but just at the turn of the year I made an announcement that we were increasing the number of teachers going into initial teaching education both at primary school and secondary school. It is something that we will have to become more finessed at in terms of the numbers entering into teacher education, but thinking more about how we, in doing so, help with shortages of teachers in particular, rural locations and for particular subjects. That is a very active discussion that we are having with universities and the universities of Highlands and Islands about how we move forward with that agenda. Cabinet Secretary, you just spoke about the number in teacher training and the welcomed announcement that you made at the turn of the year. We had the evidence this morning that what was needed was a tracking system for those probationary teachers to see where they go after they get their education. It was Larry Flanagan who had said that teachers may, as is the right, go abroad or might not necessarily go into teaching. We are investing a lot of money into that but not getting the teachers out.  Is that something that the Government is looking at at the minute? I have not had that specific suggestion made directly to myself, Mrs McMan. I suppose that there are always issues across the public sector in which people choose to go to sunnier climbs or move elsewhere in the UK. Teaching in Scotland is a good place to teach. We invest heavily in the teaching workforce. We have very low teacher unemployment compared to elsewhere in the UK. The difference in the figures is quite stark. The last figure that I have seen is that there are 40 teachers across Scotland claiming jobseekers allowance. That is less than 1 per cent of the overall workforce's very low teacher unemployment, although that raises challenges for when there is a shortage of teachers in particular parts of the country in particular subjects. If there is evidence that we are training teachers and that they are not continuing with their chosen vocationary, we will always look at that. However, I would be looking for substantial evidence. It is a good place to teach in Scotland. Is there anything that you want to add to that, Graeme?  We do, through workforce planning and modelling, look at numbers. I am certainly not aware of substantial numbers exiting Scotland at the end of that first year, but it is something that we can look into further. If there is any further information that you can give to the committee, we would be grateful. We have from Dr Janet Brown in the previous session that, in any programme like this, the first year is always difficult and the second year will be better. Addis said in air submission that, in conclusion, it would advise the education committee that CFE continues to develop and mature in a manner that supports the needs of children and young people. That change is a constant, and that is what we are going through. Despite that, we seem to get some excited commentary, some of it justified this morning when we talked of communication with local authorities. We had some agitation last week about the appeal system. Can you just confirm for us and the wider audience that no pupil is at a disadvantage, regardless of whether they went to a state or private school? There is Ken Cunningham, the general secretary of the school. Leader of Scotland said that he described the issue as a bit of a red herring. I concur with that view. It is important to recognise that we moved away from the old appeals system, having consulted heavily about it. There was a great deal of consensus about the need to change from the old appeals system. The old appeals system was concerned that it was overused. The children who were absent from their exams due to a bereavement or an illness, there were some concerns that they were disadvantaged in comparison to the children who the feeling was that they were not done as well on their exam as they could have on the day. There were concerns about how the old appeals system was impacting on learning and teaching, because a lot of times spent gathering evidence in anticipation of an appeal when an appeals system was meant to be dealing with the exceptional cases. We move forward to a new system. It is important to say that that is in two parts. The pre-results part of the system should a child be exceptional. Quite often tragic circumstances cannot be able to sit their exam due to illness or a bereavement that the teachers that the school can submit alternative evidence and that those children, like everybody else, will get their exam results on the same day and are not disadvantaged. The post-results service, which is new and which was subject to much commentary last week, I would agree that some of the commentary was disingenuous. I would like to make it clear to the committee that the people who make a decision about whether to contact the SQA and whether to pursue an appeal are teachers. That is a professional decision that is made by teachers. Indeed, the SQA only accepts appeals from teachers, from schools and from colleges. It does not accept appea