Yes, we want to become the leader in producing low-cost silicon metal. Silicon metal is the key ingredient to make solar panels. You need high-purity silicon metal, you need 5g of that stuff to make one watt of new energy. We're developing disruptive technologies basically to transform in one step. You take quartz, which is the second most common material on planet Earth, carbon. You put it through heat and you produce high-purity silicon metal. It seems to be simple, but we're basically transforming a technology that was originally invented in 1895, certainly correct. The results are radical, the science is relatively simple, and we're developing this in partnership with PyroGenesis, another publicly traded company in Montreal. The reason behind this was that we thought it would be easier to have a outsource our resource development and do it internally. So where does silicon metal enter into the solar business? Simple, you need quartz, you then make metallurgy-grade silicon metal, that's one transformation, and then you further refine it to make the solar-grade silicon metal. Right now, everything you're hearing in the world about reducing the cost of a silicon photovoltaic system has been done by the Chinese as they work to find ways to improve this part of the process, and this represents 70% of the cost, 30% is here. What we are aiming to do is simply combine these two steps into one, and we're on a good track to reach that goal. Thank you. This is the cash cost of all the producer of high-purity silicon metal for the solar industry. These are people that buy metallurgy-grade silicon metal and then further refine it. What you're seeing here is the $16 selling price right now in the market. What all the industry experts are saying is a cash cost between below $15 a kilogram is not sustainable. The other issue that's interesting is the worldwide demand is about 350,000 tons. We've now reached a point where we are in a structural deficit, and the problem really is going to be how do you meet that structural deficit as more and more people want solar system in their technology. What we're looking at doing is basically producing the material for the same cost as their in-source material for the transformation. That's really where our competitive advantage is. Next slide, if possible. We're also the greenest process around. Everybody talks about solar system being green, but in reality transforming the material isn't very green. It produces something like, it produces 54 kilograms of CO2 per kilogram of material we're producing 14. The other area where we have a green advantage is simple, is because if you realize that basically 75% of all the CO2 in the process comes from the mining extraction in those part. What we're developing is a system that is not a smelter process, but mostly a reactor process, which will allow us to locate our production facilities close to the mine. Since you need three tons of quartz to make one ton of silicon metal, by default you'll cut two-thirds of transportation cost. Next slide, please. This is the other green advantage that we have. Basically, this is our process, it basically goes to the heat. We only produce the material. All the other processes being used out there use a lot of very nasty chemicals. So we have another green advantage, it's much better for the environment for getting the environmental permits. Next slide, please. This is the other thing that's very interesting. Yes, China is able to produce cheap wafer and cheap solar panel, but what are the rest of the world doing to combat this is basically they're asking now for what's known as the total footprint, the total CO2 footprint of any system. Now that means if you take a look here, in a solar system, most of it comes basically from building and assembling the system, but where does that come from? From basically transforming the quartz into metallurgic green silicon metal and further refining it and everything else. This is China, this is Europe. So as the process moves, one of the constraints that have been there is that a new solar plant and new solar farm must also have a complete CO2 footprint analysis. So that makes the Chinese system less and less efficient. So that's another advantage for us. Next slide. That's just the typical structure. Key point is management and board we control about 22% fully diluted. We've been trading between 15 and 30 cents since last year we've come here. One of the main point is last year we reached a very important threshold, which was we've been able to prove at lab scale that the process works. And we immediately decided to push the envelope by going immediately to pilot plant at the same time as we keep refining the process into it. So we'll have our pilot plan released. Next slide, please. There's a paper copy in the back if you want to read it. But fundamentally, we are definitely in the downstreaming of our operations. And if we can succeed all the way to going the solar wafer, we would really like that to fully integrated that. Because the silicon metal industry is an 11 billion industry divided into three sector, first the mining of the quartz to the metallurgy grade is only $300 million. The metallurgy grade silicon metal is an $8 billion business. And the solar grade industry, which is further refining is another $5 billion. So we want to be able to incorporate as much as we can from the entire process. Next slide, please. Okay, as I said, we're working with pyrogenesis. What's the advantage? A lot of us, when we go from being simple miners to going technology companies, we've never basically scaled up anything. And we know how to scale up a mines to a development to a drilling program. We don't know how to scale up. And when usually the process is a professor from the university comes to you and tells you, I have this great process and it's going to work. It's going to be scaling up. So the investors end up paying the learning curve of the team. Working with pyrogenesis, they've basically done that many, many times over. So by outsourcing to them, we get their expertise and everything else. And it's been very advantageous to us. Next slide, please. So last year when I came to talk, this is how much material we're producing. It's nothing else, it's thin layer on top. And what we did here, we basically took some ultra high purity quartz and we transform it into high purity silicon metal. Working with pyrogenesis, we've been able just at the first step process to continue to increase it. But what we're now doing as we're building the pilot plant, as we're developing more and more parameters to do it, we've been able not only to keep increasing the material we can produce and increasing the purity of it. I'd like to remind people that we're using some really low quality material. We're aiming to produce a product that's gonna have between 100 ppm of impurities to 10 ppm of impurities. And all these tests were done using material with over 18,000 ppm of impurities to start off with. So we are really removing impurities. Well, basically what this shows is the process is we're demonstrating scaling up capacities at a lab scale. So it's a very good OMA for when we have the pilot plant ready. Next slide, please. Okay, so this, I'll go quickly over this. But basically in the traditional process, you take quartz, wood chip, carbon source, you put it in a traditional furnace and you basically produce the first product, 15% further refined, nasty chemical byproduct. Key point is here is literally, we already know that this is 45% of the cost, which about 10% is quartz, 10% of wood chip, 20% is carbon. The rest of it is the graphite anode here. See, we're just immediately eliminating one. So we already know that our cash costs, our input costs are gonna be lower. Energy costs, we know we're using the same. And our output, we're here. And that sells between $13,000 and $16,000. There's paper copies in the back if you guys wanna go through it. We're starting a website. Also, the other advantage that we have is really gonna be in the capex. This is an extremely expensive industry. That's the barrier to entries. To build a new plant, just to transform silicon, metallurgy grade silicon metal to solar grade, you're gonna have an investment anywhere between half a billion to a billion and a half. That's just no way around it. But we're talking about doing it for 5% of that next slide. So this is an interesting slide. We're the only process that goes from quartz to solar grade silicon metal. We have a capex cost per kilogram, which is the pair of what people are using really as a baseline, of $18.05 per capex, all right? Right now, the minimum size you need to build a new plant is about 6,000 ton. If you use a traditional Siemens process, you're gonna be around, let me see my numbers here. Anyways, it's between 75 and 45, we're at four. Key point is, we are on track on time. Pilot plant is gonna be finished to be assembled by October or November of this year, it will be operational next year. It's a 200 ton pilot plant. The goal without objective is to be able to validate scaling up, being able to operate the plant 24 hours a day for seven days straight, to produce material so we can have some material to send to potential buyer. The advantage of the size of the market we're in, because it's so big, we're not overly focused on getting basically outtake agreement. We're gonna be much more interested at the beginning of supplying the, basically the open market for it. There's a small open market for it, which is about 10% of it. So there's more than enough space for us to enter the production. That's why, next slide please. At the cost of this, all right, this is the interesting part. Well, it was an 8.2 million dollar cost between 2016 and 2018. We're right now in the middle of buildup. We've already paid $3 million, so four million so far. We got another million to pay, but our cash calls are relatively small. We have a good cash position because of warrants exercise and those things that we can finance. Plus, there's a lot of interest from the Quebec government and federal government to finance and development. So we will be finalizing those discussion in the coming months. Fundamentally, we also have $2.3 million worth of warrants that are in the money and they're in friendly hands. So that gives us more flexibilities and where capital structure is designed, if we get the share price of about $0.30, that will jump up to another $11 million of fundraising there. So we're in a good position, we're in a good spot, we're in a good market, and we're also the only player in this field. So that's really interesting, that's a lot. Well, I have to talk a bit about our properties. We are the largest owner of high purity quartz properties in Quebec. We have some very high, beautiful material. Our ultimate objective is to feed, to basically have full vertical integration using our feedstock, but we're not dependent on that. But that's really the goal. Next slide, please. Okay, we are the only player in the lucrative solar grade silicon metal. That's it. The fun part about this presentation is you see there's a lot of players that are in the same field. We're the only one in this field. And we have some very disruptive advantage. We're low, all pecs, low capex, minimum carbon footprint, the minimum environmentally friendly process. We're less than 20% of the industry's cash costs, 5% of their capex costs. Estimated 75% reduction in carbon footprint. We're also no nasty byproduct or anything else. We're building a pilot plant because we understood that from the moment we started to make these claims until we can validate them with the pilot plant, it would just be objects that we're showing. But people have to realize that the pilot plant is going to be operational at Pyro Genesis Plant, and the pilot plant is going to be operational at the Pyro Genesis plant in Montreal. So it'll be very easy for us to bring investors to go take a look, seeing the system operates and everything else. We don't have to build a plant. It's just the system's going to be installed there. We're also the only process in the world that can turn 98% of the SIO2, which is basically material that is only good for your lawn ornament. It's really that white quartz that you buy at La Blas or even Home Depot. And we're the only one that can turn it into three-end material. And what's really interesting is that there's a massive market that's untouched because nobody's been able to do it. But if we don't have it, if we build it, it's going to come. Our objective is to be able to produce solar-grade silicon metal for the same cost that people make metallurgic-grade silicon metal. That means that all other, if people want higher purity material, they usually have to basically overbuy. They have to buy ultra-pure material. That's not what they're looking for. So we'll be able to tailor it more. Our development strategies, once we've proven that the pilot plant can work, we want to start building in a gradual phases from a 2,000 ton a year reactors to then building up 10,000 ton per year reactors. So that's really our goal. And if everything works well, we hope to do this within three years after we've proven the pilot plant works. Tracy?


Fynghoriwch angen, everyone, and welcome to the 22nd meeting of the Education and Skills Committee in 2019. Can I remind everyone to please turn their mobile phones to silent for the duration of the meeting? Apologies have been received from Oliver Mundell, who am happy to announce has become a father. We send congratulations to his wife on the birth of baby Ila. I would like to welcome Alison Harris, this morning, who will be We have also received apologies from Tavish Scott MSP. Agend item 1 is a continuation of our STEM inquiry. This is the third evidence session on the committee's STEM in early years education inquiry. I welcome to committee this morning Nicola Connor, class teacher, Nicola Dysgupta, class teacher and vice convener of the education committee EIS Scotland, Dr Simon Gage, director of Edinburgh science and Matt Lancashire, director of policy and public affairs, Scottish council for development and industry, and Catherine Thomas, who is a primary science development officer for the raise project and a very warm welcome to you. Can I maybe begin by asking you just to give a very brief outline of your experience in this area and if we could come to you first, Ms Connor? I am a primary teacher in Peel Primary School in Wysloeddion Council. I am currently primary one. I have an interest in early years. I have taught from nursery to primary three. I am currently at the end of my masters in early years pedagogy, with my dissertation focusing on to what extent is it possible to teach science through play with a play-based pedagogy. I am also the science development officer just now for Wysloeddion, with my remit as the CERC and primary science teachers trust to sustain an extended programme after being the lead on the cluster programme as part of the CERC as well. Thank you, Ms Dysgupta. Hi, Reir. I am a primary school teacher. I teach primary five at the moment, although I have taught across all areas of the primary stages. I am interested in STEM in terms of how it fits in across the curriculum in a broader sense. I would not say that I consider myself to have any kind of specialism in it, other than just being interested as a teacher. I am a seconded out at the moment. I am a primary school teacher by trade, but at the moment I am part of the raised programme for Highland Council, so it is providing high-quality CPD to teachers across the area. I work mostly with teachers across the college network and with, sometimes, the pupils as well. S.E.V.I. delivers the Young Engineers and Science Clubs, Y.S.C. That is our critical interest in this evidence session. The club has 1,500 schools in its network across Scotland and 30,000 boys and girls all participating in that. The clubs are there to infuse an interest in STEM through hands-on STEM projects, encouraging young people to make good subject choices around STEM as they come up, and to better inform young people and teachers about the range of careers available in STEM, particularly with the A.I. and data agenda upon us and forth industrial revolution, and, critically, to encourage more girls to pick up STEM-based subjects and participate within them. Dr Gage? I am Simon Gage. I was a research scientist, but in the last 30 years I have been working for what you probably would call Edinburgh Science Festival. We recently renamed Edinburgh Science, so we put on the two-week science festival in Edinburgh that gets 150,000 ordinary people with whom we spend time trying to encourage them to find STEM more interesting and exciting. We also run generation science, which tours all of Scotland taking practical workshops and shows into primary schools. That sees about 55,000 to 60,000 primary school children in all 32 local authorities and interfaces with about 3,000 primary school teachers. We also run a careers event called Careers Hive, which is aimed at secondary school pupils who are making decisions about what subjects they should study to try and get them excited about the possibilities of continuing their STEM study. That is our Scottish experience. We also work internationally a lot, so we also interface with other nations who are sitting here discussing exactly the same issues. Perhaps we have some insight into how others are dealing with it. Thank you very much. Just before we move to questions, I declare an interest, as I am the vice-chair of CERC, the British Computer Society. I will open with questions from the committee and move to Mr Gray, first of all. Thank you very much, convener. My morning panel. I had a question to start with, which is really for Catherine. One of the things that the committee has been looking at is how we can move from programmes and pilots and so on to bringing STEM learning in early years and primary into the mainstream. One of the programmes that witnesses often talk to us about in a very positive way is the raise programme, and you have been involved in that. That is good, but in your evidence you say that next year there is no funding for your programmes. Is that not an indication of the work that you have done that is going to go to waste? When we looked at the external, the Robert Owens Centre did an external evaluation of the raise project. What they are finding said that the raise programme has worked really successfully when local authorities have got behind it. Not to say that Highland Council hasn't got behind it, but there has been a funding issue within Highland and that it is sterity budgets and that at the moment lots of additional sport needs posts are being cut. There isn't a way that Highland Council is going to fund a development officer to carry on, so we are looking for external funding to continue it. The raise programme is very keen for us to continue and if funding is secured we can still be part of the raise network, but it is just that the external funding to secure the salary for the posts won't be there, it would have to come from external funding. So you are the raised development officer, so you have been seconded to that role, so if you can't find external funding you will go back to primary teaching. I feel that it has been an excellent programme to be part of and Highland schools have benefited from it greatly, but it is just given the political nature of what is happening in Highland Council at the moment. Okay, so how long have you been on scotment? I have been out. It has been a two-year pilot project that Highland has been part of. I have been out for nine months, my colleagues have been out for just over a year, so we have had four development officers within the two-year timescale. Okay, what is the scale of funding that you have had or you need? What is the gap that we are talking about? To keep two development officers out, I think that it is 100,000 for the year, I think. Did Highland Council fund that from the start and have chosen not to then, or was there funding from somewhere else? The funding comes through partly from the Wood Foundation and partly from Highland Council, so we did initially put some of it. So is the Wood Foundation funding still there or were the council expected to pick that up after? Yeah, the Wood Foundation funding was for the two years, and then that is the end of the pilot project. But the wonderful thing about the raised project was when it was given to Highland Council, it is two years, but it is not just giving money to councils. They have to have a sustainable view of a longer-term view of what they want to go forward. So on Highland Council, what they have gone for is the Newton Room approach, which is between for P6 to S2. So that is in development at the moment for funding of five Newton Rooms, and there are two of them up and running, and the other three are in progress. So the money was given from the Wood Foundation for a sort of transition period between that happening, and that is not quite here yet, which is why we are applying for the external funding to try and keep that going. Okay, but it's fair to say that you've been doing work that feels positive about promoting STEM and supporting primary teachers and delivering STEM in the classroom, and that's going to be lost. Yeah, we feel so, because as I say, the Newton Rooms that their emphasis is on P6 to S2, whereas we worked with early years practitioners as well. Okay, in your evidence, you point to another barrier, which is your impression that teachers are working at capacity, so they don't really have any space to engage with STEM even if they want to, and you also made the point that you think that amongst the teachers you work with, they think that STEM is important, but it's not as important as other things, and I just wondered if you could say a bit more about that. Yeah, I think it's when I've gone in and I've been asked to do a CPD session, and we've got teachers, the whole schools come along, and you can see teachers have had a hard day, their last thing they want to do is to have some training, they just want to be in their classrooms getting ready for the next day or sorting out on their paperwork, but the positive thing about STEM is that once we've gone in and we've delivered our session, the evaluation's always been really positive and people are happy, and they can see that they've got something that they can take back with them to the classroom the next day, and something that feeds into their literacy or feeds into their numeracy, so we're giving them strategies. Although they're coming, you can sense the sort of negativity at the start of STEM, it's another thing, it's another thing I've got to think about. I think at the end of the sessions they see the value in what we've been delivering. When you say that they see other things as more important, other subjects as more important, is that literacy and numeracy? Literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing, because that's what they're being accountable for to their head insurers. Dr Gage, you said something very interesting in your opening statement that you had been looking at international evidence. Could you give us an outline of some of that international evidence and whether you think there's any lessons that can be learned for Scotland from that? I can share only my experience, so if I sit in a room of people from ministry of education in Malaysia or Indonesia or Singapore, they're all talking about exactly the same issue. There's some very good research done. I would point you towards the Rose study, for example, that maps the attitudes of young people towards STEM subjects by the level of affluence of a nation. As a nation becomes wealthier, the interest in science and technology engineering diminishes. It's almost like a law of nature, so when you get down to the Japanese girls, they have no interest, because it's about the richest nation or highly developed nation. As nations develop, they're all facing the same issues that interest in the subjects diminishes, but they're also sitting around saying, we have to do more. We have to inspire our teachers to do more. We have to provide additional resources and support in the classroom. The thing that you come back with is some degree of terror, because whilst we have a head start in terms of the great history of science and technology in a country like Scotland, the rest of the world is overtaking us, or at least at our heels, and dealing with it in exactly the same way. If one were to think that this discussion relates in part not only to the inspiration of young people and their acquisition of useful skills, but to the wider context of the vibrancy of a nation, you come away thinking, my goodness, we've got to get on with this and we've got to succeed at this. We really do need an education system that produces the best out of everybody, because if not, we're going to be left in the lay-by. I suppose that is what I took away from it, although I have to say that I haven't been and seen things better. I can't tell you, go to Singapore, they've solved the problem. You see aspects that are somewhat troubling, like students doing 12-hour days or being grilled to pass the PISA test. I can't point to the solution, but I can certainly point to the competition. Do you have examples of what you would consider to be best practice in some of these countries where you feel that considerable progress is being made in the development of the same subjects for younger children? Are there other examples that you feel we should be looking at? Honestly, I don't actually know. I think it's a universal problem. I've been to schools in countries that are well funded and I've seen amazing labs. I've been to schools in China where the labs are better than any lab I've ever went through, whether it's IT or whether it's chemistry biology. You can visit places where people have spent a lot of money and the resources have been applied, but not ubiquitously, I have to say. Just in that context, you said very clearly that you believe that other countries are overtaking Scotland and certainly catching up with us. Presumably there is a reason for that. Do you feel that these reasons are more to do with general economic profile and improvement, or do you think that there are specific aspects of education that are allowing these countries to make that faster progress? I don't know enough about their educational systems to be able to comment on that, but one gets a sense of priority. The wealth of these nations is pinned squarely on becoming capable as technological entrepreneurs and there's a link there. Can I briefly ask the practitioners about one of the themes that has been about teacher confidence, especially in the early years in primary? Do you want to comment about your experience of what it's like in your own schools? Let me go to Ms Connor first. I think that, as part of being part of the CERC cluster programme, my name is to raise teacher confidence within our cluster. We have science mentors in every school. We have seven schools, sorry, six schools, one early-year centre within our cluster. We have a science mentor in every school, even though, after we did the programme in 2016-17, a couple of the teachers the mentors have left for promoted posts or different authorities. There has been a mentor who has taken over. I think that it's very important that not only have the mentors asked someone to take on the role of the mentor in the school but that the skills and everything that they learned with CERC and other schools have now taken that on and disseminated into other authorities or into other schools that they've now moved on to. There are, of course, teacher confidence, but you could say that about music, you could say that about drama. People have different interests, they have different... I don't have a science background at all, my is drama and music. So, I think that when I got asked to go along to do the cluster programme for myself, it was about my professional development and get ideas and just the enthusiasm from CERC and the training that you get is so high quality that you come back enthusiastic and motivated and you want everyone to feel the same. But when we're running the CLPL just now for the sustain and extend programme, I'm having to turn teachers away and put on a waiting list. I would say that the only thing barrier that I've learned this year is because it's so practical and hands-on, you can maybe only have 20-25 teachers attend at a time where actually I'm getting 30-40 teachers who want to come along and want their skills to be progressed or to learn new ideas. The most successful one that we had was at Christmas. We ran the science mentors throughout the authority, ran a science with Santa, we had mince pies, cups of tea, very informal so that people didn't feel threatened, they could come along and they could dip in and out of activities, take my ideas away. The professional dialogue is there between other teachers, oh, I've tried that with my primary four, have you tried this? I think that builds on teacher confidence knowing that there are people in the authority, in their school, in their cluster, where they can go and just have an informal chat at the end of the day or a probationer. I've got to teach this term if you've got any ideas, are there any ways you could help, are there any resources? Having our mentor network has been really important, I've found. I think that teacher confidence is a big issue in STEM and I do agree that the approach has been quite variable across different authorities and different experiences for teachers. Unfortunately, where I am, there is no real mentoring approach. Whilst we have had training, it has been of variable quality. I think that there was a really big push a couple of years back about STEM within Malmon local authority and there was a lot of time given to it but the approach that was given was not small groups where people had professional dialogue. It was a big room of 100 people with various people talking at you and giving you a kind of way forward to take up on a certain initiative but there was no real follow-up with that so if you weren't particularly sure or if you weren't particularly confident, there was no one to really go and ask and teachers were all at the same level of we're finding our way through this but we're not quite sure how. I think that there maybe needs to be a kind of more consistent approach within STEM and within CPD generally. I think again there is a bit of overload which other people here have mentioned in terms of teacher workload so while a lot of people are very enthusiastic about STEM they do feel a lot of pressure because STEM is not the only thing on their agenda or on their head teachers agenda or on their school improvement plan so there's a lot of things being asked of teachers right now and STEM is only one of them so it's about finding the time and again if that is your particular enthusiasm or if that is something you want to work on and focus on for your own professional learning then you might choose that but if it's not then you might find yourself pulled in a lot of different directions. I do think also the sort of sustainability of what teachers have been asked to do because in my own experience of STEM was as I say very enthusiastic at the start but if your own experiences aren't positive then it's something that you maybe aren't going to take forward in your classroom in a positive way so a lot of it is even being about just basic resources of we're being asked to build things but we don't have the materials to build them with and things like that so that makes things very difficult. Okay, Ms Romas. I'd just like to add to that the CERC cluster mentor programme's been really highly well received and the CERC remote delivery that Highland Council have been able to access even though they're miles from Dynfermline that has been really positive impact on teacher confidence but also I think the probationary teaching CPD to them that's been because we're getting people when they're in the start of their career and that's been a really positive experience to try and increase practitioner confidence as well. Okay, Mr Lancashire. Yeah, I suppose the consistent feedback we've had from the teacher training sessions that we run at YSC is that many teachers acknowledge that they like confidence moving the programme forward once the kits are out, once the outcomes are delivered, they're very appreciative of those. I think there's something here about that continuous professional development in this area and that seems to be lacking whether that's a mentoring approach, whether that is further contact with YSC and regional coordinators and the STEM ambassadors but it seems like we get to a point where we've done the training, the kits are there, the kids are ready to go but we then handholding goals, there's no other further support there as well. I think as well if you break STEM down, you start looking at AI and digital, I think more of a critical concern for me is the lack of computer science teachers within the education system, how we recruit and retain that might support better confidence in schools around this type of area within STEM based subjects as well. I think it's something we really need to conquer and move forward. Thank you. Do you want to comment? Briefly, yes, I suppose the observation I'd make is that the STEM strategy is very welcome and it has some pretty black and white figures in it. The one I remember I think is 85,000 or 83,000 practitioners, whether they're early years, primary, secondary, who generally speaking it is viewed require more help in teaching STEM subjects. So whilst there are great examples of CLPL around, for me that the problem is that they're in the wrong order of magnitude of capacity, you know, they're delivering a few hundreds, maybe a couple of thousand a year, that doesn't stack up well against 85,000 and so I think for me that the frustration is the scale at which things are delivered. There are great examples of things that can be done. We've heard of a few here. It's just that somehow as a nation we're doing it with the wrong number of zeroes at the end of it and we need to find a mechanism that scales up. I'm going to move on to Dr Allen. Thank you very much. One theme that we've approached or asked what this is about with scientific consistency in previous panels has been about the issue of both deprivation and rurality when it comes to ensuring that children, young people have equal access to science in school. I just wondered if initially you had any observations about your own experiences of that as teachers and others when it comes to ensuring that that equity of access is there. So when we run training courses we'll run one in Inverness which is most central for the most teachers in our area but we actually go out to rural areas and so we've had some small numbers of people but people are so appreciative that we've gone out and we've provided the CPD so we're there and we're able, as Nicola said, that discussion element which is so important, getting people together. We're also trialling out remote delivery so that we're using highland schools have been given Chromebooks so we're using the Google Hangout, Google Meet facilities to try and again it can then be individual teachers who can't manage even their nearest school half an hour, three quarters of an hour away so they can't get to an evening session evening but to provide them with some high quality input so that's what we're trialling at the moment. I think the issue of deprivation is a really big one. The school that I'm working in just now has quite a mixed socioeconomic demographic and we find that there's huge issues. We were given a lot of peff money and other funding and it hasn't really touched the sides. When it comes to initiatives like STEM again we're up against it in terms of materials and things like that and I think other issues are things like homework because a lot of what we rely on is children being able to access stuff at home online, a lot of children don't have that and a lot of the things that we rely on as well as parental involvement and parental engagement and a lot of times parents either can't for practical reasons that they're at work and they're working shifts and they don't have time to sit and talk about various bits of homework with children and a lot of time parents don't feel confident in engaging with these kind of subjects because it wasn't something they had strengths in themselves when they were at school so I think there's huge issues around deprivation and the sort of inequity of the sort of access to science-based teaching. If I may pick up on that very point I just was curious to know also whether there was any good practice, I'm sure there is amongst schools, in actively trying to engage that parental group of parents who don't have confidence about talking about science at all or as you say for reasons of deprivation may not have had a good experience of education themselves? I'm not too sure about that particular group. Certainly in my own school we do try to have parental engagement and we do have a lot of that. We have people who are pharmacists or whatever coming in and trying to engage with children and things like that but I think there is the kind of inroads to parents who are not confident themselves. I think that's been quite a slow uptake and I'm not really sure what the solution to that would be. Mr Lancashire first. Just call me Matt, it's fine. Just very quickly on the ruralities side of things, it's obviously it is an issue in terms of the geographical nature of Scotland in terms of access to young people and the STEM opportunities and the YSE clubs but at SEDR because of our committees, our Himes and Ions Committees, our North East Committee and our South of Scotland committee coming on stream soon we take a real pride in terms of that geographical engagement with schools so right now in Shetland Isles 79% of primary schools and now I've got a registered YSE club, 100% of secondary schools have a registered YSE club, likewise in the western Isles 83% of primary schools, I've got a YSE club and 100% I know what you're going to say there but yeah that's exactly where we are but and we want to expand that and continue that engagement. I think the issue is is how many children come along to those clubs and actually participate. There is infrastructure there to support via the YSE clubs, it's how we encourage and motivate the children to come along and in the second time that might be alluded back to Nikki's point around parental motivation and support for their children to participate as well but the infrastructure is there, maybe there's a role for YSE and that in terms of the ambassadors and the co-ordinators to help in terms of that motivation and spreading that message amongst parents and the wider communities in these far flung areas. I think what we sometimes forget is that for parents who are struggling in terms of their own financial background and their own issues stem is maybe not their priority you know their sort of priorities and other things. I was just going to say about the parental engagement that there's been numerous examples incited of them family run stem clubs where because the children are so enthused by what's going on in the activity speak for themselves that they're almost dragging their parents along to it. Again a barrier to that is that I suppose it relies on an adult, a parent in the school or a teacher or a stem ambassador to give up their time to run it but when they've been run and they've been run successful they've just done a fantastic response to stem in the activities and that parental engagement. In terms of my own school I think we're very lucky that parents do come in and they are engaged. We have I think all parents as partners in learning. Every term our dates are given out to parents because a lot of our parents obviously are working on and during the day so we try and give as much notice as possible that they come in in the afternoon and we've maybe had a stem focus or a writing focus or a health and wellbeing focus and it's about what their child is learning about that in school at that time but I know that that is something that as a school we are looking at for next year to engage more parents because obviously it is more important when looking at gender balance and conscious bias that parents do have a part in that to play as well so it's important to get them on board as early as possible when there's I was reading that there's within the earlier some children have already decided what jobs they can and can't do from primary one primary two and that's certainly something through discussions I've had interesting ones with primary ones that I have found that actually there are children girls tell me they can't be firefighters or girls and boys and farmers can only be male because they have to have a wife that kind of thing so there's certain things and I think having parental engagement and getting parents involved is very important within that. Dr Gage? Speaking to the reality and accessing children in areas of deprivation I mean it's stating the obvious but generation science is a touring programme it goes to the schools we decide it's going to go to and it does go to schools with you know 30 pupils in at the end of a small road somewhere or equally it goes into I mean 30% of our schools are in the top quintile of the SIMD register so you if you're touring you choose your audience the in fact generation science is the biggest science touring programme in the UK and but it comes at a price you know it costs us £500 per time we show up in a school to do that but there are mechanisms well worn mechanisms and we often describe it as being sort of science delivery on industrial scale there are a fleet of 16 vehicles with teams on the road for 12 weeks doing this so it is entirely possible to go to exactly the people you want to go to you just need to be able to pick your stuff up and go to them resources have been mentioned quite a few times in Dr Gage I mentioned the same strategy which has got some really you know big ambitions in there but we heard from one of the witnesses already that one of the biggest biggest problems in delivering IT and computing is like Wi-Fi access so we've heard about infrastructure issues or caring about resource issues and things is you know what your opinion about the support behind the same strategy is there enough support there to actually achieve some of the ambitions in it? A West Lothian council point of view we are very lucky that we do have the support in place and the digital so that children can bring in their own digital appliances and use them in class and are able to use the Wi-Fi so I think in terms of our I can't really comment much on that and that we have that support and resource in place just now. Thank you Dr Gage. No they're not enough I can't see how they can be anywhere near enough I mean I mean just going back to that number 85,000 people need help some sort of professional development in the way that they bring science and technology alive to the young people they're working with they need the resources they need the technicians I just don't see how you do that in a convincing way at a national level without spending tens of millions of pounds rather than a small number and coming back to the question from about the international perspective one thing you do see is other people spending tens of millions of dollars whatever it is so I yeah and I've sort of watched this this discussion for 30 years in Scotland and I have to say many whilst the STEM strategy is extremely welcome it feels like a rerun of things that have gone before and I think if we really want to make a difference we have to take this much more seriously and put much more resource into it. The STEM strategy is very much welcome but our world is changing we're moving into the fourth industrial revolution data and I are seeing this to new oil as such and I think in terms of resources I think there needs to be a higher level strategy across Scottish Government around a national strategy for AI and data where the STEM strategy is well-confident and connect to about how we realise the opportunities of AI and data across the economy, across our climate, across education, across skills and that's where the STEM strategy should fit and if that was the case I would suspect some of the resource issues we are seeing or infrastructure issues around connectivity or support for teachers would be resolved because there is a bigger prize that our children can go into great new high jobs high level jobs working in cutting-edge technology overcoming some of the greatest challenges in our society around climate change and and aging society and such so as well so I think I'll call it SCDIYSC is that grander plan around a national AI and data strategy for Scotland. Mr Thomas regarding resources and I think particularly at the early years level that there's a danger that you spend money on resources but it's just going to sit in a cupboard and gathering dust we always try and go for a sort of STEM on a shoestring approach so try and ensiwz the teachers and teachers who are not confident so using resources that are readily available to them and I know in the bigger picture the wider picture that yes we do want our children to be familiar with the technology but if we don't have the practitioners who are confident using it yet let's start and get the practitioners ensiwzed about STEM and what they can do with STEM and what's within their capability and the resources that are around them and then let's make that sustainable two three four years time we can maybe bring in the bigger technology that maybe might be using but I think the biggest issue at the moment is just to get the people ensiwzed and confident using the resources that they've got at the moment and what's readily available to them. I think that resourcing across Scotland has been quite piecemeal so some some areas have invested in it in more than others and I think that's probably quite problematic. I don't really agree with my colleague here about you know resources sitting in a cupboard because as a teacher any resource I'm giving I grab it and I take it and I use it so I think there needs to be more investment in it and I think we've suffered a lot from austerity because it's not just teachers in classrooms there's a knock-on effect with things like technicians in secondary schools and I know we were here to talk mainly about primary but you know when technicians are you know viewing far between on the ground or they're not no longer employed during the holidays and they can't maintain equipment or they can't set things up for teachers or they can't you know do the things that they used to do it does have a knock-on effect and again it is another kind of workload issue as well for teachers so I think there's I think that it needs to be looked at in a much more broader sense instead of just you know it's not just about you know having batteries or having chemicals and having whatever you need to hand it's about a bigger picture approach. To come back to the issues around deprivation I suppose this first question would apply to deprivation, morality, issues around gender. Interested in consistency of approach when best practice is found and is found to be working from your experience how well shared is that, how well rolled out is it or is it the case that something works really well for a couple years but the funding pot that it came from changes priorities change we then move away from it and a few years later the wheel is reinvented to try and come up with the same best practice again or is are we finding we're getting to a point now where best practice is actually being bedded in and bedded in outwith the school or the cluster of schools that were first pioneering it? Again I think it's very variable because my own local authority I think are still kind of baby steps towards things like that and you talked about changing priorities I think that happens quite a lot because we're asked to focus on STEM but my colleague mentioned earlier literacy, numeracy, health and wellbeing are what's on everybody's schooling improvement plan and we're hit with other initiatives like one plus two languages and outdoor learning and again if you're enthusiastic about those things those are the things that you might want to focus on so I think in terms of best practice teachers share with each other and I think teachers are very collegiate but I think again it needs to be a kind of more consistent approach and a broader strategy and I don't think that bedding in thing has happened yet. Obviously from experience from the cluster programme which we did 2016-2017 we still have our cluster mentors continuing even though the programme is finished and outwith the sustaining extent programme we're doing just now we still continue to meet and we still continue to look at plans or progression or transition for the primary sevens into our high school so it was on the merit I suppose and the enthusiasm from the teachers that that was continued which we do ourselves but the support from our head teachers and the support from outwith the cluster is still there and they're thankful that we're still continuing what we're doing so. We've tried a cluster approach in Highland but we've suffered from staff moving on so we've had issues that we haven't been able to have those discussions and that get together but that has been the beauty of being part of the raised network and that we've seen good examples elsewhere and we've been able to share them with people and through that sharing we're hoping that that will become embedded. Looking at industry involvement which is something that's come up quite a lot in the evidence that we've taken on this that getting industry into schools can have a really positive effect in conjunction with teaching staff there's an obvious challenge there when it comes to rural communities for whom some of the industries that are relevant are not particularly proximate to the schools. In your experience how easy or not is it where it's areas of deprivation. We've seen plenty of really good examples of getting industry into schools but in areas where plenty of the teachers are themselves engineers computing scientists etc but in the area of deprivation where there's not necessarily those parental connections and those local networks how easy have you found it to bring industry into particularly primary setting? I have my colleagues organised look-aber stem fair so it's been local industries to the look-aber area and it's been because it's now well it's run for two years it's going to run next year because the primary sixes are going to take on the running of it and that's proved really successful in getting the look-aber local area industry into that because it's run one year and then it was again bigger the next year and hoping it'll be bigger again next year so there are ways of doing it. I know that the stem ambassador network we suffer from that because it's based at Aberdeen science centre and of course it's covering seven local authorities I think there's 300 stem ambassadors signed up for Highland region but obviously their commitment once a year and spread out we've not had so much success in using the stem ambassador network somebody was suggesting that perhaps their commitment should raise from one industry visit school visit a year to well she was suggesting six visits a year but we have suffered with the stem ambassador network. The YSE network is predominantly industry funded from across Scotland and one of its guiding principles which supports industry as well in terms of their thinking is diversity and gender equality. The amounts of schools that were in I said previously industry take that seriously in terms of people coming into their business from different diverse backgrounds to support their industry succeeding so we work very closely with industry to ensure areas of deprivation and rural areas actually have a representative or a stem ambassador to try and encourage, motivate children to take part in the clubs and where there is a local regional challenge because I've just mentioned earlier our regional committees generally have representatives of industries that are prominent to that area I mean Highlands and Islands will be very different to the industries in the south of Scotland so we're trying to align that as best we can moving forward. Could more be done absolutely I think where we've found success is where we've coalesced people around our annual regional celebration where we have a range of about 40-50 businesses in Scotland where the kids get to show off what they've been doing all year and they celebrate all the different projects that they work on but the kids are coming from the western Isles, they're coming from the borders, they're coming from the west of Scotland, Ayrshire etc, all engaging with business from the likes of Shell to the likes of BT to the likes of the Agio etc as well so that opportunities there in different ways are local and national as well to engage with industry and find out. How your career might develop in the future or your interests might develop into a career in the future? From the industry's point of view is the demand from schools roughly comparable between schools in more and less deprived areas are you finding that schools from in areas of a particular socioeconomic background there's more demand more appetite? To be fair I don't think we've drilled down into the figures as much as we could and I'm willing to come back to you on that absolutely. What I would say is that we go out to every school that we can do no matter class background geography and try and engage with the teachers and the children to try and give them the opportunity to engage in an interest in STEM and progress their opportunities within that but yeah we can drill down a little bit into those figures but we certainly don't sell so that the schools we work with hence why we're in the west denial from a reality perspective hence why we're in some of the toughest neighbourhoods and areas in Scotland trying to provide this great network and that's been industry funded for the past 35 years. Dr Keitcher wants to come in a little bit. I think you put your finger on a difficult problem how do you get industry specialists into schools in areas where those industries aren't represented I don't know the answer but echoing Matt's example our careers event aimed at secondary school pupils not primary school pupils does a fine job of exposing people who live in rural communities or areas where a certain type of industry is prevalent to a great breadth of industries by bringing them to one place so we bring them into Edinburgh and we have bus loads coming from Lanarkshire the borders even from I think even from the Highlands and they're exposed to people who make satellites so they make whisky they make all sorts of technological things in the company of about 130 industry volunteers early stage industry volunteers who we've trained to talk well so I it's a good model that the focal place where you assist others to come into is efficient and effective I think and we would happily run that model across the country and we're even trying to do that. Honour, you wanted to come in. I have to disagree about the STEM ambassadors. We have STEM East who have been fantastic in coming across to schools across West Lothian who have organised and they have taken part in teach meets in West Lothian to share what they do with all the schools in West Lothian. I think we've had various engineers, different scientists come into the school and but also I think taken part in the primary engineers leaders award as a whole school approach getting a whole school about different types of engineering I think has been really important and again that practice has been shared with schools across West Lothian and I know other schools this year have taken part maybe in more deprived areas in West Lothian having enjoyed having the experience of the engineers coming in being able to ask them questions about their jobs and the skills that they've been doing so they found that very valuable as well. Mr Scoop, I was wanting to go in and I'll come to you after that Mr Thomas, thanks. As a teacher I'm really welcome and value partnership with industry and partnership with business but I also really value the fact that education is not just about employability, education is wider and it's about the whole person, the whole child so I think we need to remember as well that not every child is going to be STEM focused and that we need to celebrate and support children who are interested in other things as well and even those children that are interested in STEM might not necessarily segue into a STEM career so it's not just about business and industries, it's about a wider a wider thing. It's just great to hear that the STEM ambassador network I think it's that Highlands suffering well not just Highlands the Northern Alliance area again that's where the rurality comes into but just wanted to add that I think the tide's changing, the industry seems so keen to get into schools and we've had initiatives where we've had like the academy nine so we've got big infrastructure projects and the engineers and the work that's gone on into all the schools in that area has been incredible again with the A96 and Port of Cromarty Firth which is an undergoing revamp and all the industry that are associated with that revamp so keen to get out into areas in those areas and that sort of deprivation areas working there. Thank you. I wanted to return to something Nicola Conor was talking about gender stereotyping in early years in primary. We know that gender stereotypes are deeply ingrained. One of our witnesses, Elizabeth Kelly, had said that she thought teachers themselves are still learning to better understand their own unconscious bias so I wonder if you think there's enough training going into early years in primary training about encouraging teachers to overcome that to see it through and also how do you carry on if you can have a successful pedagogy around early years? How does it carry on to primary when the pressures on teachers become different? In terms of training I don't think there is very much, if I'm honest. It's only through either reading that I've been doing personally, through everything that I've been doing, and the authority of the cluster. It's coming into contact with people like Heather Earnshaw who's been looking at the gender balance. I think she's now in Education Scotland as well and having discussions with her and just making people more aware in staff of possibly that they have an unconscious bias and that there are some things that might be from their culture or their childhood that might impose on how they're teaching something or how they're disseminating it in a classroom. In terms of through a primary school and through early years I think we're very good as teachers during the world of work week or through different discussions. I know I've had many discussions about skills we've been learning in a science lesson or why are we learning this skill, why is this important in maths for example, why are we learning money, why is this important, what are we going to use it for. I think those are discussions that are important to have in a classroom and I think those are discussions that are happening through schools and through classrooms across Scotland. I don't think that's not happening but it is interesting when you're having those conversations with children that they're coming either from home or from somewhere else where for example we were doing developing young workforce agenda last school year, last session and I took some children aside who get PEF funding and we asked them what you want to be when you grow up and it was from I did primary one to primary three, my colleague did primary four to primary seven and the answers we got were based on what they saw parents doing or someone in a family role was already doing. They had no inspiration or thought about any other jobs. We had one YouTuber which made me sad but the rest were based on family jobs. Again, it all ties in. Everything that we do in school is just as equally important as getting parents involved, getting families involved. I know that through doing science in the school I've had conversations with children where I've said who can be a scientist and they said well anybody can because you do science so it must be for everybody. Having someone in school to either be a role model or a positive impact is important as well. I think that in terms of training I think that more could be done for that. You're a key influencer obviously outside of the home but do you find that you can take the parents on board or do you get any resistance? I've not come across an unpositive parent in my time. When we were doing our developing young workforce agenda I was looking at science and STEM. We had a parent focus group in who were looking at our action plan with us for the year and then they evaluated and helped us at the end of the year to evaluate our practice and what they felt as a school. We've done well and what they thought our next steps could be as well. In terms of parents wanting to be involved where there's time and where their ability is I think that they do want to be involved in some way. We would certainly welcome more training. I think that I agree with my colleague that there's really not enough there. In terms of role models I think that we'd like to see a lot more people involved and the primary sector is predominantly, you know, primary teachers are predominantly women. I think that's a good thing in terms of we are the scientists in our classrooms and we are showing children that. I don't think that parents aren't positive but I do think that sometimes they can be a wee bit intimidated or a wee bit overwhelmed and I've had similar experiences as my colleague in terms of children and particularly girls not seeing themselves in the future in those kind of roles because they just think it's not for them, you know, it's not something that they can aspire to. I think as well in sort of general terms women have kind of been written out of history in terms of science and their contribution and I think we could do more to kind of redress that balance if we can in some way as well. I welcome the, let's get right then, is it inclusion gender balance team that they've got the six posts within Education Scotland and I welcome the fact that they are going to go out and they're going to deliver training and with the aim of delivering it to all schools by is it 20, I can't remember it, the 2022 that'd be right. I just question how feasible it is for six officers to go out and to do that when it is such a big wide remit but I really welcome the training that's going to be made available to teachers upcoming in the future. Anyone else want to? Absolutely. The YSC has integrated the top 10 tips for teachers from the Institute of Physics into its practices, resources and training and live and breathe by that in terms of how they communicate, engage and support teachers to ensure that gender inclusion is part of the initiative of YSC. There's still a lot of work to be done in terms of overcoming certain practices however teachers need the support and continue training and continued resources to be able to support them achieve that gender diversity within STEM based subjects and STEM based careers later on in life going forward. Can you maybe ask Dr Gage internationally is it a different picture? Not that I am aware of, no I think it's a prevalent problem actually I refer back to the Rose study which is a body of research that actually unpicks some of this and identifies why it is that young women get turned off from science and whilst I don't know the research inside out one of the aspects I do recall is that they regarded as anti-social it is not social enough and that comes out in the research very clearly and so if you can counter some of those misconceptions about how you're going to be in an isolated role you make some steps, some progress it's a common problem everywhere there's some good work out there I think about providing good role models I did see one piece of research probably 10 years ago that actually showed that children acquire predominantly acquire their perception that science is for men only from teachers so to ask whether there should be greater training in this issue in teaching profession I think it's exactly the right question to ask Just very quickly and it is on gender but it's wine and diversity and under representation of a number of different groups of ethnic minorities, LGBT groups, disability as well that we also need to focus on in this debate, yes gender is critically important but these other groups as well are just as important in terms of if we want those inclusive productive workplaces of the future all these groups matter in terms of engaging them into STEM based opportunities Supplementary to Catherine Thomas about the role of Education Scotland you mentioned the development officers who will now be working nationally is there a role do you think for school inspections and perhaps for the practitioners as well to look more specifically at this issue I don't think I know enough about the school inspection process I only know it from the primary school teacher level to answer that question I actually would appreciate it from a primary teacher level because as a practitioner you know in the classroom could school inspections help to support that work do you think? I think experience of inspection are very worrying times for teachers when the inspectors are coming in and although the schools that when they've gone through them recently they've said it's actually been a really supportive process so I guess from that perspective from people afterwards that I suppose yes the inspectors could sit down and they could talk about what's going on and provide guidance as to moving forward but it's just you're talking about teachers who are already feeling quite stressed out and the word inspection tends to bring out a stressed out response as well so I think there are better mechanisms through supportive training, through supportive mentoring, through supportive networks I think that would be more supportive role for Education Scotland rather than specifically the education inspection focus I don't know what my colleagues would think I haven't been through an inspection so I don't know what the process is like I can only speak on terms of I've had a VSE which is a council level and they were very supportive and one of the things that they looked at was teachers leading developments within the school and there was a number of us helping will be in STEM, DUIW that kind of thing and it was discussed about how we felt how we supported, we felt by head teachers about the council and it came out as very kind of positive and that what we were doing as a school being teachers of change and doing it that way was very good but in terms of support or things that comes from that comes from my SLT it comes from higher up my education officers within the council who have been very supportive I have to say so again I don't know from an inspection point of view as yet to touch wood I haven't been through one I've been teaching for about 15 years and I've been through two school inspections and my colleague is right it can be stressful and it can be a bit of a worry in time my one experience is that Education Scotland don't really take on that kind of role it can be quite remote sometimes from the classroom teacher they're involved quite heavily with senior management and yes they do come in and observe you you have an occasion where you can get some feedback but there doesn't seem there there's not that sort of dialogue where they tell you how they can support you in driving things forward and again I think the focus that I've seen has mainly been on health and wellbeing literacy and numeracy rather than other areas of the curriculum because I think earlier on you'd said that sharing good practice needs to be done more consistently so I wonder therefore do you think Education Scotland do have a role to play there and that they could be more hands-on in terms of offering that support absolutely I think there could be I don't think the school inspector is the right mechanism for that but I think Education Scotland could find a way here thank you I've been quite interested in the idea that STEM should really include the arts and the humanities and therefore become more of a steam to you know moving forward so I know there's limited application in this so far but I and we have heard from the University of Sheffield that this approach has been found to be quite useful in helping children increase not only their engagement but their motivation for STEM subjects so I would really be quite interested in asking the panel what their thoughts are on that and whether you think there's a discussion to be had around this as well. Lee, I think again it comes down to not segregating out the subjects so it becomes far more integrated and it's still links towards the literacy and the numeracy and the health and wellbeing I know Ray's Officers in Fife worked with the Book Bag Scotland people to produce for the read write count bags that went out with parents and parental engagement to produce steam planners and for last year's books and that that's going to be done again this year so the books go out and there's plans that teachers can just access and they've got ready steam activities and that's practitioners really enjoy that really like that the plan's there it's activities that they've got confidence that they can see that they can do and I think it's a win-win when you become it's not isolated it's raised as the science capital within the school it's raised in the profile of science well not just science but that's sort of the steam capital if you like and yeah it's a very positive way of moving forward as practitioners we're always encouraged to take a kind of interdisciplinary approach anyway certainly within the primary and I think that probably happens a lot more it's maybe not been branded that way or it's not been advertised if you like teachers don't shout about it because it's just a natural way of approaching things for us so probably happens a lot more in schools than you might imagine you know the sort of expressive arts and other things coming into STEM and I do think it has a massive impact on children because they love all of all of that it does increase engagement it does increase enjoyment it adds to what is a positive experience for them and I would certainly welcome more of it thank you we're embracing it a wholeheartedly I suppose but for us it's important to keep the science and technology in with the art so rather than so to to motivate people through their artistic aspirations perhaps to then use and learn and acquire new skills and technology so we run all sorts of workshops on on making paintings that talk to you or well no they don't talk to you but they're you know that have flashy eyes or making circuits with pencils and carbon traces and things like that and that they're the simple ones and then you can go on to digital sewing and all these sorts of things so I think it's great anything that motivates a young person to get involved and to acquire these new skills is a good thing thank you very much I'm just going to say it's just going to add very quickly I think it's increasingly important into disciplinary learning as to where our economy shifts and adding art and humanities in there that can teach further creativity, adaptability, flexibility when we're talking about people having eight, nine, ten different jobs in their lifetimes is critical and to have a successful fourth industrial revolution economy is such in Scotland which we all desire that interdisciplinary learning is critical to allow those skills to flourish and create resilience, adaptability, flexibility and creativity on the technologies of the future. I think that interdisciplinary learning is a big thing in primary and early years in primary one where you are bundling outcomes or benchmarks together and ensuring that children know why they're learning it, how they're learning it and the skills that go with it and the skills that are merged together there's a lot of art you can get from science lessons there's lots of things you can do with technology to create art music and things so I think there is a lot of good practice already happening to try and merge all of them together. Thank you just following on from Ms Harris' line of questioning I was meeting with the cadet organisations a few weeks ago and asked them about their STEM learning and they said oh we only do STEM by stealth and that was because if they presented young people with a problem or a project or something to do they get stuck in until they labeled it and I just wondered if there are international examples are people trying to reframe the language around STEM learning at all? Well lots don't use the word STEM at all and I think there's an argument for not using it particularly. Yes there are great examples. Exploratorium in San Francisco for example takes a holistic approach to learning that embraces the arts culture science festival is a cultural organisation that involves humour, eating, drinking. There are many many good examples yes I think I think you just have to I don't know it's tricky I mean I'm so imbued with sciences and technology just part of culture that it's hard for me to perhaps get a perspective on this. I can't point to anyone particularly at all I think well they've really solved it they've really solved it but I yeah I don't know I think we have to be cautious about talking to young people about STEM in the first place talking about creativity problem solving coming up with great ideas that are going to make the world a better place being inventors being creative working in teams that's the language I think that young people will respond to rather than it's time to do your STEM. I would agree with Dr Gage I think it's really important to have that interdisciplinary approach and to have that kind of integration in the curriculum and not have it segregated and call it STEM and I think we in schools sometimes have things like STEM week where you know there's going to be a big focus on STEM this week and we're all going to build and we're all going to make and I don't agree with that approach I think it should be across the curriculum it should be much more integrated it shouldn't just be a week here or a week there I think partly that has come out of the fact that the curriculum is really overcrowded and it's to make sure we fit it in so we have a STEM week we have a money week we have an outdoor learning initiative we have a focus on one plus two at another time and it's to ensure that we are ticking all of those boxes but I don't think education should be about ticking boxes I think it should be about more than that and I think if we can move away from that and have a sort of genuine focus on these things in a more natural way and head teachers not worrying about having a ticked this off my sit plan I think it would benefit us all I think it would benefit children enormously I think it would benefit teachers enormously and I think it would just a different approach I think would be more helpful. I've got one final question if the committee are all happy and it's to do it's probably going back to something Mr Lancashire mentioned earlier on in the presentation and it's something that actually drew the committee to this whole subject area was the fourth industrial revolution and there's AI digital aspects of that and you mentioned that you didn't think the digital strategy was sorry the STEM strategy as it is was enough at that moment can you give us an example of some of the elements that you think are missing and something that we need to be working harder on in those areas? It's not necessarily anything that's missing from the STEM strategy it's more what's missing from overarching Scottish Government policy in terms of an AI and daftless strategy for Scotland across the economy across skills and education across health that drive and move our economy forward to be world leading in these areas I think the STEM strategy does try and focus on digital and does try and focus on improving digital schools and children engaging in digital areas and there's a variety of techniques that we've advocated in that but it's only as good as having a national strategy that says how do we become a world leading nation in AI and data across a range of different industries how does AI and data help our health service how does AI and data help us conquer some of the climate change issues that we have going forward and why is it a theme across all Scottish Government policy in one defined strategy that supports it where the STEM strategy could fit underneath so it's not anything necessarily about the STEM strategy itself it's more overarching where does it fit why why are we increasing people learning STEM if there's no jobs in STEM at the end of it and I get there's a reasons around opportunity and people's self-worth and value and children's self-worth and value but surely there's got to be an end point where we're taking industry forward productivity forward and social inclusion forward that comes as part of that too in conquering some of those two challenges of today and tomorrow I think that's the end of our questions for this morning can I thank all the panel members that's been very very helpful not only for your contributions today but also for the information that you've provided to the committee in your written submissions I'm just going to suspend briefly while we move on to that to allow the witnesses to leave while we move on to the next item two which is an EU reporter update and invite Jenny Gilruth EU reporter to the committee to give us her paper so thank you convener so as the paper shows the figures there from UK show a decline in the number of EU 27 students applying for university places in Scotland the figure in 2018 was 42,290 and the figure in 2019 was 41,350 as also detailed in the paper university Scotland has highlighted concerns in relation to the european temporary leave to remain proposal and I want to highlight those concerns to the committee it's on page three of the briefing notes and I welcome any thoughts from committee members on the detail in the paper and I will provide a further update after the summer recess any questions from miss Gilruth I thank you very much for the paper miss Gilruth and your update to the committee I think the two concerns at areas in particular with regard to the drop in numbers but particularly the temporary leave to remain issue and the fact that it won't meet the requirements of a four-year degree can I suggest that we write to the home secretary highlighted in the committee's concern in that area are there any other areas we would like to highlight at this stage thank you very much and we look forward to an update in the water again thank you if we could now move to agenda item 3 which is Scottish national standardised assessments and it's to consider the government response to the snsa report and we received a comment from the government's response from Professor Lindsay Patterson connect upstart Scotland and the RSE and invite comments from members on the responses I'm genuinely very disappointed by this response I think the committee as a whole came together provided a very considered report with very substantial recommendations and an awful lot of the body of the response is just basically saying well we said some we believe something different this is not our position I think Professor Patterson's comments and indeed all the other ones reflect that disappointment and I think there are you know we could go through it and identify the number of areas but I am the round SSLN I think there are real issues there the question of IT as an example we identified as a problem indeed in talking about more generally about STEM in schools if you remember somebody said the one thing you really need was better internet connection we have a system that's relying on young people being able to access the test through ICT and saying that this is not possible is a big issue and the response is basically well it's not really a big issue I just found I don't know what you want to do convener around this but I genuinely think we need to come back and look at this again it's not acceptable in my view the Scottish Government to take a report and basically just say what we don't agree with you I think there are some areas around there's some stuff about assessment and explaining it just felt really odd and didn't really in my view match up to the seriousness of the report itself which I think has been genuinely well received and recognised as a balanced report if we wanted the cabinet secretary just to revisit his own evidence to the committee then we would have asked him to do that we asked him to respond to a series of recommendations the committee as a whole had agreed but I would be interested in what other committee members or who's were on how we deal with it I'll bring in this then Mr Gray I largely agree with that I did think we went to considerable lengths as a committee to give a very balanced report and looked at it from different angles and I thought we produced quite a good report actually and I think John's right has been quite well received that this is almost saying I'm sorry but you're wrong which I don't think is acceptable I mean your response is not acceptable for the Government to take a different view picking up enough of the points that you raised very legitimately as a committee I don't think okay I think we'd have expected some engagement even whether you know he the cabinet secretary is not going to agree with my view on the the reality of primary one testing but that doesn't mean you shouldn't engage with the evidence that the committee had and the conclusions that we all came to I think round survey round data missing round ICT are good examples where they've simply just you know and even when we've said we would like to look you know sort of kind of an update on on how it's all going the responses will that's a matter for local authorities and you can't really have it both ways I just I find yes that that I didn't expect the cabinet secretary to have a conversion the road to Damascus and throws hands up and say I'm completely wrong but I did expect him to engage with the Scottish Government more generally to engage with some of the more serious the recommendation even amongst which we as a committee don't agree in the fundamentals round the testing but we did agree on these recommendations I think they should have been taken more seriously Mr Gray I think John's right it is to degree about about the kind of tone of the response and I mean yeah I lost our try to you know the committee is not in a position where they can order the minister to change his view but a lot of the response here is simply repeating what what the government said in the course of the inquiry we considered that we considered the other evidence and we took a view and it really just doesn't acknowledge that at all I think so I thought the tone was pretty disappointing and I find it quite worrying because we're putting a great deal of effort in including later today to producing the report into subject choice in our own curriculum and on a number of occasions the cabinet secretary has said that he's waiting to see what that report says so for example when the Conservatives brought a debate on that topic he was very critical of them and said why are you doing this to the reports to come well you know if the reports just going to pass them by completely then that's about worrying now I don't know what I don't know what we do I don't know how we make that point but I think it's pretty disappointing yeah any other comments or us yeah I'm going to simply duplicate what our colleagues have said but I let everyone else I wasn't expecting the government to come back and say well on the basis of your evidence fair enough we got this wrong I would have appreciated though if they had come back and provided a detailed rebuttal of each of the points that we made or grappled with the evidence that we gathered and explained why it led them to a different conclusion that's not the case this could they could have issued us this document before we started that inquiry and that's my frustration with it is I would expect the government to explain why on the basis of the same set of evidence they came to different conclusions and I'm I'm not seeing that explanation yet so what we could do is write to the government point them to the official report of this meeting and the other responses to the committee received to the report and asked them if they would consider further comment. I think that the point that Ian Gray makes about we can't direct government but if a decision of the parliament doesn't direct government and the committees don't direct government around policy then there's a problem we can have an argument back and forward about the policy but if there's not any way in which you can actually then influence that I think the best way to influence is the government to be open to actually to take very seriously what the committee says and this was my comment on writing back I think I would quite like to have time to reflect on what I would like to see in in that letter and perhaps people could contribute to that just as we look at the response there are areas where as I've said already risk of repeat myself we're not going to agree but I think there are some quite serious points round even if you accept a basic premise the way in which is now getting carried forward you know that if the test can be at any point in the year all of those kind of things so I just think it would be good if we could all of the opportunity to feed into that and perhaps then but I recognise that the committees all might not we would still have to agree what the letter would be but I just think it's I think there's some quite substantial things I would like to see going into the letter. I remember content with that to come back on the agenda after the summer recess for a revisit. Thank you. Can I move into private session?


From DailyDose of WeirdNews.com, I'm Darren Marlar, and this is your Daily Dose of Weird News. President Trump has overtaken Pope Francis as the most-followed person on Twitter. Because people can't help but slow down to get a good look at a car crash. Professional surfer Andre Cotton is recuperating after suffering a broken neck. He was mining his own business on his surfboard when he was mysteriously attacked by Rand Paul's neighbor. Hey, does your Nutella taste funny? Well, there could be a reason for that. Ferrero, the maker of the hazelnut cocoa spread, has changed the recipe without announcing that they were going to do so. Instead, the Hamburg Consumer Protection Center, a German consumer group, noticed the difference and posted about it on Facebook. The sugar content went from 55.9% to 56.3%, while skim milk powder went from 7.5% to 8.7%. That probably caused some cocoa to be lost in the new recipe, which would explain why the new version is slightly lighter in color. Meanwhile, the fad content went from 31% to 30.9%. Ferrero confirms changes have been made to the recipe but insists the quality and all other aspects of Nutella remain the same. Twitter, of course, is very unhappy and already started calls to hashtag boycott Nutella.  Another added, I mean, should I even get out of bed today? It's kind of hard to know which is more nutty here. Nutella or the people on Twitter who use it. Titan Valley is offering a special five-liter keg of their ranch dressing, although that is a pretty good indicator that you're using way too much on your salad. A Florida woman was arrested last Monday, being accused of swapping barcodes on items at Walmart and paying just $3.70 for $1,800 in electronics. What? You mean this big-screen TV is not on sale for 86 cents? Are you saying I'm lying? Do you believe in life after death? Well, physicist Sean Carroll of the California Institute of Technology says the laws of physics make it impossible. After extensive studies, Carroll says for there to be an afterlife, our consciousness would need to be entirely separated from our physical body, which it's not. He says consciousness is a series of atoms and electrons which give us our mind. The laws of the universe do not allow these atoms and electrons to continue to operate after our bodies have died. Writing in Scientific American, he says there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. Carroll explains that quantum field theory, or QFT, suggests there is one field for each type of particle, so all photons in the universe are on one level, all electrons in the universe are on another level, and so on. He concludes if it's really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there's clearly no way for the soul to survive death. And obviously, this guy is at the height of arrogance, and has obviously never seen ghost busters any time recently. Now Sears is looking to sell up to 140 more stores to help make ends meet. If they're going to survive, they need to start selling stuff you can't find anywhere else. You know, maybe start stocking the shelves with buggy whips, laser disc players, VHS tapes, and transistor radios. Searsney is planning a Star Wars TV show for its new streaming service. It is about time I've been saying for years that Jar Jar Binks deserves his own show. It's kind of well known that police officers frequent donut shops, right? So that makes 35-year-old Nathan Pizzardi of Denver one of the dumbest guys we've ever seen in quite some time at least. He's charged with selling myth amphetamines and heroin from the parking lot of a Dunkin' Donuts where he worked. Pizzardi was seen making the sales in uniform and, in some cases, with his drive-thru window headset still on. Detectives said he would leave the store, make sales in the parking lot. After watching all this go down, of course, they arrested him, and then got a dozen glazed to go. It's the most wonderful time of the year here at Marlar House. Every year at this time, I ask you to join me in bringing a Christmas miracle to those who are starving around the world. Every now you can give a financial gift of any size to food for the poor by clicking the Give Life banner at DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com. For each $50 we raise, it's another child in the Caribbean or Latin America who will be fed for an entire year and will receive clean water for life. Be as generous as you can, and also please encourage your friends and family to give as well by sharing the link to DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com so they can click on the Give Life banner as well. And thank you in advance for whatever you can give. Get the DailyDoseOfWeirdNews podcast for Apple or Android at DailyDoseOfWeirdNews.com and please leave a review on iTunes if you liked the show. I'm Darren Marlar and I'll see you next time, Weirdos.