Scottish Office Education Department Research Articles

Leading Small Scottish Primary Schools

Between 1996 and 1998, research commissioned by the Scottish Office Education Department was undertaken on the management of small Scottish primary schools, the results of which were published in this journal (Wilson and McPake, 1998). This article reports the findings from a follow-up study of a sample of 100 schools that participated in the original study (Wilson, 2007). The aim was to explore whether the leadership and management styles of small school headteachers had changed in the intervening years. The research is based upon a postal survey of 100 headteachers of very small schools, i.e. those with rolls of fewer than 50 pupils, in 10 local authorities in Scotland, and also nine case studies. The researcher argues that although the style demonstrated by these headteachers is largely a contingent one that is appropriate to their situations as teaching headteacher s, the pressures on them have increased in the intervening years. Questions regarding the sustainability of the role are raised.

Tracking the Links between Pupil Attainment and Development Planning

The study reported here was part of a more extensive research project commissioned by the Scottish Office Education Department in 1994 called the Improving School Effectiveness Project (ISEP). The project gathered extensive quantitative and other data on 80 schools (primary and secondary) and qualitative data on a subset of 24 schools (12 in each sector). The research brief for the study was to examine the theme of development planning within the context of the overall project. The article tracks through the development of a set of associations between the value-added attainment results of 12 primary and 12 secondary schools and some characteristics of their approach to development and features of their culture and organisation.

Leaving Special School: The next step and future aspirations

One of the most important changes within the life-course is the movement from 'childhood' to 'adulthood'. This takes place through many different dimensions of experience, for example, biological, legal, social, cultural, emotional and attitudinal. It is also important to recognise that the concepts, 'childhood' and 'adulthood' are ambiguous and hard to define [Jones, G. & Wallace, C. (1992) Youth, Family and Citizenship (Buckingham, Open University Press); Coles, B. (1995) Youth and Social Policy: youth, citizenship and young carers (London, UCL Press)]. This is partly due to the fact that they are not static concepts, but are historically and culturally fluid, open to interpretation and change [Ward et al. (1991) The Transition to Adulthood of Young People with Recorded Special Education Needs, final report to The Scottish Office Education Department (Department of Education at the Universities of Edinburgh and Stirling); France, A. (1996) Youth and citizenship in the 1990s, Youth and Policy, 53, pp. 28-43]. Despite this conceptual ambiguity, the transition from 'child' to 'adult' status is viewed as an important achievement within society. However, it is a complex, involved process, which evolves over a period of time. Of course, not all-young people undertake the transition in a similar manner or at the same pace. Social ideas and prejudices, whether these are class, gender, race or disability based, can and do effect the transition experiences of different groups of young people. This paper focuses upon the transition experiences of disabled young people, a group frequently forgotten or hidden within discussions of 'youth'. In particular, it explores and evaluates traditional models of transition with the aid of data drawn from a study of disabled young people leaving special schools [Mitchell, W. (1998) Leaving School - transition experiences and routes taken by disabled young people, D.Phil. thesis, University of York]. The paper initially focuses upon young people's next educational/vocational step after school leaving in relation to the traditional ideal of a school to work transition. Taking a broader approach the paper then explores and begin to unpack the complex concept of a more independent 'adult' status from the perspective of the study's young people and their parents/carers. Have the young people taken steps towards a more 'adult' independent life and, if so, in 'what' areas and 'how'?

‘Mr Homunculus the Reading Detective’: A cognitive approach to improving reading comprehension

Research into reading has focused increasingly on the concept of metacognition and its application to the development of children’s reading and comprehension. Ongoing research continually adds to a growing theoretical base. In parallel with this has been the developing practice within primary schools of using novel studies as a vehicle for introducing ‘higher order reading skills’ (that is, inferential levels of understanding and analysis of text). There has been an apparent validation of this methodology and reinforcement of the importance of teaching higher order reading skills, by both the Department for Education and Employment (in the National Curriculum) and the Scottish Office Education Department (1991) in the 5-14 English Language Curriculum Guidelines. This paper outlines the research in the area of metacognition as applied to reading comprehension and describes a reading programme, Mr Homunculus the Reading Detective, designed to help teachers teach children how to comprehend.

The role of the speech and language therapist in the education of children with special educational needs

ABSTRACT An overall aim of the study is to identify effective forms of collaboration between speech and language therapists, teachers and parents in Scotland. The study seeks to define and clarify the roles and responsibilities of speech and language therapists, teaching staff and parents in facilitating the development of speech, language and communication in children and young people with language and communication difficulties. In particular, the contribution of speech and language therapists to educational programmes is investigated. The focus is on children with significant levels of need but not exclusively those with a Record of Needs. The project employs both quantitative and qualitative methods. Visits have been made to a variety of educational locations and in‐depth interviews were carried out with speech and language therapists and teaching staff. National surveys were conducted through postal questionnaires to speech and language therapists, speech and language therapy managers, teachers, advisers in special educational needs, educational psychologists, and parents. Different questionnaires were designed to elicit information specific to each group. Questionnaire returns were received from: 381 (>80%) of speech and language therapists with children on their caseload; 41 speech and language therapy managers (two outstanding); over 800 teachers from 415 schools (mainstream and special); 17 advisers in special educational needs (11 outstanding; and 11 principal educational psychologists (21 outstanding). However, since the analysis of the data is in process, this paper will focus on data collected from 47 interviews carried out during the Autumn term 1994 in five special schools and five mainstream schools located in six Scottish regions. Intervews have allowed the identification of certain elements that may enable effective speech and language therapist/teacher collaboration, these include: working together with individuals or groups of children; joint planning of classroom activities; speech and language therapist input to educational programmes; curricular influences on speech and language therapy programmes; time spent in sharing information, planning and assessment; speech and language therapists and teachers attending training sessions jointly; share framework for the integration of language and communication into the curriculum; formal remit for speech and language therapists to work within the context of educational programmes. At this stage in our research, we are not able to draw the full implications for policy development. However, we shall discuss those strategies which are being employed successfully to promote collaboration and its effectiveness in these 10 schools. The project is commissioned and funded by the Scottish Office Education Department

Participatory evaluation

This article describes then conceptualization, start-up, and initial implementation of collaborative evaluation. This self-evaluation approach has been integrated into a network of some twenty-five language centres participating in the British Council/Overseas Development Administration Institutional English Language Training Project in Indonesia. The evaluation is shaped by a framework based on a performance indicator approach to institutional self-evaluation and development planning (Mackay 1994), and a contextually-adapted version of an approach successfully used in school self-evaluation in Scotland (Scottish Office Education Department 1992). We also address some of the criticisms directed by sceptics towards participatory evaluation. The main purpose for establishing this framework is to permit language centre personnel to assess their current practices and to identify strategies that will guarantee the sustainability of their centres when external project support is no longer available. Another aim is to ensure the quality of the administrative and instructional activities of the language centres (Rea-Dickins and Germaine 1992).

Scottish education and the vocational gauntlet

Describes how the Scottish Office Education Department funded a “stock‐taking exercise” by researchers based in the Department of Education at the University of Stirling during 1992/93. The project′s main aims were to map and analyse the range and complexity of education‐industry links (EIL) in Scotland. The picture which emerged was a complex one, with many competing and overlapping initiatives vying for space in school curricula – dubbed “policy hysteria”. Examines ways of analysing this complexity and finds that many national schemes and initiatives took on a distinctly “tartan” flavour in their Scottish manifestations. Selects the questions of “domestication” and “progression” within the EIL curriculum for further development.

The post‐Warnock learning support teacher: Where do specific learning difficulties fit in?

Research into policy, practice and provision for children with specific learning difficulties for the Scottish Office Education Department included a survey of how learning support teachers viewed specific learning difficulties within their general role. The findings presented by Jill Duffield, Sally Brown and Sheila Riddell suggest that the difficulty is regarded as a discrete area within their overall task and poses a number of unresolved conflicts of demand upon them.

Scottish Higher Education Regained: Accident Or Design?

Until last year Scottish higher education was a fractured system. Its universities, which had played such a celebrated role in the assertion and definition of Scotland's national identity from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, were subordinated to an English-dominated quango, first the University Grants Committee (UGC) in London and more recently the Universities Funding Council (UFC) in Bristol, both of which in turn were responsible to the (English) Department of Education and Science (DES). The rest of Scottish higher education, the central institutions (CIs), were directly accountable to the Scottish Office Education Department (SOED), without the benefit of the dubious protection of a buffer agency like the UGC/UFC. Last year, following the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, the pattern of British higher education was restructured. The binary system - the separation between universities and polytechnics or colleges - was abandoned in England and less decisively so in Scotland. All the English polytechnics and two former colleges of higher education, Derby and Luton, became universities. In Scotland four CIs (Napier, Robert Gordon, Paisley and Glasgow Caledonian) also became universities. Equally significant was the decision to establish separate funding councils for England, Scotland and Wales. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) inherited responsibility for the 35 English universities and all the institutions previously accountable to the Polytechnics and Colleges Funding Council (PCFC). The HEFCE sector now comprises 68 universities and 49 colleges. In addition the council funds higher education courses in 77 further

Immersion programmes employed in Gaelic‐medium units in Scotland

Abstract Five of the local education authorities in Scotland make provision for education to be delivered through the medium of Gaelic. In each of these authorities the units are established within the management structure of the hosting primary schools. Thirty‐nine of these units are currently operational and were all involved in three research projects running through 1992–3: • The Gaelic Language Development Project commissioned from the National Foundation for Educational Research by the Inter‐Authority Standing Group for Gaelic. • A project on Parental Experience of Gaelic Medium Education in the Primary Phase, commissioned from Leirsinn Research Centre by the Scottish Office Education Department and the Western Isles Islands Council. • The Parental and Community Support Project (Gaelic‐Medium Units) commissioned from Leirsinn Research Centre by the Inter‐Authority Standing Group for Gaelic. The findings of these projects provide an overview of the Gaelic immersion programmes in operation, and the mo...

The gender imbalance in Scottish education

When formal education is being discussed the word 'balance' is frequently used: the phrase 'breadth and balance' trips easily off the tongue and no doubt many people would claim that we have achieved it. But Scottish education is not balanced; it's lop-sided. The reason for that is that it is designed, planned and managed almost entirely by men. With a few exceptions women's contribution is confined to the classroom. All our universities and colleges, most of our secondary schools, about half of our primary schools, the inspectorate, the directorate, the Scottish Examination Board, and the Scottish Office Education Department have men in most of the senior positions. Because of the hierarchical nature of the system itself an effect of the male way of working it is the people in the decision-making positions who form the bodies which give advice at various levels. So, inevitably, women are under-represented on such bodies and seldom chair them. All of this means that there is an important dimension lacking which has serious consequences for the sort of education young people receive.

Anatomy of a Merger

AbstractThe 1993 merger between Jordanhill College of Education and the University of Strathclyde is analysed by the Principals of the two institutions. They examine such factors as the nature of the merger itself, the importance of the timing of the proposal, the influence exercised by prior experiences, and the attitude of the key players ‐ Senate, Academic Board, Court and Governors, students, academic and non‐academic trade unions, the Funding Council and the Scottish Office Education Department. The authors then proceed to compare their merger with mergers which have occurred in higher education in the Netherlands and in Australia. While there was a major difference, in that there was no government pressure to merge, there were other significant ways in which the process was similar. Many of the lessons learned in those countries apply equally in the UK.

The Costs of Adult Basic Education in Scotland

During 1990 the Scottish Office Education Department (SOED, 1990a) indicated that adult basic education (ABE), as an area of community education, was “currently receiving a high priority rating by Ministers”. The year had been designated International Literacy Year and an inspection by HM Inspectors was scheduled for 1991-92. To coincide with these two events, the SOED Research and Intelligence Unit commissioned a research project to map provision for ABE in Scotland and identify the costs and benefits of a number of different approaches to delivering ABE, paying pariticular attention to those key elements which contributed to the effective delivery of the service. Recent research funded by the Scottish Office had focused on effectiveness particularly at the school level, and had led to the production of training modules for headteachers and performance indicators for that sector. One authority, Strathclyde Region, had developed a system of quality pointers including both quantitative measures and exempla...

The Long‐term Impact of Two Part‐time In‐service Degrees on Teachers and Schools in Scotland

Abstract In the absence of similar investigations this study is hypothesis generating. Thirty‐four interviews were conducted, 19 with a sample of Scottish graduates from two in‐service degrees who had completed their programmes at least 5 years earlier and 15 with Scottish headteachers and local education authority staff responsible for In‐service Education and Training (INSET) who had observed the impact of these degrees for between 5 and 10 years. Two major hypotheses were generated, first that the influence of in‐service degrees for a significant minority of teachers is of a fundamental nature and second that some schools, as opposed to local authorities, have established effective policies for using the newly acquired skills of staff who have completed in‐service degrees. [1] This research was supported by a grant from the Scottish Office Education Department.