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Author Archives: Scottish Labour Party Blog

Scottish schools can be the best in the world

19 August 2017 

We think Scottish schools can be the best in the world. Here’s our plan to do it.

  • Use the powers of the Scottish Parliament to stop the cuts and invest in education

  • An independent review of teachers’ pay, conditions and career structure to re-establish the profession as world leading, and attract new teachers to it.

  • A commitment to urgently commission the design of a systematic focused literacy and numeracy programme as recommended by the government’s international advisers.

  • Halt the centralisation of schools through regional directors and maintain local budgeting.

  • Re-establish an independent inspectorate and immediately task the Chief Inspector with producing an improvement plan for curriculum for excellence, from primary one to sixth year of high school.

  • An expert group to plan reform of the senior phase of school, increasing vocational strands for example through skills academies and Further Education partnerships.

  • Introduce a Scottish Graduation Certificate for all at 18, reflecting achievement in exam, vocational, work experience and voluntary learning.

  • Bursaries for teacher training in shortage subjects, beginning with Mathematics and Physics.

  • Establish a Breakfast club in every school.

  • Establish a Homelink worker and mental health counsellor in every secondary school cluster.

  • End charging for exam appeals.

This week, our summer campaign ‘For The Many’ has been focused on education as the schools go back. Find out more about the campaign by clicking the image below:

 

 

 

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Scottish Labour

The briefing: school uniform grants

18 August 2017 

We think there should be a minimum rate for school uniform grants across the country – but councils shouldn’t have to make even more cuts to their budgets to fund them.

What are school uniform grants? 

These grants to help low income families cover the cost of school uniform and essential items such as school bags, shoes and PE equipment.

The problem is the vary widely from local authority. You can find out what your own local authority pays here.

How much should they be?

John Swinney said they should be around £70, but research from the Poverty Truth Commission said £129.50 would be a better amount. 

Ensuring a consistent school uniform grant to all the poorest families would cost £13 million. 

Council budgets have been hammered by £1.5 billion of SNP cuts since 2011. We think the SNP should stump up fresh cash to pay for a minimum rate. 

As Scotland’s pupils go back to school, Scottish Labour’s summer campaign, For The Many, is this week focused on education.

To read more about our summer campaign, click the image below:

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Scottish Labour

It’s time to scrap charges on exam appeals

17th August 2017 

It’s time to scrap charges on exam appeals 

What are exam appeal charges?

In 2014 the SNP Government introduced a fee if an appeal, or an exam ‘review’, is carried out but no change is made to the grade awarded.

Before then, appeal costs were met centrally. Now, they come out of school budgets – already being hammered by SNP cuts.

What happened next?

Appeal rates for state schools fell through the floor. Now a private school pupil is three times more likely to appeal a grade than a state school pupil.

Why does this matter?

We want more pupils from poorer backgrounds to be able to go on to university. For many people an appeal can be the difference between getting on to university and not.

These charges are a financial barrier to going on to university. That’s why iain Gray, Labour’s Education spokesperson, has written to John Swinney calling on him to end these charges,

Here’s his letter:

Dear John

Exam appeal charges

All across Scotland, pupils will be weighing up whether to appeal a grade from their exams, with their results having come through last week.

The most recent available data shows that private schools are three times more likely to appeal their grade than state school pupils.

These charges for exam appeals are unfair and should be scrapped, all they have done since your government introduced them is tilt the education system towards those who can afford to pay and those who cannot.

The cost of these charges now fall on school budgets. State schools have already seen huge cuts during this government’s time in office, with £1.5 billion slashed from local authority budgets since 2011.

Labour and the SNP agree that there should not be any financial barriers to going on to study after school, so we should work together to remove these charges.

We should be taking every step possible to widen access to university and college.  These charges, which the data shows have a deterring effect on state school pupils applying for appeals, stand in the way of that aspiration.

Sincerely,

Iain Gray
Labour Education spokesperson

As Scotland’s pupils go back to school, Scottish Labour’s summer campaign, For The Many, is this week focused on education.

To read more about the campaign, click on the image below:

read more

Scottish Labour