The Scotsman Bulletin Thursday October 26 2023 #Schools #Education

The Scotsman

The Scotsman Bulletin Thursday October 26 2023 #Schools

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Built-in

00:09 for Thursday.

00:10 I'm Alan Young, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman

00:13 joined today by our education correspondent, Callum Ross,

00:15 to take a look at what's making the headlines.

00:18 Hi, Callum.

00:19 - Morning, Alan.

00:21 - Let's have a look at the front page first off.

00:23 And there's the reason Callum's here.

00:26 We splashed today on his story as a really fascinating story

00:30 and looking at rates of pupil absence across Scotland.

00:35 So it's been an extensive study done, published today.

00:40 And the summary is that attendance rates

00:44 haven't recovered since the pandemic

00:47 and it's a big problem.

00:50 We pitched with Princess Royal and a Visit to Scotland

00:52 on the front page there.

00:54 And a really interesting feature, it's plugged at the top,

00:57 you might be able to see,

00:58 that's the National Library of Scotland

01:01 who are asking for volunteers to help them sift

01:04 through their vast archives.

01:07 We clearly have all the football action from last night,

01:12 Celtic drew with Athletico Madrid,

01:14 and a look ahead to Rangers and Aberdeen in Europe tonight.

01:19 But Callum, keen to know more about your story

01:25 today and perhaps firstly, just bring us up to date

01:28 with what the study has found.

01:30 - Yeah, of course, Alan.

01:32 I mean, there's been a lot of focus in Scotland,

01:34 hasn't there, rightly so, on kind of school violence

01:38 and classroom kind of bad behaviour

01:41 and the idea that that's kind of increased

01:44 in the wake of the pandemic.

01:46 But the other kind of key issue that's been emerging

01:49 has the idea that attendance rates

01:52 haven't really covered from the disruption caused

01:56 during the extensive lockdowns in 2020 and '21.

02:01 Now, with both issues, there's been a common problem

02:05 in that there's not been a great deal of data.

02:09 I mean, I looked yesterday to find figures for Scotland

02:12 and the last kind of official statistics on attendance

02:15 were published about a year and a half ago for 2020, '21.

02:19 And even then, there's not much detail.

02:23 So what the Commission on School Reform has done,

02:26 this is a kind of group of experts set up

02:28 by the Reform Scotland think tank.

02:30 They put FOIs into freedom of information requests

02:33 and to all the local authorities to get the local figures

02:37 and then kind of compile the data.

02:39 And what they found is pretty shocking, really.

02:44 I think about a third of pupils now have an attendance rate

02:48 below 90% and that's really for the last two years.

02:52 The figures are pretty similar.

02:54 Now, that's about 50% higher than was the case

02:58 before the pandemic when you were looking at kind of 21, 22%.

03:03 And I think that works out as a kind of day off

03:07 on average per fortnight.

03:10 And if you look at kind of older pupils in S4, S5 and S6,

03:14 it's up to kind of 40% taking an average of a day off

03:19 every fortnight and attendance rate below 90%.

03:25 If you look at the kids who are off 80%,

03:30 but have an attendance rate below 80%,

03:33 that's 12% of pupils now up from 7%.

03:38 So, I mean, there does seem to be an issue there.

03:42 And I think what's interesting as well

03:43 is this year that's just finished, 2022, 23,

03:48 there hasn't been much improvement

03:49 from the previous year, 21, 22.

03:53 So, it doesn't seem to be getting better.

03:56 - No, and obviously there's real disparities

04:01 between council areas that I think you highlight today.

04:05 And Dundee's particularly bad, is that right?

04:08 - Yeah, Dundee, East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire,

04:11 North Lanarkshire and West Dunbartonshire,

04:14 I think were the ones that kind of stood out.

04:17 And on the other side that you had kind of,

04:19 I think East Dunbartonshire and Highland

04:22 were among the ones that were a bit better.

04:27 Now, the Scottish government's kind of admitted

04:31 that there are kind of local variances

04:35 and variances in year groups,

04:37 although it kind of says that it looks like

04:42 the most latest figures show that attendance rates

04:44 are pretty similar to the averages seen in previous years.

04:48 But it's certainly something that needs looked into

04:51 in a bit more detail, I think.

04:53 - Yeah, and there is gonna be more discussion

04:56 around this today.

04:58 - Yeah, there's a panel discussion involving

05:00 this commission on school reform

05:02 about their report this afternoon.

05:04 And interestingly, it features Kate Forbes,

05:07 former finance secretary.

05:08 So it'll be interesting to find out

05:10 what she thinks of that work

05:12 and what she thinks needs to be done.

05:16 - Yeah, thanks very much, Calum, really interesting.

05:18 So today you can read that at scotsman.com now,

05:22 and it's obviously in today's paper as well.

05:26 If you are on the website throughout the day,

05:27 please do subscribe if you can,

05:30 then you will not miss a thing.

05:32 And if you're out and about today,

05:34 do also pick up a copy of the paper

05:36 from me and from Calum, it's by far.

05:38 (upbeat music)

05:42 (upbeat music)

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