Education and Skills Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, November 18, 2020

Official Report 670KB pdf

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Additional Support for Learning Review

Our evidence session in agenda item 2 will look at the review of additional support for learning that was led by Angela Morgan. Members know that a decision was taken to ensure that additional support for learning was examined in every relevant area of the committee’s work.

We welcome Angela Morgan, the independent chair of the review, which published “Support for Learning: All our Children and All their Potential”, on implementation of additional support for learning. I invite Ms Morgan to make a short opening statement about the review’s findings.

Thank you for inviting me.

Allow me to clarify my status. I was the independent chair of the review between October 2019 and February 2020. I submitted the report with its findings and recommendations at the end of February. That was the end of my involvement. I am not involved with or employed by any of the bodies that are responsible for implementation. I am here as the former independent chair, and I am very pleased to be here.

I will highlight the main points of the review. First, it is clear that there is no fundamental deficit in the principles and policy of the legislation and guidance, some of which is very good. The challenge is in its implementation for thousands of children and young people in Scotland.

I was asked to chair the review because there is recognition of the fact that there is a problem. Nonetheless, I found many dedicated, skilled and inspiring professionals who are enormously committed to children and young people who have additional challenges. I found that the system is overly dependent on those individuals, and it is fragmented and inconsistent.

One of the main things that emerged, for me, is that additional support for learning is not visible and is not equally valued within Scotland’s education system. It is dealt with as an afterthought, which creates a great deal of the difficulty that arises.

Secondly, there has been an increase in need over the past number of years, and changes in recording should be borne in mind, but the most recent figures show that almost 31 per cent of children in our schools are identified as having an additional support need under the legislation. My challenge to that—which I say a lot about in the report—is about the need to review and redefine what mainstream education should look like in that context, when so many children and young people are identified as having additional support needs. The events of the past eight months will also have had an impact.

Thirdly, a narrow definition of learning has developed. It has become focused on education and, within that, on attainment and exams. However, if we look at the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 and at the definition in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the key concept is that of learning for life. That goes beyond the child’s life at school, into their home and into their future. That is another factor that underpins the difficulty that I found.

Culture, leadership and mindset are key. I return to my point that visibility and value are not what they should be. The legislation is internationally recognised but, in practice, additional support is consistently seen as an afterthought in policy and discussion. That has even been the case in the past months of planning for dealing with the pandemic.

That has a number of consequences, such as a lack of recognition that some groups of children are eligible for support under the legislation, and competition between children and groups. That is nobody’s fault and is certainly not the fault of the children and their parents; it is a consequence of pressures.

Resources were not an area for me to look at, but it was not credible to write the report without commenting on them. Given the increase in need and the pressures on public bodies’ finances in past years, which we all know about, resources are an issue, which is why I made a recommendation to Audit Scotland.

The resources situation means that other public bodies are struggling to play their part. I talked about learning for life, which goes beyond education and applies across local authority provision and to partner bodies including health services and community services. There are issues with accessibility and the thresholds that are presented to children and young people, and there are issues for school staff who seek to access partner input.

Complex challenges underpin the difficulties for children and young people and for teachers, who want to work positively with them. I return to my earlier point that there is a challenge in that we look at individual children or individual groups of need rather than at a systemic problem.

I found a general recognition and acceptance of an embedded and difficult problem that is a bit of a cycle of despair—it involves the ability to define needs and a challenge in deciding what to do, which is why I shaped the recommendations around levers. That will bring the issue into the sphere of political and public debate, which will keep it visible, demand difficult and challenging conversations with high-level leadership about accepting the difficulties, and require honest discussion with parents, children and teaching staff. Having seen the commitment and care from staff in schools and from other staff, I know that there is enthusiasm to develop such an approach. I hope that that is enough, as a starting point.

Thank you for your introduction. We will move to questions.

The Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc Act 2000 introduced a legal presumption in favour of children being educated in mainstream schools. Over the years, teachers have approached me about that subject, on which I have had correspondence with the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills. Some teachers in areas of deprivation feel that the proportion of children with additional support needs in classes is so high in comparison with the proportion in more prosperous areas that it is making closing the attainment gap difficult. Even with the support of classroom assistants and specialist teachers, teachers feel that it is difficult to teach children with so many different needs in one class, which is having an impact on their morale and on their ability to educate children.

Additional support needs vary dramatically across the spectrum. Your report says that 30.9 per cent of children and young people have such needs, which vary from fairly mild to quite severe. Should the policy of mainstreaming be revisited? If so, which categories of children with additional support needs should that involve? If not, and given the resource constraints, how can we best support teachers in the classroom who have a high proportion of young people with additional support needs?

The two exclusions from my review were consideration of resources and review of the mainstreaming policy, so, if you will bear with me, I will be careful in how I answer that, because it was not a question for me to consider.

I recognise Kenneth Gibson’s description. I heard about the issue from many teachers who have difficulty with the range of challenges in the classroom. Some people have home problems, some have neurodiversity problems and others have physical problems, and there are challenges in meeting all those needs. I come back to the point that I made briefly about the need to review what mainstreaming looks like, in the light of how children are now rather than how they might have been in the past.

I do not know what the assumptions were, when that legislation was first implemented, about the number of children who would have needs. I did not have time to consider that, and it was not a focus for me. Obviously, the categories have changed. However, the system is bursting at the seams—I use that term because it was said to me.

The first stage would be acknowledgement of that, and transparency on and discussion about the challenges. Among all the people I heard from, I found generally that they felt that they were not listened to. That came from children and young people, parents and carers, teachers and some senior leaders. There is not an easy fix, especially in a world of increasingly pressured resources, but the starting point has to be an agreed understanding that there is a significant difficulty.

The concept of mainstreaming to incorporate almost a third of our children has to be redefined to consider what that actually means. It is not just about buildings; it is about skills and the expectations of parents and carers, and it is about seeing them as partners. There is a difficulty in picking out recommendations, which is why I said that all nine recommendations need to be considered.

I apologise for going round the houses in answering the question. The issue is not about the policy of mainstreaming; it is about what mainstreaming has to be, now that so many children come into schools with a wide range of needs that affect their learning.

So, mainstreaming has at least to be re-examined. Your report also says:

“whole groupings identified in the additional support for learning legislation are invisible and have been completely overlooked.”

Which particular groups do you feel are the most overlooked?

I said that because I found that, even within the system, there is a lack of awareness of the entitlement of some groups. That is difficult, because the guidance lays out a list of groups, but it is not exclusive, because the principle is that the legislation applies to every child, for whatever reason. Therefore, the groupings are examples.

I deliberately targeted people who represent children of Gypsy Traveller families, children and young people who are highly able—people might be surprised to hear that that group is also identified under the act—children of parents in prison and young carers.

The pressures on resources and the need to fight for visibility have meant that some very well-organised groups that represent children with autism have successfully raised the profile of that issue. I make no criticism of them, but I heard on a number of occasions that there is conflation of additional support for learning children with children with autism.

There is a lack of recognition that other children are equally entitled under the act, including, in increasing numbers, those with social, emotional and behavioural issues, for example. Although the guidance obviously requires judgments to be made about the level and longevity of support, in terms of equality of rights, the legislation makes no distinction between groups.

I return to the point about mainstreaming. If we genuinely start with the child and their needs being at the centre, regardless of how those needs have arisen, the category almost does not matter.

09:15  

However, the system is not able to cope with that at the moment, which is why there is competition between groups for attention and recognition. That is entirely understandable.

I heard consistently that all parents and carers want the best for their children. They want them to be safe and happy, to have friends, to be included at school and to achieve to the best of their ability, whether that is in exams or in other ways.

Thank you. I have one more question. You touched on exams. On page 64 of your report, you say that

“The dominance of attainment and qualification results as the measure for success in Scotland’s Education system ... devalues and demoralises children and young people who learn and achieve in other ways, and it devalues and demoralises the staff who work with them”

and on page 22, you say that

“qualifications are not relevant learning objectives for all children and young people”.

What do you feel should replace that measure?

I guess that I have views on that, but I am not sure that it is for me to say, because that is really part of the response to the recommendations and is a key area of action in the action plan.

I emphasise how important it is that there is no reduction in the expectation that children who can attain through exams will be fully supported, whatever adjustments need to be made for them to do that, because children, in particular, do not want to defined by their condition or to be defined as being limited by their condition. It is so important to say that.

On measurement, for some children that will be done entirely from their own baseline. It will be about what is important to them. In the context of learning for life, and particularly for children with lifelong conditions, it is about working with them and their parents and carers to understand what is important for them, and what will maximise their independence and their chance to contribute as citizens in their communities and as members of their families.

I came across wonderful teachers who really understand that but, in relation to measurement through exam numbers and qualifications, they also felt demoralised because their efforts and their work were not visible in the system or celebrated in the same way that the work of teachers who support children to attain through exams is recognised. This is not just about the children and young people; it is also about the professionals who work with them.

The work is a really exciting opportunity, and it can and should involve children and young people, their parents and carers and the professionals who know them well. It is, if you like, a true measure of inclusion on an equal basis.

Mr Johnson has a supplementary question.

I remind the committee of my diagnosis and the fact that I am a trustee of the ADHD Foundation.

Ms Morgan, you mentioned that the concept has been stretched, which is causing pressures. Is the definition of additional support needs simply too broad? I do a lot of work with autism groups, and even they would privately suggest that it is, in that it potentially overfocuses on very-high-needs children with autism to the disadvantage of high-functioning children with autism.

Again, that was not part of my remit. I think that, in a world of limitless resources, it would not be, but we are never going to be in that world. I need to answer in a different way. The principle of the legislation, and of so much of the guidance, is about early intervention and about prevention of barriers and difficulties. It is absolutely as legitimate to invest in children and young people who have less-complex problems, because doing that will enable them to maintain independence in their learning.

Unfortunately, because of the current pressures in the system, that seems to be very difficult to achieve. I heard a lot from parents and carers about children who suffer greatly in the school environment but do not express their distress in a way that impacts on the class. It is just a reality that those children are probably less likely at the moment to receive the input that they need, especially when they do not have parents who advocate strongly on their behalf. That emerged very clearly. Many parents told me that they worry about the kids who do not have a pushy parent or one who is prepared to fight like they are. Those are realities in the system, and I have laid that out in the report.

Personally, I would not and could not say that the definitions are too broad. I think that the fundamental definition is that no child should be prevented from fulfilling their potential by any sort of barrier. Achieving that is an aspiration that we absolutely should adhere to.

I am intrigued by a turn of phrase that you used, Ms Morgan, in relation to a recognition of where children are at the moment. Obviously, prior to mainstreaming, we had more specialist schools and specialist provision. Do you mean by your statement just that the setting has changed for children or that they are picking up far more additional support conditions because of better recognition and diagnosis in certain circumstances? I am trying to understand the concept a bit better.

I am sorry not to have been clear, convener. I was talking about how the lives of children and young people are now, with all the pressures that have been well rehearsed over the past years, such as social media, the higher rates of mental distress that that causes, and increasing inequality. The complexities of children’s life need to be recognised and the service design needs to follow from that in everything from buildings to the types of skills that teachers have. That is why I made a recommendation on that issue. The edges between home and school are also particularly pertinent as Scotland plans for how education will look during the pandemic.

Thank you. That certainly helps.

Angela Morgan, I congratulate you on the very good report. [Inaudible.]—that the two main areas of those definitions were left out of your remit, because it seems to me that it would have been much more sensible to have included them, so you could have looked at the question as a whole. However, we are where we are.

Leading on from what Daniel Johnson and the convener have asked, I have a question about the issue of definition. It is clear that the grouping of additional support needs covers—as you have said, and as you say in the report—a very wide spectrum of children’s different needs. At one end of the spectrum are children who essentially are gifted but for whom the challenges of that require them to get additional support. At the other end are children who have, for example, neurological disease or conditions, physical conditions or sometimes a combination of physical and mental health issues that need to be addressed.

You talked about inconsistency, and I totally agree with what you said. You also talked about afterthougt. When local authorities are lining up cuts in education, ASN workers are often the first to go or to be downgraded, which is absolutely appalling. Is there a need to look at the ASN group? I realise that there is a need to look at the other 70 per cent and at the definition of ASN. Nonetheless, is it not the case that, in reality, the ASN group is not a homogeneous group but a disparate group of pupils who have disparate requirements?

That is a basic point. If there is only one ASN worker in a school, they might be dealing one day with a kid who has one set of conditions and the next day with another kid who has a different set of conditions. Do we need not just more consistency and forethought with regard to the needs of those pupils but more specialist services for those who need them?

There are a few points to make in that regard. First, whether or not we have the legislation in place, those children are in our communities and schools. We can see the legislation as a compliance framework—which it partly is, because it specifies the rights of children and young people and places duties on others—or as underpinning the aspirations of all children to live their best lives. I hope that that vision is our starting point.

I would answer your question by saying that, yes, there are disparate groups within the ASN group. It is important to highlight that even children who have the same defined condition are all individuals. We cannot say that all children with a certain condition are the same. Children and young people do not want that, and it would be a mistake to imply that that is the case. They are all individuals, and how their condition plays out for them will depend on their personality, character and aspirations, and on the hopes of their family. That is really important.

There is a tricky balance between inclusion and specialism, and I comment on that in my main report. We need both—we need to be careful and understand that, if we were to develop a different concept for mainstreaming that was more genuinely inclusive, we would need to ensure that the specialism was not lost. I heard that a lot in researching my report. Children who have certain conditions or challenging conditions need specialist skills and knowledge, and some of that has undoubtedly been lost.

In theory—I comment on this in the report—the getting it right for every child framework has within it all the concepts and guidance to drive an inclusion agenda for all children as individuals. However, I was told by the people whom I spoke to that the aims of that agenda have not been fulfilled. That is undoubtedly partly a resource issue.

I agree that the definition of ASN is wide. Underneath that, however, the key issue is that 30.9 per cent of children and young people have been identified under the 2004 act—broad as it is—as having ASN. Even if the scope of the act was narrowed, those children would still have needs and entitlements and a right to flourish as citizens in our community. That is the issue that needs to be addressed.

Within that, is there a need to drill down so that we can get more of a national picture of how that 30 per cent is made up? I am thinking about individuals’ conditions and why they need special support. In particular, what type of support do they need?

A wide range of support is required, even just among those who are on the autism spectrum. As Daniel Johnson said, there is a wide range of conditions and a wide range of different requirements to support those kids, yet it seems that we are taking a one-size-fits-all approach to children who have special support needs.

To link that in with another theme, it seems to me, after 22 years of experience as an MSP, that there is still very little joining up between additional support needs in an education setting and key services such as child and adolescent mental health services. Parents are often becoming frustrated because there is not a joined-up approach and nobody is looking at all the needs of those kids and co-ordinating the approach as it should be co-ordinated. Do you think that a much more integrated approach than we presently have is needed?

09:30  

Yes. My answer to both of your points comes down to the issue of what we measure. What I am reflecting back—as I have done in the review—is that not all of what we measure is useful. We measure a lot of compliance with processes—I specified planning as an example of that. Of course, it is important that individual plans are completed within a timescale, but those plans are of no value if no action follows. I heard that repeatedly from all parts of the system. Again, there are resource issues in relation to that.

The issue of joined-up services is a challenge not only for the current period but in general. If we consider learning for life and what type of support that means providing for a child beyond formal education, other agencies must and should be involved in that, and that is an on-going challenge. If performance measurement is driven by looking at improvements in the lives of children and young people and building up from that, what processes do we need and how do we know that they are working in a framework that is about constant improvement?

I contrast measuring things with asking whether we are reaching the required standard and continually asking the right questions: “Are we doing this as well as we can?” “This is challenging and difficult, but are we using our resources in the right way?” “Are we listening to the staff, the children and young people, the parents and the carers? Are we hearing what they are telling us?” “Are we working in partnership?” “Are we acknowledging that this is difficult and there are not easy solutions?” It is about mindset.

I hope that, in a roundabout way, that answers your question.

The Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science will appear in the evidence session after this one, and we will talk about ASN in schools. It strikes me that the principle of ASN also needs to be much more embedded in higher and further education, because it is often assumed that a lot of ASN people will not go on to higher and further education, yet many of them are as capable of doing so as anyone else. One of my first cases as an MSP was a 16-year-old kid with autism who eventually went to work on North Sea oil rigs. He had a brilliant mind, he was brilliant at computer work and he was one of the most intelligent people that you could ever meet, but an assumption was made about him because he had autism. That was partly due to ignorance, and I do not think that we have the level of ignorance that we had nearly 20 years ago—the situation is better now, but I do not think that it is as good as it needs to be. It is the transition from school to post-school, into higher and further education and the jobs market, that needs to be addressed. When these kids reach 16, 17 or 18, the ASN issue falls off a cliff.

Yes. I absolutely agree. There is recognition of the fact that the transitional edges between primary and secondary, and then between secondary and further and higher education, are the points at which children and young people are lost—particularly those with certain conditions, who find the school environment challenging.

I had to be strict in my brief and not overlap too much into grant-aided special schools, because the Doran review process is considering those schools. However, I know from my experience that some of the expertise that those schools have could be much better shared across the statutory sector. There are all sorts of reasons why that relationship does not work as well as it should. There is experience and expertise in how to do that. Those young people have the right to flourish at a high level, and there should be no barriers to expectation because of a label that has been attached to them. We should have got past that, but it unfortunately still holds young people back.

Let us return to the points that were raised regarding the consistency of data. When the committee has scrutinised ASN data, we have repeatedly come up against inconsistencies between local authorities in how pupils are diagnosed, which result in significant differences in the data that local authorities can present. The example that is often used is the contrast between West Dunbartonshire and North Lanarkshire, which are demographically similar. More than a third of children in West Dunbartonshire have diagnosed additional support needs. In North Lanarkshire, when I last checked, the percentage was still in single figures. It is inconceivable that there is such a difference between those two councils.

Local authorities take different approaches to diagnosis, which results in incomparable data. Did that issue come up in your review?

That came up as a practical problem rather than as a data issue, and it affects the 2004 act being implemented as it was intended to be. The guidance outlines key processes for identification, response and review—that is not the exact language—and I found a significant misunderstanding across the board that a diagnosis was required for there to be identification and response. That happened even in the face of children’s behaviour and experiences and of their families’ experiences, which made it clear that early intervention would be beneficial.

I am not ascribing blame; that is part of the reality of the need to ration scarce resources. Thresholds start to develop, and there is a threshold around diagnosis that often becomes the first fraught point in the relationship between parents and carers, on one side, and education bodies, on the other. It could be difficult to overcome that. They get stuck in a loop, and the six months to a year that they wait for the help that they need is a significant part of a child’s life.

The purpose of the diagnosis is to enable support and input. That understanding is critical for some children. However, I heard repeatedly that, for others, the diagnosis was not the point. The need was clearly there and could have been met.

All of that translates into data. That is a feature of the system, and it is why it is so important that there is honesty and transparency about the challenges. I found a blame culture around parents’ and carers’ expectations, which we must be careful about. All public services must manage expectations and have honest dialogues with their community and their public, but we cannot blame parents and carers for wanting the best for their children and fighting for that. All the professionals to whom I spoke acknowledged that they would do the same if they were in the same position.

I have a supplementary question that is based on some of our past work on ASN. That work highlighted that, in order for a case to go to a tribunal to challenge the support that someone is receiving, a child support plan must be in place. However, I have come across instances in North Lanarkshire of plans being in place but being called something different, which has left parents unable to challenge the support that is being offered. Did you find geographic discrepancies in how parents used or understood child support plans?

Yes. In the full report, there is quite a big section on that. I found that there was significant misunderstanding, not just among parents and carers but also among professionals, about rights and entitlements and about when the child support plan should be used. The interaction of that with child’s plans and other types of plans makes it a very confusing landscape.

It is another area that becomes a real focus of difficulty and mistrust. However, for me, the point of the plan is to ensure that there is clear thinking, commitment and accountability in the delivery of help and support, whatever that means. All too often, an awful lot of energy has gone into planning rather than into providing the support, even when the plan has been formulated. We get stuck on processes and, in the meantime, children are not flourishing as they should. That is why I was talking about almost stripping it right back.

There is a separate piece of work being done around the review of child support plans. I made a recommendation that that should not be looked at in isolation and that the whole context of planning should be considered. It is absolutely vital that the rights and entitlements around that are clearly understood.

Underneath all that, good communication and trusting relationships would resolve many of the difficulties. Sometimes, there is a temptation not to provide information to parents and carers so that they do not ask for things. However, there are then misunderstandings about what some of the rights and entitlements mean. It is critical that good information is provided to everybody, including the professional staff who work with families.

You have spoken about there being an element of parents and carers feeling that they are not being listened to and that there are problems with the visibility of issues. I was struck by a phrase that you used: “cycle of despair”. Parents from my constituency who have contacted me have said something similar. What do you think is the fix for that, if there is one? How best can education authorities engage with parents and carers of children of all backgrounds with additional support needs? What are the barriers to good communication between parents and carers and teachers? In my experience, it is not usually the teachers who are a barrier; it is the system. Families can feel that they are being left out and in the dark.

First, there is a real misunderstanding about listening: people think that listening means agreeing, and that can be a barrier. There is a fear that, if we listen to people, it will mean that we agree and we will give them what they ask for. That is not the reality. What I heard from parents and carers was that they want to be respected for the expertise that they have in their own life and their child’s life. They want that to be heard so that there is an equal dialogue. Teachers and other professionals also want to be respected and acknowledged for their expertise. Listening is really simple, but it is also not so simple. It is not embedded in our system.

The second thing poses a bit of a challenge for the teaching profession. For some parts of the profession, there is what I would describe as a slightly outdated idea that being professional means being the holders of expertise. That has been a challenge across the whole of our public services. There is so much discussion and good work being done around co-production, consultation and working in partnership but, in some parts of the education profession, it is still work in progress. I stand to be corrected, but that is what I saw and heard. It is no threat to the expertise of teachers for them to listen to parents and to hear what parents and carers have to say.

When I saw this work well, there was a genuine openness and willingness to say, “I have never thought of that before,” or “We are not absolutely sure what is the best way to work with your child. Their problems seem to be complex, so let’s work together,” and “What works well at home? This is what works well at school.” Listening and respect go a long way towards building trust. That is the first barrier. As the committee will have heard in the testimony from the independent care review, trust in relationships and communication lies behind all good practice.

09:45  

To take things forward, we need to sit down with parents and ask them honest questions. Where there are good relationships, it is possible to provide support and to challenge. There are conversations that are difficult. I heard that the starting point for parents was to say, “My child needs a full-time pupil support assistant.” However, that is not going to be possible. It may be appropriate, the right thing and necessary for some children, but it is not possible to provide that for all children. That is where asking and listening to what parents are worried about is important. Teachers need to ask, “What are the triggers, what upsets the child and what can help? Is an item helpful, can I say something, what can I do?” It is a dialogue.

It also takes time. Teaching and other staff need time to have those conversations with parents and carers. Parents and carers also have some fantastic advocacy and support groups—there is a lot of expertise that can be offered as the process plays through. Some parents and carers do not engage in that, for whatever reason. I know from my past experience as the head of Includem that some parents and carers do not trust any part of authority or the system and feel that they have had a difficult time. A special effort needs to be made to engage with them, and many third sector agencies could be the gateway to that.

The ethos should always be to ask whether we are doing this as well as we can and whether we can do it better. Being open and not being defensive is the only way to achieve improvement.

I think that every parent that I have spoken to would whole-heartedly agree with that: they are looking for honesty, being included and working together.

When you engaged with parents and carers during the review, which presumably crossed a wide socioeconomic background and touched various different groups, was there any particular pattern to your findings? Did you find any links or patterns among groups?

I certainly heard the same thing time and again. I am told that politicians’ postbags are full of letters from parents, so you and your colleagues have probably heard all those things. I heard a lot from parents that the starting point was trust and belief in public sector services. They felt that, if they approached the services for help, they would get a response. It was sad that there was then a real disappointment that the response was not as they had expected, and that disappointment developed into anger and frustration and a loss of trust in the relationship. That was the pattern regardless of background or the challenge that the child might have been facing. That was the common experience for parents and carers. It is really important to talk about carers, because there are so many kinship carers and foster carers who are involved in this world, and sometimes they get overlooked.

Did that answer your question?

Yes, it did. I also wonder whether, from your interaction with them, you found any marked difference between affluent and less advantaged areas.

No—I think not. The differences that I found in how parents felt were linked to leadership on policy and service delivery in those areas. I have been careful not to name and shame in the report because I wanted people to be really honest. I have also made no reference to the specific areas which we might call further advanced as to name them would mean that other good areas would feel overlooked. However, there was a difference that was linked to leadership.

The most powerful question that I asked in the review was, “If the situation was really difficult but then got better, what made the difference?” The answer that I heard most consistently from children, young people, parents, carers and professionals was that someone came on to the scene who really cared and understood, was open to listening and wanted to make things better. That was why having a leadership style that is open, questioning and non-defensive is so crucial to making progress.

Some of the points that I was going to raise have been covered by Rona Mackay. Before I ask about associated matters, would Ms Morgan agree that the point about the process feeling like a negotiation for parents masks much bigger problems? It is not just that it is time consuming or difficult; there are real human consequences for families who are going through it. Does there need to be much more cognisance of that, both as regards the impact for families who go through such negotiations and also—[Inaudible.]

I am afraid that we have lost Mr Johnson. We will go on to Mr Gray’s questions and will come back to Daniel Johnson afterwards.

Good morning, Ms Morgan. In your introductory remarks you referred to the restriction that was placed on your review’s remit, in that you were examining the position solely within existing resources. I noted what you said about feeling that it was not credible to say nothing about resources, so you made a recommendation that Audit Scotland should undertake an audit. Will you say a little more about the extent to which you felt that that restriction on your remit prevented you from saying what you felt you should be able to say?

I am not sure that it did. The timescale that I had was effectively four months, working part time. Also, the review involved just me. I did not have a big team of people, so there was no way that I could have delved into such matters. As I said earlier, the situation is about not just resources for education but for all local authorities and their partners as they should apply to the concept of learning for life. If we consider resources in that way, that involves a much bigger picture.

It would have been easy to say, “It needs more resources.” However, the problem is not just that. The area does need more resources, although I cannot say how much more. However, we need to be clear that we are using our existing resources in the right way. I will give an example from my report that shows how we ensure that our current resources enhance inclusion rather than reinforce exclusion.

On the question of how we use pupil support assistants, I heard about a distinct difference, which links back to mindset and the belief of leadership teams about whether all children with all types of needs should be included in classroom settings. That distinct difference is between, on the one hand, pupil support assistants being incorporated into the teaching team and being fully incorporated into the life of the classroom in order to maintain children within the classroom setting as part of the group and, on the other hand—according to stories that I have heard—pupil support assistants who were being deployed to contain children out of classroom settings. On paper, those children were in school, and the attendance box was being ticked for them. We could see the number of pupil support assistant hours. However, if you do not understand the effect, the impact and the purpose of those two different uses of the same amount of time, you cannot really understand whether the resources are being used in the right way.

I have heard similar points about hubs and buildings. For schools that have hubs, it appears in theory that children are part of the school life, but they are in fact entirely contained within the hub and, as far as the experience of those children is concerned, they might as well be 50 miles away.

In other areas, despite the geographical distance, the mindset was that the children were part of the school community and life, and every opportunity was constantly sought to maintain that. That illustrates the complexity around resources.

It is important to acknowledge that resources are a real issue, without disguising the fact that we do not have a community that is fully signed up to the concept of inclusion. This is really uncomfortable, but I heard directly from some professionals, as well as hearing stories indirectly, that the whole concept of inclusion was not being fully embraced. There was no belief that the mainstreaming or inclusion of all children should be done. Teachers said to me, for example, “I should only be teaching the children who can achieve through exams.” They were quite up-front about that—that was their view. I heard from other people who had a belief in that sort of inclusion but, because they had not seen it being delivered in practice, they had lost heart and had become cynical. That is very sad, but it is a reality. Those are the uncomfortable truths, and we have to confront them. They capture people’s experiences.

Returning to the point about listening, those teachers to whom I have referred want their experiences to be heard just as much as the parents and carers.

The short answer to your question about the restriction of our remit, Mr Gray, is that, while it would have been tempting to have disguised some of the underlying issues, the question of resources must be considered, and I hope that Audit Scotland makes it a priority. It is really important that it does that.

We will now try Mr Johnson again.

Thank you. I apologise to everyone. Somewhat ironically, I have much greater issues with BlueJeans connecting properly when I am in Parliament than when I am at home. I do not know whether you touched on my previous question, but I will move on anyway.

One thing that I have picked up is that, although the concept of mainstreaming and the general understanding of ASN is broadly accepted, and, indeed, embraced, by professionals, there might still be a problem at a local authority level. I have sat through meetings where the schools are seeking to facilitate the transition from primary to secondary and have been asking for additional resources because they recognise that they need additional help in order to make that happen. Parents have been asking about that, too, but local authorities have said, “I’m sorry, but you don’t meet our particular definition to enable that to happen.”

Before this meeting, confidential correspondence from parents that outlines some similar issues was shared with the committee. Local authorities are not having complaints against them upheld because, in a sense, they have done nothing wrong according to their own processes, but children are ultimately not getting what they need. Is the problem that local authorities continue to take very definitional-based approaches? If so, what can be done to resolve that?

10:00  

I certainly heard that scenario described quite often. I heard quite a lot about the fractures in the relationships between schools and the authorities. Some of the relationships were incredibly positive and showed leadership across the whole structure, but, in some cases, the battles of parents and carers were mirrored in different schools and their authorities. I have to be honest about that.

The issue comes back to data and measurement. What is measured and talked about is what is seen as important. I am afraid that I do not know what elected members see in relation to local authorities, so I cannot answer to that, but I was told that the focus on measuring processes means that the real issue of whether children are receiving support is disguised. At this time, it is understandable that local authorities are having to ration resources and decide what the priorities are. It seems to me that, if this area of policy is not visible and is not showing the reality of what is happening, it will remain a lower priority. That is quite a basic overview. I heard that the issue was a source of conflict.

Mr Johnson’s question is about human consequences. Strain and upset for parents and carers are caused by their kids not being included in school outings and school photos, for example. We talk about attainment and high-level things, but there is more to being at school than that; it is about being there, making friends and feeling part of something. It is a cause of real sadness for our children and young people.

We should not underestimate the human impact. Teachers and those in leadership teams in schools are humans, too. I heard very similar things said about their upset and the emotional impact on them. We should recognise the human consequences all round. That will not result in a solution, but being listened to, heard and taken seriously is always the starting point for solutions.

Like many other members, I was very struck by the “Not included, not engaged, not involved” report, which was compiled by Scottish Autism, the National Autistic Society Scotland and Children in Scotland. One of the key issues that the report looked at was informal exclusion, whereby, in essence, children are sent home but that is not formally recorded. That prevents them from having what any of us would reasonably expect to be a full education—in other words, a child being taught for the full day to the extent of their ability.

I did not note that issue being explored in the executive summary of your report, but I am very interested to know what insight you have on the issue, its prevalence and how it can be taken forward. My view is that there needs to be much more thorough examination and investigation of the extent to which children with additional support needs in Scottish schools are being informally excluded.

Yes, I heard that, too. The area overlaps with other pieces of work that are being taken forward, so I did not focus on it, but I heard those stories and the perspective of parents who have had to give up their employment because of the issue, who pointed out that, as well as the consequences of exclusion for them and their children, there is an economic impact on Scotland. There is something about taking an investment approach in this regard. Finance is not the key driver, because this is a rights-based piece of work that fits with Scotland’s aspirations. Nonetheless, a failure to invest has economic consequences.

Again, data is essential. There must be transparency. It is about having an improvement mindset and a real understanding of the challenges and what is happening and why. The issue needs to be visible. A supportive approach, rather than a compliance approach, is needed. People need to be supported to be honest about it. I know that I keep saying the same thing, but it is about being realistic and asking why such exclusions are happening. That is where support and challenge come in—attitudes will need to be challenged if staff lack specialist input, knowledge, practice development and confidence. The issue needs to be fully understood.

Thank you. I will stop there while my connection is still good.

Ms Morgan, I am interested in the role that inspections play in ensuring that there is adequate additional support provision in mainstream schools and I want to ask about the role of Education Scotland’s inspections, but before I do so, let me follow up Daniel Johnson’s questions about local authorities, because you made some interesting points in that regard. Do you get the impression that authorities are consistent in how they assess the adequacy of provision in their schools?

I am not sure that I can entirely answer that. I think that a group within the additional support for learning implementation group is looking at the action plan. That will be detailed work, which I welcome, because the approach that is being taken is rooted in improvement science, which, as I said, challenges the compliance approach.

I do not know the answer to your question, but I am not sure that consistency is the key thing at the moment. The key thing is that every local authority brings the issue up its agenda and sees it as a priority—whatever that needs to look like. I think that the work on a much better performance measurement framework across local authorities will help to drive that. I would rather not try to provide detail that I really cannot provide.

Fair enough. Thank you.

On Education Scotland’s school inspections, I have always had the impression that assessing whether a mainstream school has adequate additional support needs provision is not really part of the process. It is there nominally, but it is not part of the process. Is the role of our national education agency in that regard something that you have picked up in the course of the review?

A lot of good work is being done around that in Education Scotland, through its inspection role and its practice development and improvement role, and there is some potential in that regard.

Overall, what I heard was that, with regard to the four key priorities of the inclusion framework, which I cannot reel off at the moment, the focus tended to be too much on attainment and perhaps not quite enough on the other three priorities. Having said that—this relates to one of the recommendations that was made—there is clearly potential within the regional improvement collaboratives, which are primarily focused on closing the attainment gap. Again, we create these silos, but there are overlaps between the work on the attainment gap and the work around additional support for learning, and some of the same themes apply around individualised approaches and building practice. Therefore, there is a lot of scope for Education Scotland to support and drive that.

I come back to the point about partnership and collaboration and listening to children and young people, parents, carers and teachers in developing frameworks over time. Education Scotland has a really important role to play, and it is obviously part of the additional support for learning implementation group, so it is a key player in overseeing the implementation of the action plan.

Mr Greene is next.

Thank you for letting me ask a few extra questions, convener. A lot of ground has already been covered, but I will pick up a few points of interest.

I am sorry that I am probably putting you on the spot somewhat, Ms Morgan. I do not want to use the term “quick fix”, because I do not think that anything is quick or simple in this area, but we have been looking at things that the Government could introduce or do now, so are there any short-term measures, as opposed to big-picture, long-term changes, that would make a difference? At a very local level, are there things that schools, teachers or local authorities could do or ask Government for that would make a difference, especially in the context of Covid and the difficulties that pupils with ASN have faced over the past eight months?

My first answer to that is actually about what you and your colleagues can do, which is help to ensure that additional support for learning is not an afterthought in discussions around education, whether they are about implementation during Covid or beyond. Again, there are recommendations in the report on the national performance framework and the higher level strategic education bodies. The leadership starts with your demonstrating that and asking those questions in a way that is supportive and that, as far as is possible in a political setting, achieves consensus. During the review, it was very encouraging to work in the steering group with Scottish Government, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, because there was a positive consensual approach to recognising that we have difficulty and that we need to find a way to resolve it. That is the first thing.

The change in measurement and the discussions around that will, in itself, increase visibility of the issue in local authorities and partner organisations. My aspiration was to at least find an action that would achieve and maintain visibility, so that, in 10 years’ time, our future colleagues are not sitting around the table again, saying, “We need to have a look at that.” It is about saying, “We now recognise that we are here; let’s start doing something about it.”

10:15  

There needs to be support and leadership around the work with parents and carers. People can choose to listen to one another and be respectful. It sounds easy to do, but it is not always. We know that it is sometimes difficult for public services. Again, leadership and support could make a big difference quite quickly. I use the term “cycle of despair”, which sounds really strong but I think that would make everybody feel a bit better. There is so much time and energy being spent on upset and conflict at the moment, which would be much better spent on doing what everybody wants to do for children and young people. It is about mindset and culture change, and permission to do it.

That is helpful, thank you.

I know that the presumption to mainstream was not in your remit, but it is clearly an integral part of the issue, in the sense that we deliver education to the broadest group of people using the resources available. I was struck by one of the submissions to the committee. I will not name who made the submission, as I do not know whether they wanted that to be public or private. The submission summed it up quite nicely by stating:

“Parents are having to make difficult choices, choosing between having their child’s educational/medical/therapy needs met in a special school, or having social/peer needs met ... in their local school.”

The premise of the guidance that was issued in the early 2000s around the presumption to mainstream was to give parents the ability to choose. It seems as though choice has translated into compromise for some parents, because they now have to choose knowing that one option or the other will not deliver on all the objectives that they want to achieve for their child. I go back to the premise that mainstreaming will work only if the education is delivered in a place where the students with ASN have peers who are prepared for and understand that, where the teachers are supported and where there is a positive ethos in the classroom environment. In your experience of doing the report, do you think that that is universally the case, or is there still some way to go, even almost 20 years after the policy was first mooted?

Yes, there is still some way to go. I come back to some of the underlying challenges, including mindset and, undoubtedly, resources.

On the point about choice, processes that were previously about enabling an early intervention have become thresholds and require failure. It is all part of the same pattern in relation to the boundary between mainstream and specialist. I did not have too much time to reflect on the point due to the Doran review, but it is important that experience is shared.

Your point about the whole classroom environment and other children is important. In the report, I have said that it is really important that our adults of the future see how inclusive we want to be as a society, and how the adults in their classrooms role model the inclusion of children who might be different. There were different experiences around that, and I cast no blame. Teachers need support in that regard. I have done a whole section on teacher selection, development and on-going practice development, which is not to be underestimated.

I think that we tend to assume that people automatically have great communication, relationship-building and mediation skills, but I do not think that we should assume that. We do not assume that in part of our care professions. We need it from our teachers and other professionals working with children in other settings, but it does not seem to me that there is sufficient investment in that regard at the moment.

I am sorry—my answer has roamed about a bit.

That is all right. My final question goes back to something that Kenny Gibson mentioned earlier, in relation to the fact that people’s experiences differ quite widely across the country, depending on the demographic make-up of the school and so on. Before lockdown, I visited a classroom to give a little talk and to chat with the pupils. The teacher said, “I’ll just leave you to it,” and she did not come back for an hour. Afterwards, she told me that she was just exhausted because, in her class of 33, there were at least a dozen pupils who had very individual needs—in relation to physical ability, learning difficulties or behavioural issues—that required to be handled differently and she had no classroom assistant. She said, “I was just glad that you turned up and gave me a break.” That has always stuck in my mind. She said, “The thing that worries me the most is that I am not giving enough individual time to students in the class who could really excel.”

We are debating teacher welfare in the Parliament this afternoon, and it is an important part of what we are doing. Teachers are doing their best, but many are clearly struggling. What do you think schools or local authorities could do to make life easier and better for those teachers?

Again, I recognise what you have described—it matches what I have heard. This takes me into the issue of resources, which is territory that was not part of my brief. The starting point has to be an honest recognition of the challenges. If we are looking at service design, the starting point is what are the needs and the characteristics of the range of children in our schools, and what are the skills that professionals—teachers and the staff around them need—need to ensure that teachers can perform as well as they are able?

There are some fundamental questions that need to be asked. I have consistently heard that the expectation that we can just have mainstreaming, with the additional tweaking of additional support, is not working. At the moment, we are tweaking the schools and tweaking the children and young people to make them fit in, but it is not working. The only way to make things work is to acknowledge that starting point and ask what we can do to make it better. We must look at reality, find ways to measure the right things and listen to the people who are at the sharp end of implementation and are interpreting the legislation and policy. That might mean that we are just inching forward, but we must accept that, although we cannot make things perfect, we can at least try to make things better. What is being done must be grounded in a sense of shared reality. Part of the cycle of despair has involved the fact that there is a bit of denial about the scale of the challenge.

Thank you for your evidence. It has been extremely helpful. You can rest assured that, having taken the decision to mainstream two areas in our business—additional support needs and care-experienced champions—those issues will be reflected in the committee’s legacy report.

I apologise to the committee, because I forgot to cover something under agenda item 1. I will do so now. Does the committee agree to take in private future items on the consideration of our stage 1 report on the Redress for Survivors (Historical Child Abuse in Care) (Scotland) Bill?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. We will have a five-minute suspension.

10:25 Meeting suspended.  

10:32 On resuming—