Read on Twitter
Two thoughts on the argument (used in a non pejorative sense - argument is a democratic tool) over school reopening. One on where parents sit in this, and one on monitoring consistency./
In equality in what children will have access to should be right at the front of our minds - as something to avoid, and something to monitor./
Sorry to make such a bog standard obvious point, but it needs reinforcing constantly. We need to worry about inequality that occurs because of differences in personal background but also by school type./
There's been some comment already on the potentential for an exaccerbation of the private school/state school gap and what's going on there needs monitoring - big immediate impacts for exam year groups, especially but also longer term. *But also*/
variation within the state system needs to be watched and brought out. The experience of pupils at Jordanhill vs local authority schools; in East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire schools vs other local authorities; Boroughmuir vs most other Edinburgh schools./
We need to be on top of the differences really hard, and ask if X is possible in this place in the state system, why not in this other one? And money is going to be part of it. Not the whole story, but astonishing if irrelvant to differences which will emerge./
If the next few months reinforces existing inequalities *within* the state system, within schools and between them, we will have failed in how we deal with this situation of unparalled stressfulness and difficulty for schools and policy makers./
A thought on parents. The more that they are being asked to do, the more time children are at home, and the longer, the greater the involvement they should have in what is being done, just on first principles. They are now players in this in a way they simply were not before./
That lead to who speaks for parents. We have some established bodies which represent parents to government who are about to become even more important. Their decision-making structures and systems (working at speed) will become more salient./
Govt needs to resource these bodies at national and local authority level so they can play the role they now need to in representing parents in national and local discussions: representing parents not just as providers of children, but now also providers of 50%(?) of school time.
This is a point we are going to hit repeatedly - if one school can do more, why shouldn't it? If we avoid inequality here by pushing down to lowest common denominator, it'll be no achievement either./ https://twitter.com/jackiekemp/status/1273209546979381248?s=20
We should be asking all state schools to work out what's the most they can do for their pupils given their situation *and then gathering up all the info we can about that, across LAs and across the country* & working out which need more help to do more - and providing that help.
And making sure schools have maximum chance to learn from one another. This is new to everyone. Clever, dedicated people across the system are trying to solve the same problem in different places. We should be doing everything we can to help them share their ideas and experience/
I can't imagine what it's like trying to run a school right now. Those people need a lot of support - peer support not least. People will disagree, honestly, about right ways forward. They - we - need space to do that without it becoming a pitched battle.
My deep fear here is that we don't have a strong enough habit in Scotland of decent data gathering in education and the effort simply won't be put into gathering information on this as quickly, clearly or comprehensively as it should be. https://twitter.com/mgshanks/status/1273217662617878533?s=20
And the same happened at our local primary. There's not a lack of resourcefulness in the system. It's simply never had to be harnessed on this scale. We need systems that support sharing information on how people are coping. https://twitter.com/PeeblesElouise/status/1273218035550244867?s=20
And in these circumstances, if I could do one thing only possible through the incantation of magic spells and not achievable through circulars or statistical returns, it would be to make vanish "not invented here" as an entirely human but really unhelpful way of thinking.
