Class action; The Great Debate on Scottish education continues for

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Jun 16, 2002 | by Douglas Fraser

And while the Scottish Parent Teacher Council argues against the league table culture, which has parents using their limited powers to choose a school on the basis of crude exam results, that aim of broadening education beyond the academic and statistical is part of the emerging consensus. It is one picked up by Nicol Stephen, who has set out a ministerial vision of the school of the future which will move the New Community School initiative beyond poorer areas of the country and put health, social work, police and other services into every school in the country, amid an improved learning environment - not just with computers, but with no-tech solutions such as playing fields outside the classroom window.

"Every school should, in time, become a New Community School," says Stephen. The pilots so far are 95% education-funded, with a room for a social worker, one for a health worker and maybe a community police officer, "whereas a community school could be at the centre of the life of a community, with playing fields, and excellent drama, music and sports facilities".

He visits too many schools where buildings are surrounded by 40 feet of concrete or asphalt: "That's how we're expecting children to spend not just the school day, but their school lives, without access to green grass, playing fields, sporting facilities. People talk about the new learning environment meaning computers and the internet, but it's far more than that: it's an environment which we could have been getting right, but too often, we've been getting wrong."

As small countries in the World Cup put Scottish football to shame, sport seems key: "In some countries at the weekend, families go and watch sport in a local school. Even in a not very large town, 15,000 people watch school games. There's a lot more sporting activity in Scandinavian countries, which, for their size, have tremendous sporting success.

"Some of that spirit has to be created, and by doing that, that gives an opportunity to tackle some of the big issues like youth justice, discipline in the classroom, closing the opportunity gap, health issues and the lack of physical activity. If you get that kind of activity right, you improve attendance and attainment because school becomes a more exciting and fun place, and all aspects of the system are improved as a result."

That broadening from the purely academic, exam sausage machine applies to getting schools open in the evenings and weekends for adults, but also to make the school a centre for parenting and growing from birth into nursery. "I like the idea of early support rather than the language of early intervention," says Stephen. "We have this notion that from nought to three, children need health visitors, health centres and GPs, and then from three, they need teachers and nursery schools and they stop needing health services."

In secondary school too, the minister foresees opportunities to move some pupils in the 14 to 16 age range into less academic courses, away from the one-curriculum-fits-all approach, with much closer links to further education colleges: "Historically, there's been a fear of potential clash in that area, with the colleges seen as a threat to schools, but there are already examples of colleges extending the school curriculum."