Consultation

Scotland’s Next Steps in Education Reform

National bodies: qualifications and assessment

This week, the National Parent Forum of Scotland (NPFS) launched a survey to gather input from parents and carers across Scotland as a follow-up to conversations around education reform that have been ongoing throughout the last 12 months.

Have your say

This survey focuses on creating a new national body responsible for qualifications and assessment. It will remain open until Friday 8 December 2023.

Complete the NPFS survey

For background and further information, you can read the Scottish Government’s consultation paper on establishing a new qualifications body:

Education Bill provisions: consultation

You can also complete the official Scottish Government survey here:

Education Reform: A Consultation on the provisions of the Education Bill

Behaviour in Schools

9 June 2023: National Parent Forum of Scotland have received a number of comments in recent weeks regarding the rise in reports of concerning behaviour in our schools. They have launched a survey to gather real life experiences from parents across Scotland.

Feedback from this survey will be used to inform the NPFS contribution to the upcoming conversations around school behaviour with Scottish Government, as well as future policy discussions.

The survey will run until Thursday 22 June 2023. Please feel free to complete the survey multiple times to reflect the experiences of all the children/young people you care for, but please keep your feedback focussed on incidents during this school year – 2022-2023.

Complete the survey here

Learning Hours in Scottish Schools

Reminder – 23 May 2023: The Scottish Government has recently sent out a consultation paper for parents and carers asking for their opinion about the number of learning hours that should be set in law for young people in Scotland.

Prescribing the minimum annual number of learning hours: consultation

It is proposed that a specific number of hours of education should be provided by all local authorities in schools they have in their area. This will not include breaks, lunch or after school clubs. Currently in most schools, 950 hours of teaching time is provided in primary schools, and 1045 hours of teaching time in secondary schools.

Have your say

The National Parent Forum of Scotland has opened a survey to gather parent views on these proposals.

You can access the NPFS survey. The survey will be open until 26 May 2023 and the results will be shared with Scottish Government.

NPFS Learning Hours Survey

Scottish Government consultation on learning hours in schools

22 March 2023: The Scottish Government has launched a new consultation on prescribing the minimum annual number of learning hours in schools.

Prescribing the minimum annual number of learning hours: consultation

This consultation seeks views on the Scottish Government’s plans to set a legal minimum number of hours of school education school pupils should receive each year.

Traditionally, Scottish primary schools provide around 25 learning hours per week, and Scottish secondary schools around 27.5 hours per week. However, while local authorities are required to have their schools open for 190 days each year, the number of learning hours is not prescribed.

The Scottish Government is now planning to use the existing provisions in the Education (Scotland) Act 2016 to set the minimum number of learning hours in a school year, and propose to use this power to make regulations later this year.

Have your say

This consultation is an opportunity for local authorities, parents, children and young people and other stakeholders to provide views and evidence about the potential impact of the implementation of this policy.

Find out more and submit your views

The responses will be used to inform future regulations and non-statutory guidance.

The consultation closes on 13 June 2023.

Edinburgh City Council NE/SE Locality Meetings

12 February 2021: The Council’s NE/SE Locality meeting was held on 19 January 2021.

The main topics discussed were:

School session dates 2022/2025 – the Council will be sending out a questionnaire to parents, teachers and pupils looking at arrangements for school holidays up until 2025.

Remote Learning Provision – including the roll out of digital devices; the provision of Wifi to those without it; the availability of online teaching/learning resources; the approach to remote learning across Edinburgh schools.

A copy of the presentation can be found here:

NE/SE Locality Meetings January 2021

A note of the meeting can be found here:

NE/SE Locality Meeting 19 January 2021