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The initiation of a systematic curriculum improvement cycle announced on 12 December 2023, stems from the OECD 2021 report “Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future” and its specific recommendation for Scotland to "develop a systematic approach to curriculum review” which was accepted by Scottish Government.

Prior to the announcement in December, the Curriculum and Assessment Board, which includes a range of stakeholders including the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, the Educational Institute of Scotland, leading academics, and the Scottish Qualifications Authority, had already considered and offered views on a range of papers in relation to taking forward a systematic curriculum review cycle in Scotland.

The minutes of Curriculum and Assessment Board meetings are available at: https://www.gov.scot/groups/curriculum-and-assessment-board/

The Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group figures are indicative and are provided by universities at the start of the academic session. The Higher Education Statistics Agency will publish official data for 2022-23 in April 2024. These will provide the most accurate figures on enrolments into modern language Initial Teacher Education programmes.

This data will help to inform the work of the Strategic Board for Teacher Education on improving recruitment to hard to fill subjects, such as modern languages.

The Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council have also offered to work with universities to develop alternative routes into subjects which are classified as a priority subjects, including modern languages.

We continue to work with partners on the development of a digital strategy for education.

Having reviewed the information presented by local authorities, the Scottish Government has confirmed that we will not withhold funding in 2023-24 from those who did not maintain teacher numbers.

While the Scottish Government remains disappointed by the small reduction in teacher numbers, we do not consider that withholding funding at this stage in the financial year would be in the best interest of learners.

The number of withdrawals and deferrals from 2019-20 – 2022-23 are in the following table: 2023-24 data is not yet available.

As set out in my statement to Parliament on 12 December 2023, Maths will be the first curricular area to be revised as part of the new systematic curriculum improvement cycle.

The update to the Maths curriculum will begin in 2024 and will begin to be tested with Scotland’s teachers later in the year. Literacy and English will be next, with work on that also beginning this year.

Decisions on which curricular areas should be prioritised following Maths/Numeracy and Literacy/English and timescales for those further packages of work, will be informed by evidence and will be subject to discussions with key stakeholders and delivery partners.

The Registrar of Independent Schools has advised that 83 schools have completed surveys of their estates, with 8 awaiting results of a survey or in the process of procuring a survey. Of the schools where surveys have been completed, 76 schools have confirmed that there is no RAAC present on their estate, and 7 schools have confirmed the presence of RAAC.

The requirement for local authorities to maintain teacher numbers at 2022 census levels was assessed against teacher numbers in the Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland 2023, and subject to mitigating circumstances presented by individual councils.

The initiation of a systematic curriculum improvement cycle announced on 12 December 2023, stems from the OECD 2021 report “Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future” and its specific recommendation for Scotland to "develop a systematic approach to curriculum review” which was accepted by Scottish Government.

Prior to the announcement in December, the Curriculum and Assessment Board, which includes a range of stakeholders including Education Scotland, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, the Educational Institute of Scotland, leading academics, and the Scottish Qualifications Authority, had already considered and offered views on a range of papers in relation to taking forward a systematic curriculum review cycle in Scotland.

This work was referenced in a letter sent by the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to Committee on 31 October 2023. The letter is available at:

https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/committees/education-children-and-young-people-committee/correspondence/2023/cab-sec-response-ecyp-commitee-oecd-implementation.pdf

As with all GTCS accredited Professional Recognition Programmes not all participants complete a programme and achieve the award for different reasons. This may be due to personal circumstances, changes in roles and, or, remits that impact on the participants engagement with the programme. It can also occur when a participant’s submission of evidence does not meet the required standard to achieve GTCS Professional Recognition.