Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Music Education Partnership Group had a joint meeting with myself and the Minister for Culture, Europe And International Development on 29 June 2023.

This was an introductory meeting and covered school and community music in Scotland, the various MEPG initiatives including the “We Make Music” initiatives, recent MEPG engagement with research on music learning and an update on a MEPG paper on the Vision for Scotland’s music industry.

Scottish Government officials liaise with MEPG and a range of music education partners on an ongoing basis.

The Scottish Government keeps the eligibility criteria for free school meals under regular review to take account of any developments which may impact upon it. The eligibility criteria was last amended in April 2023. We notify local authorities whenever any changes are made to the eligibility criteria to enable them to invite fresh applications for free school meals under the new criteria.

We are currently reviewing the existing eligibility criteria for free school meals in light of the latest increases to the National Living Wage, which were announced by the UK Government on 21 November 2023.

The ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: Preventing and Managing School Exclusions’ guidance was published in 2017.

In June last year, I convened the first meeting of a Headteacher taskforce which focused on school exclusions. The topic of school exclusions was also discussed by a wide range of stakeholders, including local authorities, at the series of behaviour summits held between September and November last year.

In November, the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR) was also published, which provides the accurate national picture in relation to behaviour in Scotland’s schools. Local authority staff were interviewed as part of BISSR.

We are currently working with the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools , which includes COSLA, to establish what actions are required to be included in the national action plan to respond to the findings of the summit process and BISSR. The national action plan will be published as soon as possible.

We published guidance in June 2017 - ‘Included, Engaged and Involved – Part 2 – preventing and managing school exclusions’ - for teachers. The guidance gives a stronger focus on supporting positive behaviour and approaches that can be used to prevent the need for exclusion.

The series of summits I held with a wide range of stakeholders on behaviour in schools concluded in November. The summit process culminated in the publication of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR), which provides the accurate national picture in relation to behaviour in Scotland’s schools.

In my statement to Parliament on 29 November, I confirmed that a multi-year plan is in development to tackle instances of challenging behaviour, working with local authorities, trade unions and others.

We are currently working with the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools to establish what actions are required to respond to the findings of the summit process and BISSR. The national action plan will be published as soon as possible.

Children and young people should learn in the environment which best suits their needs. Most children and young people’s need are met through a universal level of support in mainstream provision, however, there are clear exceptions to enable children and young people to learn in a special school or in a specialist unit. It is for local authorities to determine the most appropriate educational provision, taking account of their legal responsibilities and the individual circumstances and wishes of children, young people and their families. We are working with our stakeholders to refine the guidance available to local authorities on taking these decisions, including updating the additional support for learning code of practice.

Our support to local authorities for additional support for learning reached a record high of £830m in the year 2021-22. We have invested an additional £15m per year since 2019-20 and provide over £11m of funding to directly support pupils with complex additional support needs and services to children and families.

We currently have the highest recorded level of pupil support assistants. In 2022, 307 additional pupil support assistants were recruited, in addition to 1,036 recruited in the previous year, bringing the total number of pupil support assistants in Scotland to 16,606. This level of recruitment is a direct result of our continued investment of £15m each year to help schools and local authorities respond to the individual needs of children and young people and maintains our record levels of investment in these staff.

We have also recently outlined in our Programme for Government 2023-24 our commitment to work with teachers to provide additional professional learning opportunities while seeking to build on the Additional Support for Learning Action Plan.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The assignment of probationer teachers to individual schools is a matter for each local authority.

It is the statutory responsibility of local authorities to manage their school estate. Therefore, the Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The projects which form Phase 3 of the £2bn Learning Estate Investment Programme continued their development activities while the funding process was being assessed.

This included a range of work specific to each location, for example, site selection, surveys and tests, community consultation, brief development and early design work.

As there is no reason for this work to have been delayed by the announcement, no additional anticipated costs have been reported.

All projects have confirmed that they are working towards the same Phase 3 operational completion date of December 2027 as previously required.

To maximise the efficiency of delivering the Phase 3 projects, collaboration has been encouraged. For example, 5 local authorities in the north of Scotland have formed a group to share learning. In addition, a joint workshop with all local authorities who have Phase 3 projects has been held to ensure they have knowledge of all projects and can identify common challenges and opportunities.

We value our teachers and education professionals and are committed to understanding their needs and providing them with the right support. Since October 2020 we have invested more than £2 million specifically in supporting wellbeing in the education workforce.

This year we are providing £200,000 to offer free wellbeing coaching to teaching staff and educational professionals across Scottish schools and early learning facilities.

We are also funding the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland to deliver an Education Workforce Support Project, to gain a comprehensive understanding of current practice about how we support the wellbeing of our education workforce.

Modern Apprenticeships (MAs) are funded through Skills Development Scotland (SDS) via a competitive procurement process, with contracts issued to successful bidders on an annual basis. SDS contract with a wide range of providers for the delivery of MAs including employers, independent training providers, colleges, universities, third sector, local authorities and managing agents.

SDS do not contract places at a framework level and instead contract at an Occupational Grouping level to allow for flex within the system. It is up to providers to best utilise these places based on demand.

The most relevant frameworks relating to heat engineer occupations are “Plumbing and Heating” and “Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration”. Statistics published by SDS show there were the following number of starts on each framework: