Back to school: but are Scots classrooms up to the mark?

As our children head back to school this week with the government's muchvaunted Curriculum for Excellence yet to be implemented, Fiona MacLeodand Eddie Barnes ask whether the Scottish education system is fit for purpose

THE floors have been polished, the coats of paint plastered on. As Scotland's pupils reluctantly make their way back to school this week after the annual summer break, what differences will they see?

This was supposed to be the year when Scotland's schools education entered a brave newera. A new "Curriculum for Excellence", coordinating all learning from the age ofthree to 18, was to have swung into action.

Education was to be focused on creating "confident individuals", "responsible citizens" and "effective contributors".

A new "joined-up" system of learning was to begin.

But the programme has been delayed amid claims that, if it had gone ahead, teachers might have goneonstrike. Staff warned they needed new books and more money to ensure its success. One education chief –amember of the team that created it – described some elements of the scheme as "complete nonsense".

So how exactly are our schools faring? The critics have been forthcoming in recent months. Earlier this week, Lindsay Paterson, professor of educational policy at Edinburgh University, described the idea of Scotland having the best education system as "one of the great education myths".

And as policy has diverged since devolution, the critics claim that England has now moved ahead of Scotland. Data held by the Office for National Statistics recently showed that in both Maths and English, 15-year-old pupils south of the Border had moved ahead of their Scottish counterparts in 2007.

Defenders of the Scottish system are defiant. English pupils, they argue, areover-tested, pointing to examples of seven- year-olds going home suffering from stress.England's more disparate system, replete with grammar schools, city academies and specialist schools, has fractured the comprehensive ideal. In Scotland, that ideal remains true, they say.

The debate will heat up as the schools fill up this week. Here, Scotland on Sunday provides its own report card on the state of the nation's schools.

CLASS SIZES AND TEACHER NUMBERS

REDUCING class sizes and the number of teachers in Scotland are linked issues, as the SNP in its election manifesto promised to maintain teacher numbers to allow class sizes to be reduced.

However, councils faced with their commitment not to raise council tax, in return for being given freedom to spend their budgets as they like, have been cutting teacher numbers as pupil numbers fall.

The SNP vowed to reduce the first three years of primary school to just 18 pupils to a class. However, legal challenges by parents at popular schools have revealed a loophole that the only maximum enshrined in law is 30.

A landmark legal ruling on the issue last year demonstrated councils had no right to refuse entry to a child on the basis that the class was already full at 18.

In response several councils which have oversubscribed schools, such as Edinburgh and East Renfrewshire, have ditched the policy in fear of further legal action. As a result, in some areas, class sizes are actually rising.

Government statistics earlier this year showed 14 of Scotland's 32 councils had made no progress on the target.

However, reduction of class sizes is a main area of campaigning for the powerful teaching union, the EIS, and it is unlikely to let this pledge sink quietly without trace.

Ronnie Smith, EIS general secretary, at the union's annual conference in June, called for legislation on the class size maximum to compel local authorities to comply.

He accused some councils of "consciously" and "deliberately" failing to reduce class sizes, considering themselves "bigger than the government when it comes to running schools".

The Scottish Government has said it is considering changing the law but there are no immediate plans to do so.

On the opposing side, some don't believe smaller class sizes would make a real difference.

VERDICT 0/10

Fail

CURRICULUM

THIS week children across Scotland should have all been introduced to the new school system, A Curriculum for Excellence. However, after much pressure from teachers who felt there was too little time to adapt, it was delayed until next year.

Teachers at their main union conferences this summer both discussed strike action if more money wasn't found for new materials and training for teachers on the new system.

Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, also warned in June that more investment, both financial and of time, was needed.

The problem for the Scottish Government and education secretary Fiona Hyslop, right, is that there are loud and respected voices expressing concern.