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NATIONAL PRIORITIES IN EDUCATION: Performance Report 2003
INTRODUCTION
The Standards in Scotland's Schools etc. Act 2000 sets out a school improvement framework which gives strategic direction to school education through five National Priorities in Education. Embedded in the Act is the concept that the purpose of education is to ensure that each individual fulfils his or her potential. This idea is not new, but the Act gives the aspiration renewed strength.
Where school education is provided to a child or young person by, or by virtue of arrangements made, or entered into, by, an education authority it shall be the duty of the authority to secure that the education is directed to the development of the personality, talents and mental and physical abilities of the child or young person to their fullest potential. 1
There is an obligation under the Act for an authority to set out within its Statements of Improvement Objectives:
- how it intends to promote the involvement of parents in its children's education
- the ways in which it will encourage equal opportunities and, in particular, the observance of equal opportunities requirements
- the ways in which it will provide Gaelic medium education and, where it does provide this, the ways in which it will seek to develop its provision of such education.
After a consultation exercise, five National Priorities were agreed in December 2000. 2 These define the high-level outcomes which education authorities and their schools have to deliver for young people, and all have equal status.
The National Priorities set out desirable outcomes for the education of children and young people and have been generally welcomed. The challenge for Scottish education is in relation to how these outcomes can be achieved and how these achievements can be measured.
A number of measures relevant to each of the five National Priorities have been identified to illustrate progress towards achieving the outcomes. Agreement on the nature of those measures was reached through the extensive consultation with stakeholders including teachers, headteachers, education authority representatives and a wide range of interested parties.
There was general consensus that there should be qualitative as well as quantitative indicators. A number of quality indicators from How good is our school?3 were identified as being suitable qualitative measures. Measures such as 'Climate and Relationships' and 'Personal and Social Development' do not lend themselves easily to numerical analysis. The full set of performance measures and quality indicators can be seen in Annex 1.
The 2000 Act made provision for the education functions of each local authority in Scotland to be inspected between 2000 and 2005 by HMIE. HMIE publish reports of their Inspection of the Education Functions of Local Authorities (INEA) which are available on their website. INEA reports evaluate the education functions of local councils against a number of quality indicators. These reports comment on progress by the inspected councils on aspects of the National Priorities.
Evidence based on school self-evaluation
Effective self-evaluation can provide a strong basis for planning. The quality indicators included in How good is our school? [2002 Edition] are designed to help staff in schools to evaluate the quality of education in their school. The school-based self-evaluations reported in 2002 are contained in this report.
Authorities and schools will be continuing to build up their expertise in self-evaluation and moderation of progress with the National Priorities over the period to the end of school session 2004/2005. Some self-evaluation in this report is therefore provisional at this stage. HMIE are undertaking independent and robust external evaluation of how well Scottish schools and education authorities are delivering the National Priorities in Education and their report will be published after the end of school session 2004/2005.
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