Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Task of preventing disadvantage to class of 2020 outlined by schools boss

Fife Council executive director of education and children's services, Carrie Lindsay.
Fife Council executive director of education and children's services, Carrie Lindsay.

The education boss of one of Scotland’s largest local authorities has spoken of the task ahead to prevent disadvantage to the ‘class of 2020’.

Fife Council has around 50,000 pupils in 157 secondary, primary and special schools and executive director of education and children’s services Carrie Lindsay said they had engaged with home learning in varying degrees during the coronavirus lockdown.

Mrs Lindsay also told us of the significant amount of work of teachers and officers to prepare for blended learning from August before the Scottish Government’s u-turn last week – just days before the summer holidays – meant they had to “buckle down” and plan for a full return instead.

In an exclusive interview about lockdown learning, Mrs Lindsay, a member of the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 education recovery group, told us that when children return to school teachers would assess what stage they were at and extra support would be provided.

I talk about the class of 2020 and the fact we want to do everything in our power not to have them disadvantaged.”

Carrie Lindsay, Fife Council

She told how educational psychology and health and wellbeing staff were involved in planning the response, which could include activities at weekends and after school to help those pupils in need of intervention.

She said: “I talk about the class of 2020 and the fact we want to do everything in our power not to have them disadvantaged.

“It’s up to us now to the take the learning they have had in the last few months and make sure that we do plug any gaps and we can continue their learning journey and support them in every way we can.

“We will be using any extra staff to support those young people who maybe have found it a bit more challenging.

“Across the world we know that there will be some impact from this [the pandemic] whether it’s educational, economic. The poverty people will now be in will also have an impact on their education going forward. It’s not just the missing out on school that will have a long term impact.”

Home learning

Concerns were raised about how much pupils were learning at home, after it was revealed that only 42% of secondary pupils in Fife were engaged with schools at the end of April.

Mrs Lindsay said engagement was around 80% in most schools but that home learning could be challenging for larger families and those with poor IT or broadband access, while other families decided to focus on their wellbeing during the crisis.

Equipment had been provided to enable connectivity for some pupils, she said, and materials delivered to others, including worksheets and activities.

She said: “People have talked about engagement levels as a negative thing where it’s not been happening and sometimes that might be the case but often it’s because it’s really challenging circumstances.

“Our schools and teachers, they know the children and the families really well, so where they have needed to provide support then they have done that and sometimes it’s been a case of families saying we just need a bit of space for our own wellbeing and then we’ll pick it up again at another point.”

Lasting change

Remote teaching developed over the last few months could lead to lasting changes in how education is delivered, she said.

Many children had thrived from the one-to-one feedback from teachers and being away from the anxiety of bustling school buildings, she said, and the online teaching could be used to increase subject choice in secondary schools.

Risk assessments had been conducted and arrangements made for social distancing and part-time attendance in every school in the region before Education Secretary John Swinney announced days before the summer holidays his intention for full-time return in August.

Blended learning contingency

Education officers and senior teaching staff spent “a lot of time” developing their blended learning model, Mrs Lindsay said.

“We had looked at a range of different models but… we had invested a significant amount of time in the model that we felt was going to work best for Fife which is now our contingency model.”

She met with head teachers shortly after Mr Swinney’s announcement last Tuesday and said: “I was hugely impressed by our head teachers who had spent all that time on the other plans and then just buckled down and said ‘right, this what we need to do’.

“The head teachers have been amazing at working with our staff and trying to make sure that everything is in place so that it’s safe for staff and safe for our children and young people to return.”

Transport challenge

In the event of a return to the blended learning model or a local lockdown, like that in Leicester, she said teachers were ready but the “biggest challenge” would be transport, with 12,000 pupils bussed to school across the region.

Since we spoke to Mrs Lindsay, the Scottish Government has relaxed social distancing on public transport to one metre but government advice is still awaited on PPE requirements, including face masks, in schools.

Mrs Lindsay said: “The plans are all there, it is just trying to make sure that we have got that transport to get the children to school. It’s just a wee bit more complex to change the arrangements around that, particularly if the distancing changes on the buses.

We would be encouraging them to think about alternative ways to get their children to school.

“What we have said already to parents is we would be encouraging them to think about alternative ways to get their children to school so that they are not always just thinking about a bus even if they have used a bus previously.

“It might be they want to encourage their child to cycle to school or they might want to drop them off near the school or they might to look at walking.”

From the start of lockdown, Mrs Lindsay said staff across the service had stepped up to the mark, including cleaners and janitors as well as teachers and pupil support assistants.

She said: “Everybody wants to do the best they can for children and young people. I think that you see that with people who work in schools, they genuinely want to do the best for children and young people in their care.”