Who’s where? A snapshot of the Scottish learning & skills landscape

The seventh annual Informed Scotland Organisations & People Special has just been published.

It’s a snapshot of a busy and ever-changing learning & skills landscape, helping our subscribers to quickly locate the key organisations and make sense of where they fit into the bigger picture.

Informed Scotland subscribers find it a useful directory of the main bodies and institutions operating across business, education, community & adult learning, government and wider society, including:

• Sector-specific skills bodies
• Local authority education departments and regional improvement collaboratives
• Colleges and universities
• Teacher education institutions
• Developing the Young Workforce regional groups
• Knowledge exchange & innovation centres.

This year there are links to over 380 organisations, up 20 from 2018 and more than twice as many as in the first edition in 2013.

There have been many changes since last year’s edition, including new organisations, name changes, mergers and closures, and new appointments, promotions, movements and retirements.

New organisations include the under-development National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) along with NMIS Skills, Screen Scotland set up by Creative Scotland, Children’s Neighbourhoods Scotland and the V&A Dundee. Other new developments include two additional universities offering teacher education courses for the first time, and the first Scotland Director appointed for WorldSkills UK.

Gone are the Tech Partnership, National Skills Academy for Financial Services, Scottish Film Education and Scottish Waterways Trust, although much of their work has been picked up by other bodies including City & Guilds Group, Keep Scotland Beautiful and Screen Scotland.

Subscribers receive the Special as a bonus and find it a useful addition to their regular monthly digests, as demonstrated by feedback already received for the new edition: ‘This is great. So useful to have all these key contacts updated and in a single document’.

All new subscribers receive a copy: join the growing list of Informed Scotland subscribers and stay well informed. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.

Informed Scotland June 2019: Skills shortages, empowering schools & the digital divide

Skills gaps, shortages and plans were back as hot topics in June.

Skills Development Scotland launched a Skills Action Plan for Rural Scotland and regional Skills Investment Plans for the south of Scotland and Glasgow City. The Open University’s Bridging the Digital Divide report examined the extent and impact of digital skills gaps. And CBI/Tata Consultancy’s survey looked at digital skills challenges faced by business.

A year after the draft Education (Scotland) Bill was published and shelved, it was finally put to bed. Instead, the Scottish Government published a progress update on education reforms and new Devolved School Management Guidelines. And on the topic of ‘empowering schools‘, Education Scotland released its Thematic Inspection of Empowerment for Parent and Pupil Participation, the third of a series of inspection reports.

Other reports worth highlighting include Education Scotland and Scottish Government’s Learning for Sustainability: Vision 2030+ action plan; the latest Learning Insights report by Kineo on the ‘phenomenon of micro-personal-networking’ in workplace learning; and fascinating models proposed by the British Library for a UK-wide digital platform for library users.

As usual, June was full of statistical reports and annual surveys. This included the destinations of school leavers and sobering education outcomes of looked after children, on apprenticeships by SDS, colleges by Audit Scotland and Colleges Scotland, and higher education student experience by HEPI and Advance HE, plus the second annual progress report from the Commissioner for Fair Access.

Become an Informed Scotland subscriber so you can keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.

Informed Scotland May 2019 – Making sense of learning & skills since 2012

Seven years ago we published the first edition of Informed Scotland.

Remember 2012, when the talk was of Scotland’s 23.1% youth unemployment, the merger of 37 further education colleges, and Curriculum for Excellence and the move from Standard Grades to new Nationals? Now youth unemployment is down to 6.6%, there are 26 colleges… and, okay, we’re still talking about Curriculum for Excellence and qualifications!

Today’s hot topics include challenging issues not regularly discussed back then, like mental health & wellbeing, or non-existent, like Brexit.

On mental health there were signs of things to come, with Education Scotland’s Communities Team publishing Learning is good for your health in May 2012, and a new national strategy for health & wellbeing in schools under development.

There was no hint of Brexit in issue 1 however. The main item on the EU was a Scottish Government announcement of £25m of European Structural Funding for projects to support getting young people into work. Perhaps had we lauded, rather than taken for granted, this type of regular, significant intervention, we would have avoided the major challenges created by Brexit today.

Back to the present, and May 2019 was the month for a plethora of must-read reports, including:

• recommendations of the Independent panel on career pathways for teachers
• a survey of headteachers on the use and impact of the Attainment Scotland Fund
• a Growing Up in Scotland report on changes in language ability during primary school years
• major reports on recruitment issues and skills shortages: for oil & gas by OPITO, for housing & construction by Scottish Government and for veterinary medicine by SPICe
• a report by LKMco highlighting issues affecting equal access to quality work experience for pupils
• an Open University report on Breaking Barriers to Nursing
• the third annual Report on Widening Access by the Scottish Funding Council – plus a new Framework for Fair Access in higher education
• and the annual Tech Nation and UK Consumer Digital Index reviews.

There are new funds from Education Scotland for creative curriculum design in schools and for STEM leadership and professional learning for teachers, from Skills Development Scotland for digital skills training, and from Scottish Enterprise to provide manufacturing training support for SMEs.

This is the tip of the information iceberg: become an Informed Scotland subscriber so you can keep on top of all the developments. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.

You can also keep up to date via Twitter @InformedScot and Instagram informedscot

Informed Scotland April 2019 – Qualifications, assessments & exams

Assessments, qualifications and exams were making the learning & skills headlines last month.

The debate about Scottish National Standardised Assessments (SNSAs) continued, with reports published from two out of three separate ‘reviews’ – by the Scottish Parliament Education & Skills Committee and the government’s P1 Practitioner Forum.

The annual exam season began for schools, colleges and universities. A Reform Scotland report focused on the number of National Qualifications a student can take at S4. And SCQF Partnership encouraged employers to become ‘inclusive recruiters’ by using SCQF levels instead of specific qualifications in their recruitment processes.

Other items to highlight include:

• Scottish Funding Council’s first statistical report on the articulation of HNC/HND students from colleges to universities
• A report analysing the experiences of disabled staff in Scotland’s colleges by Advance HE
• A review by Skills Development Scotland examining inequalities in educational and labour market outcomes
• LKMco’s report for Founders4Schools on Making Careers Education Age-Appropriate, featuring case studies from Stirling Council schools
• The annual Scottish Technology Industry Survey from ScotlandIS
• And the Education & Skills Committee’s new inquiry into STEM in early years, adding to its already busy agenda that includes subject choices, SNSAs and follow-up work on additional support needs.

April saw the launch of numerous new courses, plus a new preparing for executive leadership programme from College Development Network, a new SSERC/STAC online forum for school technicians, the opening of a second Newton Room STEM learning centre in the Highlands, and a new hairdressing salon run by New College Lanarkshire students for long-term patients at University Hospital Wishaw.

Also last month, the running of Canal College and Canal Heritage projects transferred to Keep Scotland Beautiful as Scottish Waterways Trust sadly ceased trading, plus Newlands Junior College in Glasgow closed its doors after opening for disengaged students five years ago.

Look out for overlapping national themed weeks later in May, including those on Digital Learning, Learning at Work and Learning Disability. Our Learning & Skills Events Calendar contains details of these and more.

Finally, a quick mention with thanks to Edinburgh graphic designers, Mamook, who created the original Informed Scotland design and template – as you may have noticed they’ve provided a few new snazzy cover designs over the last year, and this issue features the final one. We hope you like them as much as we do!

This really is just a taste of all that happened last month! To keep on top of developments you need to become an Informed Scotland subscriber. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.

Informed Scotland March 2019 – Additional support for learning & skills

The hottest Scottish learning & skills topic in March was additional support needs.

Among a range of items, there was a cluster of Scottish Government reports on additional support for learning in schools; Education Scotland’s new inclusive education module for teachers on The Open University’s OpenLearn Create platform; a new Carers Trust Scotland recognition award for college student carers; a number of initiatives to support those with autism; and Skills Development Scotland is working with British Deaf Association Scotland to raise awareness about Modern Apprenticeships for young deaf people.

As well as the annual round-up of statistics, including on college staffing and higher education students, qualifiers and retention rates, interesting items to highlight include:

• A new Independent Commission on the College of the Future, for colleges in all four UK nations
• A new Scottish Government ‘Muscatelli Report’ initiative on university engagement with industry, led by the Principal of the University of Glasgow
• Leading in a digital age, The Oxford Group and Kineo’s report on leaders’ digital skills
• A new historic environment sector Skills Investment Plan from SDS and Historic Environment Scotland
• The second of three Education Scotland thematic inspection reports on empowerment in schools
• A review of the impact of British Council in Scotland’s schools programmes
• An overview of SQA qualifications in maths and English by the Scottish Mathematical Council
• A European University Association report comparing public funding of European higher education systems
• A Scottish Library & Information Council report on the impact of mobile library services.

This really is just a taste of all that happened last month! To keep on top of developments you need to become an Informed Scotland subscriber. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.

Informed Scotland February 2019 – Inclusive, empowered, connected

There was no shortage of learning and skills activity in blink-and-you-missed-it February. A range of hot topics, familiar and new, presented themselves across the landscape.

Inclusion was referenced in all sectors:

There is a new SCQF Inclusive Recruiter campaign; a new Creative Scotland Create:Inclusion Fund; a new HUB for SUCCESS offering support to care experienced young people in Edinburgh; and a new Prince’s Trust project to develop digital skills for unemployed and underemployed 16–30 year-olds across the UK backed by Google.org.

There was a report on Building a World-Leading AI and Data Strategy for an Inclusive Scotland by SCDI and partners; a new Addressing inclusion guide for teachers on challenging racism in schools by the Coalition for Racial Equality & Rights and respectme; and a discussion paper on Disabled students at university by the Commissioner for Fair Access.

Other reports to highlight this month include:

• The first annual progress report on the STEM Education & Training Strategy
• Education Scotland’s first draft materials for an ‘empowered system’, including a draft Headteachers’ Charter
• A study of young people making music by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
• An interim review of Regional Improvement Collaboratives
• A UPP Foundation report on the importance of the civic university.

And look out for affordable coworking spaces opening up in libraries across the country, thanks to SLIC’s imaginative new Scottish Coworking Network. Take it from one who knows: coworking is to be recommended for micro-businesses, freelancers or start-ups – it absolutely creates opportunities for cross-fertilisation of learning and ideas!

Want to keep on top of all the developments? Become an Informed Scotland subscriber. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.

Informed Scotland Dec 18/Jan 19 – Where Brexit’s not the only story

Brexit made its way onto the cover of Informed Scotland for only the second time. There is much evidence of its increasing influence on the economy, business, employment and skills, with words and phrases like ‘gloomy’, ‘uncertainty and confusion’ and ‘threat’ littering forecasts.

The further and higher education sector is raising alarms and preparing for Brexit’s potential impact. The Scottish Funding Council published EU Exit and Scottish colleges and universities and added an EU Exit section to its website, while university bodies including Universities UK and the Russell Group, which is Chaired by the Principal & Vice-Chancellor of University of Glasgow, wrote a strongly worded open letter to MPs.

But there was plenty more learning & skills activity to fill this bumper double issue!

As well as the usual numerous statistical reports and annual reviews, other items to highlight include:

• The Scottish Government’s Review of Personal and Social Education report
• The Scottish Parliament Education & Skills Committee’s Note of Concern report of its music tuition in schools inquiry
• The annual National Improvement Framework and Plan for schools
• Launch of a new SCEL Legacy Fund to be managed by the General Teaching Council for Scotland
• Consultations on the construction industry and draft Youth Work National Occupational Standards
• Two interesting papers on colleges across and within the four UK nations, one involving Colleges Scotland, and one by Edge Foundation
• A new research project looking into the economics of education and educational policy by Strathclyde Business School
• Plus announcements about a new Aviation Academy, a new Graduate Outcomes survey, and a new Centenary Commission on adult education.

The sixth annual Informed Scotland Learning & Skills Hottest Topics list, plus a round-up of last year’s activity, is in an Annex to the digest. There’s also a link to an interview for Radio EDUtalk in January, when Angela Gardner and David Noble explored the stories behind the list, and looked at what’s on the horizon for 2019 (highlights here).

Want to keep on top of all the developments? Become an Informed Scotland subscriber. Email [email protected] to request a sample copy.

Learning & Skills in Scotland – What’s on the horizon for 2019?

In an interview for Radio EDUtalk, Angela took David Noble’s listeners on the third annual whistle-stop tour of some of the items that will be shaping Scotland’s learning & skills landscape this year.

You can listen to a podcast of the show, which also reviewed the Hottest Topics in 2018. Below are links to some of the programmes, projects and events mentioned for 2019:

National programmes & reviews

• Scottish Government published its 2019 National Improvement Framework and Improvement Plan
• A new Scottish Framework for Fair Access is to be launched; a pilot version is available
• An Independent Panel is looking at Career Pathways for Teachers
• UK Standing Committee for Quality Assessment consultation on degree classification is open to 8 February

Resources, opportunities & courses

• SQA is continuing to publish documents on the changes to Advanced Higher assessments
• Two universities are offering teacher education courses for the first time from September – Edinburgh Napier and Queen Margaret University
• Applications for Erasmus+ funding are open to Scottish schools and organisations until 5 February (for mobility funding) and 21 March (for strategic partnership funding)
• British Council has CPD workshops available in Norway, Albania and France for teachers in Scotland and the wider UK  
• Children’s University Scotland is keen to hear from schools interested in working with them on new ways to support children’s wider participation in learning outside of school and during holiday periods
• The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) is continuing its national rollout of MyProfessionalLearning
• SCQF Partnership has projects to recognise and map the skills of migrants and veterans

Future Learning & Skills

• The Skills Development Scotland report Skills 4.0: A skills model for the future is being used as a focus by Education Scotland as part of the Developing the Young Workforce agenda
• Scotland’s Futures Forum and the Goodison Group in Scotland are continuing to explore Scotland 2030: Education and Learning
• University of Edinburgh is running a Near Future Teaching project

Themed weeks & major conferences: full list on the Events Calendar

• Scottish Apprenticeship Week 4–8 March
• Scotland’s Learning Partnership themed weeks including Adult Learners’ 18–24 May and Family Learning 8–14 June
• Learning at Work Week and Learning Disability Week 13–19 May
• Osiris Educational’s Visible Learning World Conference 12–13 March, Edinburgh
• UCAS International Teachers’ and Advisers’ Conference 3–4 June, Glasgow
• International Primary Science Education Conference 6–8 June, Edinburgh
• College Development Network’s second College Expo 12–13 June, Perth College UHI
• Association for Learning Technology’s conference 3–5 September, Edinburgh
• Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning conference 9–12 September, Edinburgh
• Scottish Learning Festival 25–26 September, Glasgow
• Various Pedagoo events throughout the year including Muckle Grampian, PedagooTweed and EnquiryMeet_RCS
• The Open University is celebrating its 50th anniversary and City & Guilds its 140th
  

Keep yourself or your organisation better informed about what’s happening in learning & skills in Scotland. Find out how to subscribe here or contact [email protected] to receive a recent copy of the digest.

Informed Scotland Learning & Skills Hottest Topics 2018

We’re delighted to present the sixth annual list of Learning & Skills ‘Hot Topics’ that made it onto the cover of Informed Scotland over the past year.

For the first time since we began compiling the list in 2013, two topics share top spot:

=1. Diversity, equality, equity & inclusion (new)

=1. Teacher education, development, shortages & recruitment (=2 in 2017)

=3. Digital skills (1)

=3. Future skills, learning & work (4)

=3. Gender balance & equity (=5)

=3. International collaboration & comparisons (=5)

=3. Science, technology, engineering & maths (STEM) (=5)

=3. Widening access (=2)

=9. Skills shortages & gaps (=5)

=9. Students, leavers & graduates – statistics (=5)

As predicted, ‘Teacher education, development, shortages & recruitment’ continued to make the mainstream headlines in 2018, pushing it up one place from last year. In contrast, ‘Diversity, equality, equity & inclusion’ is on the list for the first time, with themes such as poverty, social mobility, disadvantage, disability, care experience and ethnicity grabbing the attention across the landscape.

Although ‘Digital skills’ slipped down the list after two years as the hottest topic, it remains the only issue to have been in the top three every year since 2013.

Three other topics have made every annual list: ‘Widening access’,
‘STEM’, and ‘Skills gaps & shortages’, and they will most likely be hot issues in 2019.

Surprisingly, ‘Apprenticeships’ dropped out of the list for the first time, having only appeared on the cover for March, coinciding with Scottish Apprenticeship Week.

A year ago we wrongly predicted that the Year of Young People would be on the list… It only just missed out, however, and its influence has permeated learning & skills and wider activity throughout 2018. (We’ll have to wait for 2020 for the next Themed Year, which will be Scotland’s Coast & Waters.)

Finally it’s worth highlighting two topics that made Informed Scotland covers for the first time: ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ (ACEs) and ‘Brexit – recruitment & skills challenges’. We expect to see them both back as hot topics in 2019 and they might even sneak onto next year’s list.

What were your 2018 highlights? What are your predictions for 2019?

Angela will be discussing the stories behind the list in an interview for Radio EDUtalk on 22 January, in a review of 2018 and a look ahead to 2019. Tweet us @InformedScot and we’ll share your thoughts.

Make it your New Year’s resolution to be better informed about what’s happening across learning & skills in business, schools, further & higher education, community & adult learning, and government & wider society. Contact [email protected] to receive a recent sample copy and find out how to subscribe here.

Happy Christmas & heaps of thanks!

It’s time to say a big thank you to our wonderful clients, associates and coworkers after another busy year for AJ Enterprises!

We’ve been hard at work keeping Informed Scotland subscribers up to date with the changes and challenges in learning & skills throughout 2018.

As well as the monthly digests, we’ve provided Annexes with detailed actions from three key Scottish Government reports, and published the sixth annual Organisations & People Special.

Many thanks to our subscribers for the great feedback and for spreading the word about what we do! Also thanks to Geoff Leask of Young Enterprise Scotland and Sarah Philp of Osiris Educational for their enlightening guest blog posts, and special thanks to Janey Boyd at Mamook Graphics for designing new covers for Informed’s sixth anniversary!

We continued to promote hundreds of events via the Learning & Skills Calendar, and managed to attend a few ourselves.

We shared copies of Informed with delegates at Newbattle Abbey College’s national adult learning conference in April, and the West Lothian Inclusion & Wellbeing Service Partnership Planning Event in May. Thanks too to General Teaching Council for Scotland for displaying the Informed flier on their stand at the Scottish Learning Festival, and to the Graduate Engineer Show in Derby for featuring our advert in this year’s show programme. And thanks to David Noble for the invite back onto Radio EDUtalk to review the hottest learning & skills topics of 2017, and to look ahead to 2018. 

We’ve also shared information widely via social media – @InformedScot now has over 3,700 followers on Twitter, up 400 from this time last year, and over 400 followers on Instagram, up 170 – thanks to all our engaged followers!

It was a pleasure to continue working closely with London-based associate, Elaine Hendry of emh connect, particularly on the quarterly Skills Research Digest that we produce jointly for Northern Ireland’s Department for the Economy. 

Turning to other business, we’ve provided communications, copy-writing, editing and proofreading, research and horizon scanning services to old and new clients, with regulars including the global company Macmillan Education, Winmat Publishers in Ghana and Beyond Green here in Edinburgh. 

Personal thanks are owed to associates it has been a pleasure to work with this year, including Kirstin who helped look after our Newbattle conference stand, and to Hannah at the start and Sarah at the end of 2018 for helping to keep the Events Calendar updated. Thanks also to supportive fellow local members of the Society for Editors & Proofreaders, particularly Lesley Ellen and Cathy Tingle – due to their persistent encouragement, I achieved Advanced Professional Member status in March!

Finally, I’ve enjoyed another year of coworking alongside a bunch of creative, talented people in Evergreen Studio in Edinburgh’s Old Town – thanks for the camaraderie, support, technical advice – and the regular sweet treats!

The annual Informed Scotland Hottest Topics in Scottish Learning & Skills will be shared here in January.

Email [email protected] for more information about any of the above, to subscribe to Informed Scotland, or to discuss how we could support your work in 2019.