Pisa results show the failure of "progressive" education in Scotland

Despite the many criticisms levied against Conservative educational policy, the 2019 results published by the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) have shown a significant improvement in maths, reading and science in UK schools.

Pisa releases rankings of countries based on pupil performance and this year Singapore, China and Macau took the top spots. Estonia was the highest-scoring European country.

The past decade has seen a fundamental shift in UK education. Academies and free schools have multiplied, exams have been made more rigorous, and there has been an effort to weaken the influence of local authorities on schools. Much of the ideology behind this can be seen in Michael Gove’s contributions to the Conservative 2010 white paper.

To take one example, classic British literature was brought back into the GCSE curriculum to improve pupil’s grasp of the language, while grammatical errors would face greater penalties in examinations. A similar hike in standards was seen across the other traditionally academic subjects. This was controversial — the education sector is overwhelmingly left-wing, and resisted this injection of traditional rigour. Yet, at the close of the decade, we cannot help but reflect on the wisdom of these decisions.

Not everyone has enjoyed the same success. While the UK overall has gone from 22nd to 14th in reading, 15th to 14th in science, and 27th to 18th in maths, Wales and Scotland have fallen far short. Though Scotland has recovered its reading score from a 2015 dip, it has had its worst-ever performance in science and maths.

In teaching, traditionalists favour direct instruction and knowledge as the basis of understanding, while progressives broadly favour pupil-led learning, typically characterised by more group work and variety of tasks. These views exist on a spectrum.

As a traditionalist, I would say that, to answer the question, “How is Macbeth presented in Act 1 Scene 2?” a pupil would need a grasp of Jacobean views of kingship, the social hierarchy of medieval Scotland, and the broad message Shakespeare is trying to convey. This is before we even begin to analyse the scene itself. The overriding view is that understanding is like a pyramid: higher levels cannot be built without secure foundations of knowledge. This is applicable across the curriculum.

In contrast, the approach to maths teaching in Scotland is at the progressive end of the spectrum. Pupils “research” maths through board games. They design the theme and rules, and create all the accompanying resources. Little time is actually spent doing any maths.

Work is seen as “collaborative” and is influenced by pupil feedback — pupils can have more time to talk about their work with others and stop work when they feel they’ve got it. The policy is that, “when you know you understand, there isn’t any point doing the whole page,” thereby undermining any notion of mastery through repeated practice.

It’s sad that the Scottish parliament, with its devolved powers, persists in these romantic and damaging views of pedagogy. It’s sadder still that this will be to the detriment of the next generation of Scots.

Exciting times lie ahead for British education. The Conservatives have made strong commitments on pupil discipline and the party continues to favour free schools and academies. The consensus is slowly changing. Andreas Schleicher, Division Head and coordinator of Pisa, recently visited my own Michaela Community School. Despite his initial reservations towards some of our practices, he commented on how we had built “a broad and multifaceted knowledge base [which] is the foundation for developing an informed and differentiated opinion.”

He also remarked that “learning is sequential, and that mastery of earlier tasks is the foundation on which proficiency in subsequent tasks is based”. These same educational techniques have led to our ranking as fifth in the country in our first year of GCSEs. The evidence is here and the tide is turning. Let us hope Scotland doesn’t get lost at sea.