School violence Scotland: Here are 5 key issues the SNP's new action plan must address

The SNP minister is due to make a statement to Holyrood on Wednesday, in the wake of a series of summits arranged by the Government amid concern over recent incidents, which will culminate in a gathering in Edinburgh today.

Ms Gilruth has already delayed a decision on radical reform of school qualifications to allow staff to deal with a range of worrying trends facing schools since the pandemic, including rising violence and aggression.

At the summit on Tuesday, and in the statement on Wednesday, she is expected to discuss the publication of the first detailed research of behaviour in the nation’s schools since 2016.

She will then outline an “identified action plan for how we can help local authorities to improve the current situation”. Ahead of the statement, The Scotsman has analysed some of the key issues that any action plan could seek to address.

1 – Exclusions policy

While exclusion rates have been rising in England and Wales, they have dropped dramatically in Scotland since the SNP came to power in 2007.

In 2006/7, there were 44,546 temporary and 248 permanent exclusions north of the border. In 2020/21 – the most recent year data was available for – those numbers had fallen to 8,322 temporary and only one permanent exclusion.

Between 2018/19 and 2020/21, exclusion rates fell by 44 per cent, although the Covid-19 pandemic partly explained the data for 2020/21.

In evidence to a Holyrood committee, Tom Bennett OBE, a UK Government education adviser and the founder of researchED, questioned why Scotland continued to emphasise “well-meant, but essentially ineffective” behaviour policies, often involving holding meetings with pupils involved.

He said: “Scottish education needs to move away from a system that congratulates itself on almost zero exclusions and move to one where it’s done when necessary – and only then.”

Dr Colin Morrison, co-director of the Children's Parliament, is among those who have warned against a change in strategy. "The reason we have fewer exclusions in Scotland is because we’ve all worked so hard before Covid to make that so,” he said.

Representatives from the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), Scotland’s largest teaching union, have said teachers need more time to properly implement the “restorative” policies for tackling misbehaviour, including through smaller class sizes.

Mike Corbett, national official of the NASUWT union, said there needed to be “clarity” around the messaging. He said some local authorities and head teachers almost never exclude or suspend pupils, because of the way they interpret the Government’s desire to reduce exclusions.

2 – Consistent reporting

Any action plan from the Government is likely to look at the way incidents of violence and aggression are recorded by schools and local authorities.

One of the Government’s school violence “summits” in September focused specifically on recording and reporting. In an exclusive interview with The Scotsman in August, Ms Gilruth said there were “lots of disparate approaches” between councils, which has made it “problematic” when trying to judge the scale of any increase in disruptive behaviour.

She said: “We don’t have a standardised approach to it. I think we probably need to get there.”

Mr Corbett told an education committee hearing in June that some authorities operated a “Byzantine system”, and that teachers were under-reporting incidents involving violence.

“Our members certainly tell us there has increasingly been a culture of fear almost among head teachers who don’t want to report a large number of violent incidents because that makes their school look bad,” he said.

Unions have also highlighted the need for policies to include a definition of violence and aggression, to assist with reporting.

3 – Support for staff

Frontline staff have consistently said they need more support to deal with problems in schools, including poor behaviour. In some areas, it has been suggested that “almost all” violent incidents involve pupils with additional support needs (ASN).

More than a third of pupils in Scottish state schools are said to have an identified ASN, with the number doubling over the past decade. Concerns have been raised in recent months about a drop in spending on ASN pupils, as well as wide variations across council areas.

Recruitment and training of more staff, including educational psychologists and specialist teachers, is seen as vital by many. Meanwhile, teachers are still waiting for the Scottish Government to deliver on an SNP pledge to reduce teachers’ class-contact time by 90 minutes per week.

4 – Support for pupils and parents

A recent survey by the National Parent Forum of Scotland found almost six out of ten parents in Scotland have a child who has been involved in an incident of violence or challenging behaviour at school.

A similar proportion said the school did not communicate “appropriately” with them about what had happened, and the incident had not been dealt with in a “timely and complete manner”.

Meanwhile, surveys of pupils in some areas have shown a deterioration in their feelings of “wellbeing” since the pandemic, with significant falls in the proportion saying they feel “safe” and “respected”. Ms Gilruth has made it clear she is “very worried” about youngsters in childcare and schools who faced huge disruption during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

Many will hope her action plan includes measures to help youngsters deal with the mental health pressures they face.

5 – Implementing actions

Any actions outlined by the Government will only make a difference if they are actually implemented by local authorities and schools.

One consistent theme has been a postcode lottery-system, where different councils interpret guidance or spend money in different ways. Mr Corbett said he hoped local authorities and schools would go back and review their own policies and guidelines in the wake of the action plan, and for the Government to check on their progress regularly.