As a stakeholder I can attest education system does my family proud

ONCE again we read correspondents bemoaning the “decline of Scottish education” (Letters, July 19 & 20).

I have a stake in the education system. I have a son who has just started S6 and two grandchildren, one about to start P7 and one about to start P1.

My son attends a fairly typical urban high school with a roll of about 1,200 and its catchment includes some of the poorest areas of the town. The school building is seven years old and superbly equipped, certainly compared to the 1930s-era school I attended in the 1970s.

My son has been encouraged and supported through every step of his education by his teachers. In S4 his workload was brutal, but he achieved eight National 5s and is awaiting the results of the five Highers he sat in S5. He is studying a further four Highers this year as well as continuing to take tuition in saxophone and bass guitar on a non-certificated basis. He is also vastly better educated than I was at his age. I sat my Higher Maths in 1978 and I think he surpassed my knowledge somewhere in the middle of S4.

My granddaughter attends a medium-sized primary school with a roll of around 400. The catchment is, once again, mixed. She is also benefiting from a very high quality educational experience. She has been imbibed with a love of learning and is looking forward to going to high school next summer.

My grandson is about to start P1 in the same primary school. He has benefited greatly from the guaranteed hours at nursery and can’t wait to go to “big school”.

Are these experiences exceptional? I doubt it.

John Swinney must, of course, be seen to be doing something. Unfortunately he has succumbed to his corporatist instincts and convened an “International Council of Education Advisers” (“Panel of top education esperts to advise on improving schools”, The Herald, Jul 15). I wonder if he noticed that not one of these experts is actually a classroom teacher? I suspect not.

Mr Swinney will also convene a panel of teachers to report on workload. Members of this panel will be “appointed after recommendations from Education Scotland and the Scottish College of Education Leadership”. Irony abounds. It clearly hasn’t occurred to Mr Swinney that, if either of these bodies were actually doing their jobs, there wouldn’t be a problem in the first place. John Walker, 73 McLachlan Street, Stenhousemuir, Falkirk.