Who decides what Scottish children should know? This week in SUE: a neglected national inheritance, parents pushing back, and schools increasingly shaped by therapeutic culture. What is education actually for? bit.ly/sue171news @acadofideas @ScotPAG @enlighten_scot

"Physics teachers don’t just teach a subject; they open pupils’ eyes to the wonders of the world & possibilities of the future. They are unlocking the potential of the next generation of Scottish science innovators" @stuartphysics on physics teacher crisis enlighten.scot/scotlands-phy…

When schools introduce partisan teaching on subjects that are deeply contested outside the classroom, what should meaningful parental involvement look like? Information? Consultation? A right to object? A right to withdraw? Or should decisions about curriculum ultimately remain with schools and education authorities?

Scotland produced Hume, Smith, Black, Hutton and an intellectual movement that helped shape the modern world. Yet the Scottish Enlightenment is not something every Scottish pupil is guaranteed to study. What knowledge should be part of the common inheritance of every child educated in Scotland?

Scotland's latest PISA results raise an important question about educational standards. The government points to performance above the OECD average in science and reading, and stability since 2022. But should our benchmark simply be today's OECD average? Or should Scotland judge itself against its own past performance and ambitions?

What is happening to Scottish education? Falling standards, growing demands on schools, questions about parental involvement — and continuing arguments over what children are being taught. This week's SUE looks at some of the tensions shaping our schools. bit.ly/sue170news

Scotland helped produce some of the most influential research into teaching children to read. The 2005 Clackmannanshire study found major advantages from systematic synthetic phonics. England acted on the evidence. Scotland chose a different path. Now Scotland’s PISA reading score has fallen from 526 in 2000 to 488 in 2025. At what point do we ask whether declining reading standards were not inevitable — but partly the consequence of choices we made about how children should be taught? SUE: bit.ly/sue169news

A “parental engagement” meeting should involve more than explaining policy to parents. It should mean listening to disagreement — especially when that disagreement is uncomfortable. The account from Orkney describes something very different: parents questioning education policy, only to find that some opinions appeared to be unwelcome. Institutions confident in their ideas should not need to close down debate. Read the article here: bit.ly/sue169or

We have an absolutely tragic situation developing in Scottish schools where the good teachers, who understand that they need a disciplined classroom and a serious focus on subject knowledge but who more often than not get no support in enforcing discipline or enthusiasm for the subjects they are teaching. @StuartWaiton bit.ly/sue169news

A council holds a “Parental Engagement Event”. Parents attend precisely because they disagree with aspects of what is being introduced in schools. What should engagement mean? Being informed about a decision? Or having a genuine opportunity to question and challenge it?

A 90% National 5 Maths pass rate sounds impressive. But what if only half the year group was entered for the exam? New FOI-based analysis reports that just 39.7% of all S4 pupils achieved an A–C in National 5 Maths. When judging standards, should we be looking at exam pass rates — or the whole pupil cohort?

Masking decline has been a key priority for those responsible for Scottish schools for over twenty years. Would you trust them to take a new direction?