Schools and nurseries
Emerging from the enormous impact of a pandemic that has only heightened Glasgow's inequalities, Scottish Greens believe in education that nurtures young people's development and supports their resilience. In government, Scottish Greens are delivering the increased staffing in our schools that gives teachers the time, stability and support they need to focus on their pupils, and on delivering the inclusive and inspiring education that all Glasgow’s children need and deserve. We will never compromise on ensuring the right support is available for all our children and young people.
Meeting every learner’s needs
We will:
- Put young people’s wellbeing at the heart of educational recovery. Children need to be ready to learn, and supported to learn in the way that best meets their needs.
- Work with our MSPs to continue to increase the numbers of teachers and learning support staff, so we can keep class sizes down, so that young people are supported to learn and develop as individuals.
- Advocate for continuous assessment based on teacher judgement as our preferred way to assess learners’ progress. We will support parents and carers who wish to opt their children out of standardised testing.
- Ensure that every child or young person with additional support needs who would benefit from a Coordinated Support Plan receives one, and require that all staff assigned to support people with additional needs have the appropriate training to do so effectively.
- Make counselling available to all young people by establishing a right to access school-based counselling provided by qualified mental health practitioners.
- Support pupils at risk of falling behind and support alternative provision for those for whom mainstream provision isn’t working, in order to reduce exclusions.
- Give every primary pupil regular opportunities to learn and develop through expressive arts such as music, drama, visual art and dance, as both a participant and an audience member.
High-quality early years education
We will:
- Work towards the very best early education for children by improving qualifications, wages and conditions for early years staff.
- Support the expansion of free childcare hours, and make the current offer more flexible to support parents in shift work or irregular employment to be able to use them.
- Ensure early learning is predominantly play-based, and offers extensive opportunities for outdoor learning, small group learning, and access to local community resources such as parks and libraries
- Continue professional development around creating ‘gender-friendly’ nurseries, and work to bring more men into the early learning and childcare profession.
Schools that reflect local communities
We will:
- Plan for enough schools and early years centres in areas where populations will rise, and ensure buildings are high quality flexible spaces, built to last and with environmental sustainability at their core. Deliver a new primary school to support the increased residential population in the city centre.
- Continue to support the principle of local schools for local children. Review catchment areas, including the potential for more overlapping catchments, and consider what more we can do to encourage locally representative schools.
- Foster stronger links between schools and local communities and make school facilities available for community use.
- Increase support in schools for children from marginalised groups, including refugees and asylum seekers and LGBTI+ young people
- Address under-representation of racial and ethnic diversity in the school workforce, and ensure appropriate support for disabled teachers.
Schools as inspiring, safe spaces for all
We will:
- Review processes for measuring, reporting and dealing with racist and LGBT+ bullying, sexual harassment and other abuse within schools to enable people to come forward and that a consistent zero-tolerance approach is taken.
- Ensure that consent is taught as a core part of sex and relationships education and make all schools LGBT+-inclusive, building on the Time for Inclusive Education (TIE) campaign.
- Make sure educational and social opportunities available in school are accessible to young people who are new to Glasgow
- Ensure that classrooms are Covid safe and appropriately ventilated and heated.
Keeping down the cost of the school day
We will:
- Implement a Glasgow school uniform policy which addresses affordability, accessibility, environmental impact, and does not discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic. We will support uniform banks and re-use or lease/hire services, ensure access to warm jackets and outdoor clothing, and keep the sufficiency of school clothing grants under review.
- Maintain and promote free instrumental music tuition, primary school swimming tuition, Bikeability training, and the subsidised outdoor and nature-based education offered by Blairvadach outdoor centre.
- Continue to support holiday food and activity programmes.
- Ensure that experiences offered to children and young people are diverse and reflect everyone in the school community, and are not dependent on parental income or schools’ fundraising capacity.
- Expand family income maximisation teams attached to schools and nurseries, helping low-income households access the social security payments they are entitled to.
Supporting growth in Gàidhlig Medium Education (GME)
We will:
- Deliver additional school and workforce capacity to meet growing demand for Gàidhlig Medium Education (GME), commiting to a fifth GME primary and a larger or additional secondary school, and lifting the 140-place P1 cap as soon as possible.
- Invest in outreach capacity to support families so that they can fully support children with the curriculum.
- Maintain a GME working group with parent representatives on a permanent basis.
Delivering climate action in schools and nurseries
We will:
- Aim to reduce car journeys to school by more than 50%, with all schools supported to develop a sustainable travel plan. All primary schools will have measures implemented to either slow or reduce traffic around schools, and we will support walking and cycling buses.
- Reduce plastics and food waste and increase opportunities to recycle in schools.
- Create food growing spaces in schools and connect pupils with issues around food justice and sustainability. We will develop an action plan to reduce diet-related emissions and promote local, ethical, organic and plant-based food in schools.
- Ensure careers advice has a strong focus on supporting a just transition to a low carbon economy and work towards just transition apprenticeships and placements.