Editorial
Dear colleagues
This time last year we were still all in strict lockdown, our schools closed and the number of cases and deaths due to Covid-19 rising. I think you will agree that we were all worried about language learning and whether the huge gains we had made in realising the recommendations of the 1+2 report would be lost, in what was meant to be its last year of implementation.
Now, I’m sure you’ll agree that the worst-case scenarios we were envisaging have not come to pass. Yes, two periods of school closures, staff and learners absent due to having to self-isolate, and all the anxiety that living through a global pandemic has brought, have been far from easy. However, thanks to technology, we have been able to find ways to collaborate and move learning forward. When I hear in the media claims that children and young people have not been learning this year, I want to scream – and indeed sometimes do! Thanks to the creativity of our teachers and the people who support them, the vast majority of Scotland’s youngsters have been learning – just in a different kind of way. Many of the approaches that have been adopted by our schools and local authorities during the pandemic are here to stay, for what has been learned cannot be unlearned. Far from the quality of the education we offer being irrevocably impoverished, we can see in these articles how it has been enhanced over the last year. Whether it is capacity building, online professional learning that develops the skills and professional competencies of workforce, or participation in a plethora of online experiences that enrichen and enhance the curriculum, the teaching profession has adapted and led change. Whether it is sharing our work digitally across the country through professional networks like LANGS and GLEANS, collaborating internationally through online conferences and social media platforms or introducing new languages like Polish and Arabic into the curriculum, we have been able to make it happen. Learning has not been lost.
Finally, as I write, restrictions start to loosen – even for those of us in Glasgow City who were stuck for a while on the Tier Three naughty step. As I look back on all the sadness and pain that the pandemic brought with us, there are moments of joy that will remain with me; rainbows in windows, drinking coffee in the snow; being reunited with friends. One such moment was seeing Abdullah and Majd Al Nakeeb from Stornoway Primary School showing the world their language skills. They embody everything that we are collectively trying to achieve; inclusion, tolerance and languages for all. Boys, your smiling faces give us all hope! Learning, most definitely, has not been lost.
Fhiona Mackay, Director
Download the SCILT 1+2 Newsletter: June 2021 as PDF