Georgea Hughes’, The Wood Foundation’s Programmes Director, opinion piece.
Across Scotland, we understand it is important to prepare our young people for an ever-changing world. It is true – they will need to be agile, adaptable, and equipped with transferable skills needed to thrive in a global market. However, in all the conversations about developing our young workforce, one critical element is often overlooked; we cannot equip young people for the future if we do not first invest meaningfully in the development of the educators guiding them.
At The Wood Foundation, we work with educators across Scotland every day. Through our investments, including Excelerate, a pilot investment partnering with 19 secondary schools in Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, and Angus, we see first-hand the incredible dedication of teachers. But we have also seen the growing expectations put on them. We are asking teachers to deliver new approaches, new pedagogies, and new outcomes, often without giving them the tools, time, or training to do so.
Education is one of the few professions where staff are regularly expected to deliver methods or approaches they have not been formally trained in.
We would not accept this approach in healthcare, finance, or engineering. Indeed, other sectors recognise that to stay competitive, they must continually invest in their people. PwC, for example, has committed US$3 billion over four years to upskilling its workforce, equipping them with future-fit skills to lead in the digital economy. Education – the sector responsible for shaping every future industry – deserves no less.
Excelerate is a test of change that has sought to explore whether targeted investment in professional learning could give educators the tools they need to realise the ambitions of Scotland’s education policies. The pilot included professional learning in project-based learning (PBL), oracy, and leadership.
We hired, then developed, experienced teacher trainers to deliver multi-day PBL workshops to 458 teachers, creating space for educators to explore and fully engage with these methods before bringing them into their classrooms to test at their own pace.
Seeing is believing, and believing is often the first step towards doing. That is why we provided 416 teachers with the opportunity to participate in study visits to schools in the UK and the US. These visits offered more than inspiration – they gave educators the chance to witness effective pedagogy in action, ask questions, and return with a renewed sense of what is achievable within their own communities.
Studies have shown that the most significant factor influencing student outcomes is the quality of the teacher. Research by McKinsey & Company found that students taught by high-performing teachers progress up to three times the rate of those taught by lower-performing teachers. The same study also suggested teacher quality matters more than class size. If we want young people to develop a lifelong love of learning, we must create learning environments where teaching models that mindset.
However, what we see too often in schools is additive change – more expectations layered on top of an already full plate. Instead, we need quality change. Fewer initiatives, done well. Excelerate has been active for six and a half years now, offering us the opportunity to learn and improve. This real-life test of change is showing that when we invest in our educators, we empower them to transform the experiences of their young people.
In this manifesto year, there is an opportunity to prioritise curriculum improvement by backing the people who make it happen every day. All political parties should unite behind a shared commitment to invest in high-quality professional learning for our educators. Because in the end, young people learn best from adults who are still learning too.