In upper primary and secondary schools, children are moved on regardless of their attainment and ability. This results in some children not being able to do BASIC numeracy and literacy, while being expected to access much more challenging content in secondary school. At that point, the classroom teacher rarely has enough time or the ability to address the serious gaps in the pupil's skills. This frustrates the children and disengages them, thus preventing them from any improvement. This is a self-sustaining cycle at that point, and those children end up leaving secondary with nothing but National 3s at best and a very low self esteem. Their issues were not addressed early enough and spiralled into something that cannot be fixed/undone. Kids in primary schools should not be moving on to secondary until they've been equipped with tools to access level 3 Es and Os. This affects those of disadvantaged background the most, and probably 3-4 kids out of 20 in a given class, in poorer areas.
This content is created by the open source Your Priorities citizen engagement platform designed by the non profit Citizens Foundation