How effective is the quality of immersion and education?

Across all 3-18 sgoiltean, the climate for learning through immersion is a major strength in bun-sgoil. More needs to be done at sgoil-àraich and àrd-sgoil. Staff, children and young people benefit from very positive, nurturing and caring relationships. This provides an important basis for taking forward total immersion approaches for Gàidhlig Medium Education.

Creating the culture for learning and immersion

Almost all children and young people are articulate, enthusiastic and confident in their immersion and learning. They demonstrate value-based attitudes very well. Children and young people are immensely proud of their ability to speak two languages.

Children and young people have a generic awareness of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Children and young people need to have an improved knowledge of their rights to their identity as learners of an Indigenous language.

Quality of teaching, immersion and assessment

In all Gàidhlig sgoiltean, the culture and environment for total immersion is strong. This is when staffed by suitably qualified and fluent staff. Children, young people and staff’s high expectations in the consistent use of Gàidhlig creates strong immersion experiences.

In sgoiltean where children and young people learn in classes alongside English Medium, children’s and young people’s immersion experiences have more interruption and dilution from English. In these situations, Gàidhlig also takes longer to embed for socialising and creating a culture for immersion.

Across all 3-18 sgoiltean, almost all staff develop and use creative learning approaches.

In sgoiltean-àraich, practitioners provide a wide range of engaging learning experiences outdoors. This is supporting children’s fluency in Gàidhlig, as well as imaginative, problem-solving and social skills. At primary and secondary stages, learning outdoors is often led by partners to provide intensive total immersion experiences. Teachers should continue to plan jointly with partners to have regular and meaningful learning outdoors.

In almost a quarter of sgoiltean-àraich and bun-sgoiltean, inspectors asked staff to develop further approaches to play-based learning through total immersion. Staff need to be clearer on the adult’s role in play-based learning through total immersion. Adults need clear advice on how high-quality and regular interactions with children are integral to total immersion for raising standards of fluency.

Across stages, staff increasingly use digital technology to enhance learning and enrich children’s and young people’s experiences. However, too many, software applications and digital games are not available in Gàidhlig. Staff, children and young people’s use of English language versions dilute immersion experiences.

More of children’s and young people’s learning could be delivered using national digital platforms to increase the proportion of the curriculum taught through Gàidhlig. This would be particularly useful at the secondary stages, and to fill education workforce absence and vacancy gaps at primary.

Staff who reflect on their practice and use research continue to develop approaches to delivering high-quality immersion, learning and teaching. They place increased focus on building on prior learning, additional support needs and delivering challenging learning. Too often, these effective approaches are not detailed in the sgoil’s policy for immersion, learning, teaching and assessment. This reduces impact when self-evaluating learning, teaching and assessment.

Across all stages, most teachers increasingly use a range of formative and summative assessment strategies and methods. This identifies children’s and young people’s progress, next steps and attainment

Planning Gàidhlig-specific critical learning

Across all stages, only a majority of practitioners’ and teachers’ planning is clear on critical learning about Gàidhlig culture, heritage, economic and bilingual benefits, music and learning for sustainability. Learners’ fluency in Gàidhlig, as well as their knowledge, skills and understanding of why they learn Gàidhlig would be strengthened by having these Gàidhlig-related contexts better integrated into the curriculum.

Teachers and practitioners need to use more of their ability to make decisions and choices on the contexts in which they take forward the curriculum goals for Gàidhlig Education.

Tracking and monitoring progress and fluency, with better use of data

In the majority of sgoiltean, teachers and practitioners have strong processes in place to record and monitor children’s and young people’s progress, fluency and attainment.

Teachers should track that all children and young people remain in Gàidhlig Medium and Gaelic Learner Education for the totality of 3-18 learning and education. Currently, too many children and young people do not remain on Gàidhlig pathways at transitions, with the result they lose confidence and fluency in Gàidhlig.

Teachers and partners should encourage further children and young people to learn Gàidhlig in and beyond sgoil, leading to qualifications. Children and young people are too often not aware of how they access activities to learn and use Gàidhlig beyond school. More needs to be done to develop children’s and young people’s understanding of their role as lifelong learners and contributors to sustaining Gàidhlig.

Across all stages, almost all teachers’ tracking of children’s and young people’s progress in learning should include how well learners show the cognitive and linguistic benefits of bilingualism. This is through their attainment, and in out of sgoil achievements. To assist with this, sgoiltean require more comprehensive data on all aspects of Gàidhlig Education from Scottish Government’s collations of data.

At sgoil-àraich and bun-sgoil, practitioners and teachers need to have a clearer picture of children’s progress across all areas of the curriculum, beyond literacy and numeracy.

Most senior leaders at the àrd-sgoil stages should ensure they are more informed of young people’s progress in Gàidhlig Medium Education. They should use this data to plan the curriculum.

Across all sectors, most teachers continue to look inwards and outwards when developing consistent and thorough approaches to moderation activities. These agree and discuss national standards of achievement. Teachers and practitioners should continue to review the national Benchmarks bespoke to literacy and Gàidhlig as part of their planning of assessment and in their moderation activities.

At 3-12 stages, most teachers and practitioners need to discuss further and share their expectations of standards in understanding, listening and talking Gàidhlig. This will assist them in making evidence-based professional judgements about attainment. At the senior stages, most teachers have a sound understanding of standards.

Raising expectations of children’s and young people’s progress, fluency and attainment in Gaelic (Learners)

Across all sgoiltean, senior leaders and staff should track more meaningfully children’s and young people’s progress and achievements in Gaelic (Learners). This increased focus and information would help staff to support children and young people make more accelerated progress in meeting national expectations in CfE and senior phase levels for Gaelic (Learners). Uptake for sustained learning in Gaelic (Learners) is critically too low in Scottish schools.

Creating the climate for learning and immersion

Across 3-18 sgoiltean, almost all children and young people are motivated and engage well in learning activities that are varied, enjoyable and suitably challenging for most of the time. In most sgoiltean-àraich and bun-sgoiltean, children have adult role models who are fluent speakers of Gàidhlig to maintain explanations, questioning and commentary in total immersion.

Children and young people as leaders of immersion

In a majority of 3-18 sgoiltean, children and young people take responsibility for their own learning and development of fluency in Gàidhlig. In the most effective practice, teachers empower children and young people to lead their own learning and work collaboratively with others in sgoil and the community. This helps children and young people make connections in their learning and develop knowledge and skills for life-long learning in the community and at work. Children and young people need to apply their rights as speakers of an Indigenous language and be familiar with the specialist language to take this forward in Gàidhlig.

Effective total immersion at sgoil-àraich

In sgoil-àraich, practitioners set up a range of exciting and meaningful contexts to develop children's curiosity and learning through total immersion play. Practitioners’ regular interaction with children is essential to build fluency. As a result, children engage well with their play and are motivated and stimulated by these contexts. This is while developing their fluency in Gàidhlig. As a next step, practitioners’ clearer planning should include details of the language and context within which children are to be immersed. It would also be helpful to identify the significant learning to be observed when assessing children.

Learning and immersion in bun-sgoiltean and àrd-sgoiltean, including play and digital learning

For the majority of time, teachers and practitioners across the early level of CfE demonstrate strong leadership of total immersion play. In the best examples, staff provide highly effective commentaries and songs in Gàidhlig, while building phrases through prompting, rephrasing and acting. This includes while learning indoors, outdoors and in role-play.

In most bun-sgoil and àrd-sgoil lessons, teachers provide children and young people with clear explanations and instructions. Teachers share effectively the purpose of learning with children and young people. Teachers could make more useful links to grammar and learners’ personalised targets when planning learning. Across all stages, teachers and practitioners use questioning well to help children and young people demonstrate their knowledge, skills and understanding. In a majority of sgoiltean, teachers should consider how they develop children’s and young people’s more skilled higher-order thinking. This is as children and young people become more fluent in the language.

Across 3-18, for most of the time, teachers and practitioners make effective use of digital technologies to enhance learning and enrich children’s and young people’s experiences. In a few sgoiltean, staff experience challenges with internet connectivity, often disrupting learning. Children and young people take part successfully in national competitions where they create short films through the medium of Gàidhlig. Children and young people use tablets for redrafting writing, researching and to access digital resources created by teachers. A substantial number of teachers retain effective digital practice from the pandemic. These teachers make resources available online for learners and their parents to access. Children and young people value the additional learning, personalisation and flexibility this gives them in making progress.

In the majority of sgoiltean, staff for additional support for learning enable improved quality of total immersion and increased interactions in multi-stage and multi-ability classes. In effective practice, additional support for learning staff is deployed to support and protect total immersion. For example, they work with younger children to develop their early fluency in Gàidhlig language, while older children engage in literacy and English work.

Partners’ working with teachers and practitioners to improve fluency and raise attainment

The majority of partners collaborate well with sgoiltean. They add value to children’s and young people’s fluency, as well as knowledge, skills and understanding. In the most effective practice, partners plan with teachers and are conversant in expected standards. Partners are aware of children’s and young people’s targets for improvements. They deliver support interventions for children and young people, as well as a wide range of new learning in the curriculum. Partners work closely with teachers to reflect on the difference they are making to children’s and young people’s learning.

Reducing barriers to quality immersion

Factors remain that prevent children and young people from receiving quality immersion through Gàidhlig. These are staff shortages; recruitment difficulties and teachers’ non-contact time not being covered by specialist teachers of Gàidhlig. More of children’s and young people’s immersion learning could be maximised through national learning offers for Gàidhlig using digital technology. A few educators still have unhelpful perceptions of what can and cannot be delivered through Gàidhlig in the curriculum. HM Inspectors’ evidence illustrates that the totality of the curriculum can be delivered through Gàidhlig when resourced to do so.

Assessment, feedback and moderation

Most teachers provide children and young people with high-quality verbal and written feedback on learning. Children and young people should be supported to develop an accurate understanding of their progress and attainment, and fluency in Gàidhlig. They should be clear on what and how they need to improve, including advice on grammar.

Staff in the majority of 3-18 sgoiltean use an increasing range of formative and summative assessments and methods well for a variety of purposes. Teachers and senior leaders use the information from assessment to plan for children’s and young people’s further progress and attainment. In effective practice at sgoil-àraich, staff develop Gàidhlig language assessments and monitor children’s progress and fluency carefully. These assessments are used regularly to measure the progress children make initially in listening, understanding and then in talking across early and first levels. They support staff to identify areas of improvement and inform professional judgements. Senior leaders would benefit from having more comparative national attainment data to support their work in raising attainment for children and young people. This would also assist staff in evaluating how well children and young people attain equal competence in attainment by the end of P7 and beyond with their peers in English Medium.

In bun-sgoiltean and àrd-sgoiltean, staff work collaboratively with colleagues from across their local authority to share practice in teaching, learning, assessment and moderation. This is developing a shared standard of expectations in relation to Gàidhlig immersion approaches.Across sgoil-àraich, practitioners’ engagement in regular, effective quality assurance and moderation activities within and beyond sgoiltean is more limited and an area for development. Overall, across all 3-18 sgoiltean, senior leaders and staff should continue to look inwards and outwards, developing a consistently thorough approach to moderation activities across an increasing range of the curriculum.

Planning learning, teaching, immersion and assessment

In most bun-sgoiltean and àrd-sgoiltean, staff have a clearer understanding of the distinctive pedagogy for Gàidhlig Medium Education. As a result, teachers now plan the majority of lessons and tasks more appropriately for immersion. In the majority of bun-sgoiltean, teachers’ long- and medium-term planning is linked well to CfE experiences and outcomes. Increasingly, these plans include helpful progression frameworks specific to Gàidhlig. In a few sgoiltean, teachers share detailed medium-term planning with parents. This provides a helpful overview of what children are learning and how parents can support and reinforce learning at home. Across all sgoiltean, senior leaders and staff should continue to ensure learning pathways that are bespoke to Gàidhlig and reflect the sgoil’s unique local and Gàidhlig context. Children’s learning of Gàidhlig language should be embedded further within culture, social and economic interesting contexts.

In most bun-sgoiltean and àrd-sgoiltean, senior leaders and staff check, monitor and meet to review children’s progress for literacy (English and Gàidhlig), numeracy and health and wellbeing effectively throughout the sgoil year. In a minority of cases, authority-wide tracking systems do not enable all children’s and young people’s literacy skills to be checked through Gàidhlig and English. Too often, teachers’ expectations could be higher of what bilingual children and young people in Gàidhlig Medium Education are capable.

In the majority of 3-18 sgoiltean, senior leaders lead professional learning using the Advice on Gaelic Education. Senior leaders should ensure that ongoing professional learning is focusing on total immersion to include total immersion play, early literacy development, teaching reading, writing and the importance of regular, high-quality interactions in Gàidhlig. Senior leaders should support staff in promoting the learning of Gàidhlig and Gaelic (Learners) available at their school.

• How well do we celebrate the benefits of bilingualism and our contributions to sustaining the Gàidhlig language in our sgoil?
• How effectively are we enabling children and young people to be totally immersed through high-quality Gàidhlig and experiences, and what are the important features of effective practice in our sgoil?
• How well are we enabling learners to be totally immersed in Gàidhlig, while developing the four capacities across the four contexts of learning of CfE to develop strong fluency, as well as making well-paced progress? 
• How confident are we that all learners experience activities which are immersive, matched to their next steps in learning, differentiated, active and provide effective support and challenge? 
• How well do our questioning strategies challenge learners in their experiences and enable higher order thinking skills? 
• How well do we use the community and spaces to deliver high-quality immersion and education?
• How well do we make use of resources and approaches, including digital technologies, to embed Gàidhlig in its context? How do other teachers/subjects support this through their selection of Gàidhlig-related activities, learning and resources? 
• How well do we apply the principles of planning, observation, assessment, recording and reporting as an integral feature of learning, teaching, immersion and play?
• How do we know how well our recording, analysing, and use of assessment information is identifying development needs for individual learners and specific groups?