As a child of the 1970s, I was raised in a culture where talking in my own dialect was punished, even by teachers who shared my background and natural mode of discourse. As a result, I have been reluctant to encourage the use of Orcadian in my pupils, particularly since my move to Kirkwall Grammar School. In my previous post, in a Junior High School on one of the smaller islands, where 90% of the pupils were born to two Orcadian parents, we did lots of writing in Orcadian, but pupils at KGS tend to look down on our local variant of Scots and many of the bairns claim not to understand any Orcadian.

Kirkwall Grammar School has no policy regarding the teaching of Scots or encouraging Scots-medium teaching. I guess there has been no real interest in Scots usage amongst SLT; perhaps it’s an over-simplistic assumption that this is due us having a mathematician in charge for the last 10 years! The present headteacher also has the disadvantage of being English!

Whatever teaching of Scots that does happen in the school is the sole domain of the English department, but even that is patchy, due to our different backgrounds and due to the negative influence of a former PT, who is a great champion of Scots. Only one of us has ever taught Scots as a regular part of BGE planning. She is from the Scottish Borders and find Orcadian too far outside of her comfort zone to consider teaching those units here. The others amongst us tend to tackle Scots language only once a year, to coincide with Burns’ Day. Breaking this habit myself – let alone encouraging my colleagues within English, or, less likely still, outside of the English department to do so – is going to be a massive challenge.

I asked staff to complete the baseline survey, there wasn't a huge response I think just due to workload and the short notice. Staff who did reply were not very positive about Scots in school at the moment. We are a campus school so 2-18years, only 4 years old so staff and pupils have experienced huge amounts of disruption and change.

Primary- Scots is only taught as part of the once per year block leading up to the birthday of Robert Burns. During that learning block children learn a poem written in scots, look at picture books in scots, depending on the class teachers interest they may count in Scots as well. During the rest of the year scots is discouraged as  'not the way we speak' in school.

Secondary- I didn't have any responses from secondary staff but they may come in later.

In my own Primary 5 class last year we had a 12 week project working with Borders Youth Theatre. We were looking at Scot's in particularly Hawick Scots and the writing of Lavinia Derwent who was born very near to Jedburgh. This was a one-off opportunity which was too good to miss.

I think there is a lot of potential for increasing the acceptance and use of scots in our school. One thing I could do in the next few weeks would be to speak with our language teacher in secondary to see if any collaboration is possible.

It's great to hear about the positivity towards Scots in your school. I wonder what creates that culture? 

Unit 1 - Activity 6

Having looked at the delivery of Scots language in my school, it soon became apparent that it is not a priority. I spoke with members of the English department who said that they have seen a BGE Scots unit with some very old texts, however they have not been used since before 2020. Other than the senior Scottish set texts, there is nothing in the curriculum for Scots language or culture.

Very few colleagues know about Scots and although they thought it was interesting that I was considering it, they had no experience of having taught or heard of it as a course. Some said that they ‘probably should’ incorporate it into their teaching, but did not know how to do so.

There is no Scots policy in the school, and as far as most people I spoke to are aware, there never has been one. I asked my pupils what they know about Scots and whether they have ever studied it. Many of them remembered having to learn a poem but it was early in primary school, and they could not think of anything else they had done in Scots. When I spoke Scots to the pupils, many of them commented ‘that’s how my granny/granda speaks!’.

All of this has made me realise that introducing Scots is going to be challenging as it really will involve starting from scratch. It has also made me determined that Scots should be incorporated into my lessons so that pupils and colleagues can see its value, particularly for those who recognise it from family members speaking it. It would be good for young people to see that their generation can use Scots, and it is not just for their grandparents.

I am really positive that teaching Scots will open up opportunities for my pupils, colleagues and myself professionally, and promote inclusion in Modern Languages which is currently difficult to do. Pupils have preconceptions about learning a ‘foreign’ language and engagement can be poor. Will they see Scots as foreign though, or will they be more willing to buy into experiencing something new in school that they may already be exposed to at home?

I have had a change of roles recently. As a secondary teacher, my experience of Scots was minimal. As a foreign speaker of English, I use the odd word in the classroom and often get corrected by learners. 

However I have recently started teaching in primary schools, covering NCCT and developing resources for teachers to support the 1+2 policy implementation. As part of this, I am developing Scots resources and I have been really struggling. When this course came along I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to pick up more Scots and maybe also some ideas.

I sent the audit to the whole staffin my new school and got 2 replies despite it being one of the biggest school in the local authority. However, I  don't believe that is reflects on a lack of interest in the language. I am new to the school, people are busy and prioritise their workload. 

As in other primary schools I have worked on, Scots is taught as part of a block of lessons centered around Burns night. Through the reading for unit 1, I have been struck by the contradiction between the ambition for the language in schools and young people's education and the fact it is associated with the 1+2 policy. L2 in our schools is French as it reflects the languages taught in the secondary schools. Therefore, looking at the 1+2 policy, Scots place can be taught from P5 and can be a one off block of lessons, rather then being weaved in the schools curriculum.

Another interesting point from my two responses is that neither viewed Scots as part of the literacy or 1+2 policy. Somethin tae thinckle about!

I have been teaching the SQA Scots Language Award for a few years now.  I came across it quite by chance, but it has become a real cornerstone of my practice - and through it I feel I have unlocked a whole world I knew little about before.  I have become a strong proponent of teaching Scots, and, whilst I have generally met with little resistance, I have met a great deal of surprise and confusion around the subject.  As the baseline audit confirms, a reasonably high number of stakeholders at Kelso High School consider that they speak or understand some Scots.  Few, however, understand it as a language in its own right or have a sense of the depth and richness of Scots; the purpose and value of teaching it has been questioned (mostly by students at the start of the course, or occasionally parents).  Students and colleagues often strongly identify with being told "not to speak slang" when speaking Scots.  However, using a number of arguments similar to those in Linda Bruce's powerpoint about language ideologies, I have been able to open up those discussions and I have found them very fruitful indeed.  Young people are often empowered by learning about Scots, finding what they thought was a "fault" in the way they spoke to actually be a tool that gives them a knowledge and therefore classroom power above that of their English-speaking classmates. There is a real sense of re-framing not just the way my students speak and communicate, but also their history, heritage and culture.  

Incidentally, I found the aforementioned powerpoint very helpful in articulating some key messages around Scots ideology - particularly the use of Wilson's bipolar continuum and the discussion around the lack of CPD and (further) education opportunities for non-native speakers.

I'm late with Unit 1's tasks due to all my time being eaten up with some personal things outwith my control over the last few days - my apologies.

Linda's presentation was enlightening, both confirming and refuting my preconceptions. I've always felt that language = politics = class = nation = identity, but I'd struggle to identify where that belief originated. 

I recall that while studying languages at uni, I met a number of people from Brittany, who had made a significant effort to learn Scots for use in daily life, and who were "anti-French" and "pro-Celtic" in their critical positioning. One person in particular was learning Scots Gaelic and Welsh, seeing them as sister languages to Breton. He still regularly posts on social media in a variety of minority languages and is heavily critical of national policy with regards to French language.

I suppose I was heavily influenced by this thinking at a crucial point in the development of my own view of myself within a "three-tongued" nation, while taking courses in German, French, Russian and Polish. I still couldn't explain my fascination with languages and why I feel motivated to continue learning more about them.

I'd say my grandparents were all Scots speakers and very much working class; my parents, on the other hand, were "middle-class" professionals and my mum often corrected me when I used Scots expressions. Ironically, she is now very keen on Scots living on in schools, so I guess there was some performative element to her corrections! I still remember my granny telling me my "jaiket's ben the press, hen" and my mum "translating" by saying, "she means your coat is in the hall cupboard." 

I'm very cautious of correcting pupils' language, to an extent. As an English teacher, it is my role to correct "I seen that film" to "I saw that film" in written English, but I'm less fussy when I hear past participle idiosyncrasies spoken. In the course of reflecting on last week's learning, I realised that I often use Scots with pupils when de-escalating conflict, and that it's actually quite effective in softening what can often become difficult situations. 

I'm very sorry to report that I had few responses to the baseline audit - however, there was some rich discussion and great ideas from those who responded (including my Advanced Higher English pupils). In summary:

• Scots is important and empowering, but taught infrequently
• Teachers from other countries (USA and Ireland) expressed a lack of confidence teaching "another language"
• My PTC is a French and Spanish teacher who took a supported set of S2 pupils last year and taught them Scots - felt it was a positive and worthwhile experience
• PTC also felt it was English teachers' responsibility to teach Scots
• S6 pupils reported very little experience of Scots in the classroom beyond Anne Donovan in English - Scots was seen as something from primary school, not secondary; none of them could remember studying Sir Patrick Spens in S1 with me!
• The school has no Scots policy at present but there is a will to start incorporating more Scots into the curriculum

I'm nae sure if this is far I'm meant tae post my response but here it is onywye:

From the results of the survey, it would seem that my views are shared by staff across the school and that increased opportunities for teaching Doric and teaching in Doric would be generally well-received.  There may be a minority of non-Doric speakers who would find this more challenging but generally the responses showed a positive attitude.  Learners have already experienced some learning and teaching of Scots, associated mainly with the usual times of the year (Burns & St Andrews) in primary school and Scots texts are studied as part of the English curriculum so there is a familiarity and an expectation amongst young people that Scots is and should be part of their learning experience.

At the moment there are no wider school plans around Scots but having spoken to colleagues who teach Scottish Studies, there is the opportunity there to introduce the Scots Language aspect of that course which would be a good starting point.  I would like to establish a working group to look at ways we can increase Doric usage in school and work towards creating a Scots Language Policy.

I have noticed that if I spikk the Doric in the classroom, bairns usually find this affa funny!  That disna bother me.  Hopefully as I and other staff become more comfortable and use it more often this will encourage learners to use their Scots voice in school.

I can see that promoting the use of Doric in our school would increase feelings of inclusivity.  Also, it would broaden vocabulary and encourage an interest in and respect for our local history, heritage and community.

 I have a passion for raising the precedence of Scots language across the school once again, this stems primarily from my own school experience.  Some teachers absolutely encouraged Scots in school, one in particular who gave me the lead role in a doric play due to my confidence speaking the language.  However I am not sure I was always encouraged to speak it freely - my Granda recalled in a conversation we were having today, that he often argued with my Dad when my Dad told me to speak 'properly'.   

We have moved away from 'Scots is only for 25th January' in our school.  Although the yearly event still holds much weight it is no longer the only aspect of Scots language learning in our school however we still have a long way to go.  Many staff are feeling a little more confident enough to deliver more in-depth lessons on the Scots language and although the yearly event is part of this, term 3 states the main focus for this term should be Scots language.  I have become an 'expert' in the field along with a small number of others to support staff in teaching Scots language.  I however use the term 'expert' lightly as I myself have lost much of the confidence I once had (notice I haven't been able to write this in Scots).  The key here being 'teaching' not just allowing time to recite a poem as was traditional.  Our main aim to raise the profile of Scots language and inspire pupils with a love of learning the language.  

I did not complete a formal baseline discussion however did discuss with many their viewpoints of teaching Scots as part of the curriculum.  We know we need to incorporate this further as part of a policy to align staff across the school and almost give them the green light to spend the time necessary to delve deeper into the linguistics of Scots.  Last year I aimed to empower a number of pupils across the school who had a strength in speaking the language (as I had experience of at school).  I gave them the opportunity to tell stories in Scots to younger pupils - this was very successful and meant so much to those listening to these stories.  I wish to take this further this session.  We also plan to link with our secondary school and potentially other cluster primary schools. 

The main stumbling block is teacher confidence and a fear of getting it wrong.  I have tried to reassure that learning alongside the pupils can be just as meaningful.  I can see pupil enthusiasm for learning increasing and often those chosen to speak or support others are those who do not often get opportunities such as this. We also do not formalise the learning enough and it is usually down to teacher confidence how much time is spent learning the language. 

Hello all,

I am very behind in the course for various reasons. I hope it's ok to try to catch up now and I hope I am posting this Unit 1 Application task in the correct place.

I gathered opinions by speaking to colleagues in the English department. We do not currently have a Scots Language Policy, but we do teach Scots in the classroom in various ways. In common with many schools, we teach Scots texts often in January as part of our celebration of Robert Burns. This is usually with BGE classes and is quite often a short unit of work. Learners often enjoy learning about Scots vocabulary. Some teachers also enjoy teaching lessons on Scots vocabulary in a more everyday context. One teacher commented that pupils knew more Scots vocabulary than they thought!

We teach Combined Scottish Studies at National 4 level and learners encounter Scots in Scottish films and other texts. Some pupils encounter Scots language in the Scottish Set Text for National 5 and Higher English, although it is interesting that this is not consistent since some of the texts on the list are written in Standard English, so this will vary by class.

It seems to me that we have a positive attitude toward teaching Scots texts in the classroom, but nearly all classroom interactions and written work is conducted in Standard English. Learning about Scots is possibly reasonably restricted to learning some Scots vocabulary. I would be interested in learning more about the idea that learning about the grammar and history of Scots and its relationship with Scottish Standard English would enhance learners’ understanding of the linguistic choices they make in various areas of life.