Secretary of State for Scotland Michael Moore MP joined Mike Pringle, Liberal Democrat MSP for Edinburgh today to tour Sciennes Primary School. They were treated to musical and poetic performances from school pupils, visited classrooms to meet pupils and teachers before sitting down to discuss the challenges facing Scottish education.

Sciennes Primary is the largest school in Edinburgh in terms of pupil numbers and one of its highest achieving in terms of pupil attainment. Recently it has suffered from over crowding due to its popularity.

Michael Moore MP said

"The pupils at Sciennes are a credit to themselves, their parents and teachers.

"The poem recital showed extraordinary creativity and awareness about the culture and history of Scotland. The Cluster Project showed the care and understanding that these pupils are developing towards their community and those who need help and the Holocaust presentations showed young people tackling the biggest of issues in a thoughtful way.

"I was immensely impressed by the standards I saw at Sciennes, and the happy and positive atmosphere there."

Mike Pringle MSP added

"Obviously Sciennes has been overcrowded for some time.

"It is incredibly successful school in terms of pupil attainment which is testament to all the hard work of pupils teachers and parents. However that brings its own challenges; as the school has become more and more successful it's also become more popular, putting a lot of pressure on the available space and the teaching staff who might struggle to find the time to offer all the specific help they would like to give individual pupils who are struggling or have a difficult home life.

"The SNP's legacy of falling teacher numbers is letting too many Scottish school children down, there are 3000 fewer teachers now than in 2007 and newly qualified ones are struggling to find work.

"The new pupil premium is set to make a massive difference down in England, finally thousands of pupils are getting the extra support they need. I want to see Scottish children reaping the same benefits. The extra money can be used to employ more teachers, provide catch up classes, cut class sizes or offer one to one tuition to those who are struggling. It would be targeted to help pupils from more deprived backgrounds first, but all school pupils would benefit.

"Scottish Liberal Democrats want to restore Scotland’s reputation for excellence, from nursery to tertiary education."