Glossary

Searchable glossary containing hundreds of definitions and descriptions of education terms, acronyms and abbreviations used by the LTS online service and in Scottish education.

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A-mach	Glossary item - English definition for Gaelic term: Exit
AC (LTS Advisory Council)	The LTS Advisory Council and its Chair are appointed by the Scottish Government to keep under review all aspects of learning, teaching and management in the pre-school and school stages of formal education and provide informed, independent advice to the Scottish Ministers. Details of membership and minutes of meetings are on the LTS website.
AC Reference Groups	There are six LTS reference groups: Early Years; 5-14; Post-14; Future Learning and Teaching; ICT Development; and Inclusive Education. Each reference group is charged by the LTS Advisory Council with the task of maintaining an effective and informed oversight of issues of principle and practice in its general area of interest, including the use of ICT to support learning, teaching and management and advising the Council as required or judged important by the group.
ACCAC (Qualifications, Curriculum and Assessment Authority for Wales)	The National Assembly for Wales's principal advisory body on all aspects of the school curriculum, examinations, assessment and vocational qualifications.
Accelerated learning	An approach to learning drawn from a wide range of fields such as neuroscience, psychology, and learning theory.
ACCESS	Programmes of study at Access levels 1, 2 and 3 are unit-based and do not involve national examinations. Particular groupings of units built up by learners at Access levels 2 and 3 lead to cluster awards, e.g. Business, Computing, Media Studies and Social Subjects.
ACE (Advisory Centre for Education)	An independent national advice centre for parents.
Achievement	Recognises individuals' strengths and progress, and takes into account more than just academic results, including success in activities out-with school.
Action learning	Action learning is an educational process whereby the participant studies their own actions and experience to improve performance. This is done in conjunction with others, in small groups called action learning sets.
Action plan	Defines and sets out what is needed to take ideas forward.
Action research	Action research is a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a 'community of practice' to improve the way they address issues and solve problems.
ADES (Association of Directors of Education in Scotland)	Heads of the education service in the local authorities are members of this organisation. It provides a forum for discussion and is a body which can discuss issues with the Scottish Government.
Adoption	Adoption is a legal process which replaces a child’s birth parents with new adoptive parents. Current adoption law is enshrined in the Adoption (Scotland) Act 1978 and was last updated by the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and the Adoption (Intercountry Aspects) Act 1999. The Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 will, when commenced in late 2008, comprehensively improve and modernise the existing legal framework for adoption in Scotland. Children who are adopted will almost always have been looked after children, except where a step-parent adopts the child(ren) of their partner or in the case of intercountry adoptions from outside the United Kingdom. Adoption services are regulated by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care.
AEAS (Association of Educational Advisers in Scotland)	An association of Scotland's education advisers which supports the development of education in Scotland with a particular focus on entitlement and quality. Membership is open to advisers and officers of local education authorities who are mainly employed in advising on matters relating to curriculum and staff development.
AERS (Applied Educational Research Scheme)	A two million pound, five-year programme funded by the Scottish Government Education Department and the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, which started in early 2004. AERS aims to enhance educational research capability in Scottish HE institutions, and to use that capability to conduct high-quality research which will benefit school education in Scotland
Aftercare	Local authorities' duty to provide advice, guidance and assistance for young people who have ceased to be looked after who are over school age.
Agnosticism	Agnosticism is the view that knowledge of the existence or non-existence of gods is impossible; agnosticism has to do with knowledge, not with belief (or disbelief or unbelief) someone who subscribes to this view is called an agnostic.
AH (Advanced Higher)	Advanced Highers are National Qualifications and build upon the work done in the Higher awards. The awards are graded by performance in national examinations and also require candidates to pass all unit assessments associated with the course. The Advanced Higher level is equivalent to and has replaced the Certificate of Sixth Year Studies (CSYS).
AHT(S) (Association of Headteachers (Scotland))	An association which represents the headteachers of primary schools in Scotland.
AifL	Assessment is for learning (AifL) is an approach in the classroom, making use of assessment strategies designed to improve the learning process.
AifL (Assessment is for Learning)	A national initiative for assessment in Scottish schools. The programme seeks to provide a streamlined and coherent system of assessment and to ensure that parents, teachers and other professionals have feedback on pupils' learning and development needs.
Alternative and augmentative communication (AAC)	A clinical practice that involves strategies or methods of communication which may be used to compensate or support speech and writing, when these are impaired.
Ambitious, Excellent Schools	A planned programme of activity in areas of school improvement, published by the Scottish Government in 2004.
AMES (Association for Media Education in Scotland)	The subject association for the interests of media studies and related disciplines in the Scottish education system. It represents teachers in all sectors of education and publishes the twice yearly Media Education Journal (MEJ) and a newsletter.
Amygdala	The emotional centre of the brain.
Analogue	A method of sending data which uses pitch to carry the information
Animation	Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. This could be anything from a flip book or to a motion picture film. Pupils now create their own animations on a computer using special software.
Annotation/notes sheets	These record key points and decisions agreed by staff engaging in a local moderation exercise. They should indicate the learning objective and the nature of and context for the task, and indicate reasons for awarding a particular Level or grade.
Anti-discrimination	An approach that is taken which challenges unfair treatment of individuals or groups based on a specific characteristic of that group e.g. colour, age, disability etc.
Anti-sectarian	Opposed to sectarian treatment: intended to challenge overt or belligerent insistence on one's group's beliefs or positions over another's.
Anti-sectarianism	An approach that is taken which challenges unfair treatment of individuals or groups based on their faith or beliefs.
Anti-Semitism	Anti-Semitism might strictly be used to refer to hatred of or hostility towards any member of the racial group "Semites". Semites were descendents of Shem, which included both Jews and Arabs. Now the term is issued mainly to refer to Jews and the term 'anti-semetic' to refer to hatred of or hostility towards Jews and Judaism. It was a key component of Nazism and is for Neo-nazism.
Applet	A small java application.
Application	Applications are the software tools that you will be using such as word processing, spreadsheets, databases, presentation programs, email software or internet browsers. They run on top of the operating system to deliver particular functions to the computer user.
ASC (Association of Scottish Colleges)	ASC is the policy and representative voice of Scotland's colleges.
ASDAN (Award Scheme Development and Accreditation Network)	An independent national advice centre for parents.
ASG (Associated Schools Group)	Any group of practitioners collaborating and working across traditional boundaries with the aim of developing professional practice. Groups vary in size and may consist of teachers working across classes or departments within a school or establishment, across a cluster of schools in an area, or even across authorities in a national context. Working as part of the AifL programme, ASGs have received funding from the Scottish Government to take forward action research focused on assessment practices on the three sides of the AifL triangle.
ASGs	Any group of practitioners collaborating and working across traditional boundaries with the aim of developing professional practice.
ASN	Additional support needs. Under the Additional Support for Learning Act, it is the duty of education authorities to give extra help in school to children and young people with additional support needs. These needs can be short-term or long-term.
ASN (Additional Support Needs)	Under the Additional Support for Learning Act it will be the duty of education authorities to give extra help in school to young people with additional support needs. They may need this help because they have a difficulty with reading or writing; they may be disabled; or they may have difficult family or other circumstances, which are holding them back in school. Additional support needs can be short or long term.
Asperger syndrome	Asperger syndrome is a form of autism, a condition that affects the way a person communicates and relates to others. A number of traits of autism are common to Asperger syndrome including: difficulty in communicating, difficulty in social relationships, and a lack of social imagination and creative play. People with Asperger syndrome usually have fewer problems with language than those with autism, often speaking fluently, though their words can sometimes sound formal or stilted.
Assessment	The process of evaluating how effectively learning is occurring.
Assessment of Achievement Programme (AAP)	The Assessment of Achievement Programme (AAP) monitored attainment of pupils in P4, P7 and S2, in Scotland, from the 1980s to 2004.
Assimilation	A situation where individuals are expected to give up their distinctive identity in order to fit in with the values, attitudes and behaviours of a dominant group or culture. In the UK, this term is often used to describe the process of immigrants blending into a host community, willingly or otherwise.
Atheism	A disbelief (or unbelief) in the existence of deity / God; the doctrine that there is no deity / God. Someone who believes in this doctrine is called an atheist.
ATM (Association of Teachers of Mathematics)	This association was established in 1950 to encourage the development of mathematics education such that it is more closely related to the needs of the learner.
ATRES (Association for the Teaching of Religious Education in Scotland)	Professional organisation for those involved in the teaching and training for teaching of religious and moral education (RME) in Scottish schools.
Attachment	An attachment can be a file of any kind - documents, images, sound files or movie clips - that you add to an email.
Attainment	Within the scope of achievement, this relates to the accomplishment of the planned aims of the curriculum, usually in terms of the 5-14 levels of attainment, or Standard Grade / National Qualifications results.
Attainment targets	Usually relating to academic rather than more general achievement, the term can be used to describe planned aims of the curriculum at different stages. The term has also been used in the context of school improvement when it refers to expectations of pupil performance.
Auditory learning	Learning where learners can hear information. Auditory learners prefer group work and learn well through listening and talking. They enjoy: talking out loud and repeating things - even to themselves, making up little stories and rhymes to remember how things are connected, using mnemonics and other tricks for improving memory, talking about what they have learned or what they don’t understand, teaching parents or friends while learning themselves, listening to an audio recording.
Authentication	A security process that uses digital technology to confirm someone’s identity, before giving them access
Autistic savant	An autistic savant is a person with both autism and Savant Syndrome. Savant Syndrome describes a person having both a severe developmental or mental handicap and extraordinary mental abilities not found in most people. The Savant Syndrome skills involve striking feats of memory and often include arithmetic calculation and sometimes unusual abilities in art or music.
Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)	A continuum of characteristics and disorders displayed by individuals with autism: a lifelong developmental disability affecting the social, communication and imagination skills of individuals.
Avatar	An avatar is an internet user's representation of him or herself, whether in the form of a three-dimensional model used in computer games or a two-dimensional icon (picture) used on internet forums and other communities.