Why it is time to mark McCrone’s card, all these years later

First in new series of Tes Scotland investigations will look at the long-term impact of the seminal report on teachers’ working conditions
21st January 2022, 5:33pm

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Why it is time to mark McCrone’s card, all these years later

https://www.tes.com/magazine/analysis/general/why-it-time-mark-mccrones-card-all-these-years-later
Why it is time to mark McCrone's card, all these years later

You know a report left an impact when, more than two decades after it was published, it has become part of common parlance.

Teachers in Scotland casually refer to “McCrone time”, with little thought to who or what McCrone was. That phrase refers to one of the most significant things to happen to Scottish education after the publication in 2000 of the seminal McCrone report (or A Teaching profession for the 21st century, to give its official title): the capping of teachers’ class-contact time at 22.5 hours a week, leaving 2.5 hours in the primary school week for endeavours away from a class of children - this is what, in 2022, is still routinely referred to as McCrone time.

That the name of the author of a report on teachers’ pay and conditions is, more than two decades later, part of the everyday lexicon of Scottish teachers tells you how big a splash it made. For comparison, a major report covering similar issues a decade later has been widely forgotten - the McCormac report of 2011 left no such lasting trace.

It is hard to overstate how significant McCrone was, how far it reached in its ambition to improve the working lives of teachers. Yet, it is far distant history now - many of today’s newly qualified teachers would barely have been born when it was published.

That is why it felt like it was time to revisit the McCrone report and the deal it led to in 2001. Here at Tes Scotland, we will be publishing monthly big reads delving into myriad aspects of Scottish education. For the first of these investigations, we wanted to explore something that affected every single teacher in the land - and, as we discussed ideas, all roads seemed to lead back to McCrone.

The piece, by reporter Emma Seith, will be published on Monday, 24 January (look out for updates on social media and make sure to follow us on Twitter: @Emma_Seith @Henry_Hepburn @TesScotland). Emma looks at what McCrone set out to do in improving the pay and conditions of teachers, how its big wins and unintended consequences affected teachers, and where it realised or fell short of the key aims it laid out all those years ago.

Emma has spoken to key figures in Scottish education at the time of McCrone and in the years that followed. She has looked back at some of the aspirations McCrone laid out - some very much of their time, but most of which still resonate today. She has even asked one of the country’s leading economists to compare teachers’ pay packets in 2022 with those at the turn of the millennium.

Ultimately, we are asking this question: is the lot of teachers in Scotland better in 2022 than it was when McCrone was published more than 20 years ago?

It has been enlightening to speak to Tes colleagues in England about McCrone and see what they make of its attempts to set out what the role of a teacher should entail and to enhance the professional standing of teachers. McCrone’s “Annex E”, for example, famously, set out a long list of administrative tasks that should not be done by teachers - one colleague in England said that it would provide a welcome crib list for teachers in 2022 of the sort of tasks they argue should not be part of their job.

More generally, the idea of vaunting the professionalism and expertise of teachers looked particularly laudable and forward-thinking to our colleagues when set against the upheaval of the Covid pandemic, a time when schools have shown huge commitment to their pupils and when attacks on the teaching profession have felt more unfair than ever.

McCrone was more than a report - it marked a fundamental shift in how teachers were viewed, treated and rewarded. But what is its legacy? Emma’s long read will explore that with searching detail and expert analysis. And this will be just the first in an ongoing series of Tes Scotland big reads in the months and years ahead.

Henry Hepburn is Scotland editor at Tes. He tweets @Henry_Hepburn

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