Offering financial rewards to teachers who can provide leadership is more important than promoting those with specialist subject expertise, a key figure in Scottish education has said.

John Stodter, general secretary of the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES), added that rigidly sticking to traditional subject boundaries won’t help pupils to make sense of critical global issues such as terrorism and climate change.

Mr Stodter made the claims in response to a call from the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA) for the reinstatement of principal teachers for all subjects - as well as the creation of “senior principal teachers” - as a way of generating more opportunities for career progression.

Unions have regularly criticised the trend for eliminating principal teacher posts in favour of “faculty heads” who oversee several subjects, arguing that it is driven largely by cost-cutting.

But Mr Stodter told TESS that the SSTA’s demand was based on a “completely old model” that tacitly told promoted subject teachers they had superior knowledge to their colleagues.

‘We need leadership’

Mr Stodter argued that the primary sector did not reward staff for specialist knowledge and secondaries should emulate that.

“We live in a complex interdisciplinary world - no single discipline is going to give the answer, whether it’s [about] climate change, terrorism or health targets,” he said.

“I don’t see any advantage in financially rewarding subject knowledge; all teachers have subject knowledge. It’s more important to reward leadership.”

The ADES general secretary said that identifying potential leaders should be a priority, as current approaches are too “haphazard”.

He added that a flatter, less hierarchical career structure could allow some teachers to move into senior roles more quickly than in the past.

A paper approved by the SSTA’s salaries committee last week identifies “very few opportunities for teachers to gain experience to enable them to move into middle-leadership positions”.

The proposal to reintroduce principal teachers is aimed at addressing this, and the union also suggests the creation of a post of “senior principal teacher” who would manage several subjects but be more focused on the classroom than faculty heads.

‘I don’t see any advantage in financially rewarding subject knowledge’

Euan Duncan, SSTA president, said this was “not about rewarding some teachers for narrow subject-specific knowledge” but about getting the “right spread” of opportunities for properly paid, skilled, knowledgeable leaders.

Jim Thewliss, general secretary of School Leaders Scotland, said that he was “agnostic” about the SSTA proposal, but added that he would like to see a more fundamental review of leadership structures.

“We’re not adequately preparing leaders, and we just don’t have the basic capacity to fulfil leadership expectations,” he said.

Stuart Farmer, a teacher and vice-chair of the Institute of Physics in Scotland, said the lack of principal teachers had made it more difficult to attract experienced staff in certain subjects to rural areas.

“When every school had a promoted post in each subject area, this was an easy mechanism to spread experienced staff through the system,” he said.

The preference for faculty heads had also reduced opportunities for career progression as it was a “big step” up from classroom teacher, he added.

One faculty head - who effectively replaced staff in four promoted posts - told TESS that the move away from principal teachers was “amongst the most stupid things ever implemented in education”.

“How anyone could imagine that one person [could] provide the same quality and level of support to teachers defies logic,” said the faculty head, who did not wish to be named.

Often, a faculty head might “understand very little about one or more of the subjects they are leading”, he explained.

@Henry_Hepburn