Almost one-fifth of secondaries and a quarter of primaries have failed to register with the system that places student teachers in schools, TESS can reveal.

The news comes in the wake of last month’s placement crisis, which, at its peak, saw more than 100 student teachers without school training placements.

Primary and secondary headteacher organisations have joined calls from Scotland’s teaching watchdog, the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), for the default position to be made that all schools take students on placement, unless they are able to point to exceptional circumstances.

Since 2014, the Student Placement System (SPS), which is managed by the GTCS, has been responsible for placing student teachers in schools. However, figures obtained by TESS show that at the beginning of September, 17 per cent of secondaries, 22 per cent of primaries and 42 per cent of nurseries were not registered with the system. The figures demonstrate that more schools needed to take students “as a matter of course”, the GTCS said.

‘I would agree that the general principle should be that every school takes a student’

Its chief executive, Ken Muir, recently told TESS: “We have an opt-in system and what we need is an opt-out system. If we had a system whereby every school and every department - unless there were exceptional circumstances - offered places, this problem would be solved overnight.” (See here for more.)

School Leaders Scotland (SLS) general secretary Jim Thewliss echoed Mr Muir’s views, as did Greg Dempster, the general secretary of the Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland (AHDS).

However, Mr Dempster pointed out that if 22 per cent of primaries were not registered with the SPS, it meant that 78 per cent of primaries were. That was “a lot of schools” and should be enough to accommodate students in search of placements, he said.

Mr Dempster continued: “We have said in the past - and still would say - that all schools have a duty to be part of the training of future teachers, so unless there is good reason for them not to be accepting students, then they should do so.”

Mr Thewliss said: “I would agree that the general principle should be that every school takes a student.

“There would have to be caveats - a school could quite reasonably say they didn’t want a student if there were staffing issues in a department, for instance, but generally speaking, I would agree with that principle.”

‘Not acceptable or sustainable’

About 12,000 school placements are needed for primary trainees and 6,500 for secondary every year, but more than 100 students, mostly from the University of Strathclyde, were left without placements last month.

The number of students without a placement has now fallen to single digits, TESS understands. However, to resolve the crisis, three GTCS staff had to work full time to secure placements in schools and the organisation also had to call on the support of SLS, the AHDS and directors’ body ADES in order to solve the problem.

That situation was “neither acceptable nor sustainable”, said Mr Muir, who insisted the system for placing students was fit for purpose and that schools needed to offer more places. He also criticised universities for rejecting placements they had been offered for their students because they were deemed too far flung; similar criticism has been levelled by Scottish teachers in TES’ online forums (see box, below), who say it used to be the case that students were placed in schools “just about anywhere”.

Mr Muir added: “When you reduce the circle within which students can be placed by a third, is it any wonder you struggle?”

@Emma_Seith