A “Teacher panel” set up to advise the government on how to reduce staff workload only includes three classroom teachers, prompting fears that it will fail to tackle the challenges felt at the chalkface.
A total of 17 school staff sit on the panel set up by education secretary John Swinney. The group includes nine headteachers, two deputes, three principal teachers and three classroom teachers (see “Who’s on the panel” box, below).
Unions say the balance of the panel means the government is failing to hear from those at the “sharp end” of teaching.
Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, said it was right that all parts of the teacher workforce were represented, but that teachers needed a stronger voice on the panel. The union’s general secretary, Larry Flanagan, has written to Mr Swinney expressing concern “that an unrepresentative group of appointees, most of whom are in promoted posts, might be cited as an authoritative voice in terms of educational developments”.
The membership of the teacher panel was determined by schools watchdog Education Scotland and the Scottish College for Educational Leadership.
Seamus Searson, general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association, (SSTA) said: “These people are headteachers or want to be heads. The people put forward will say the right things; they will not be dissenting voices.”
‘Carping from the sidelines’
However, one of the three classroom teachers sitting on the panel said he was angered by the union’s comments and added it was “appalling” to suggest that the headteachers on the panel did not have teachers’ best interests at heart (see “Panel member’s perspective” box, below).
Gareth Surgey, who teaches at Queen Anne High in Fife, said: “Everybody in these meetings is speaking from the point of view of being an educator of children.
“It angers me when I hear people carping from the sidelines, when they are entirely ignorant of the content of these meetings and what people are saying.”
The EIS, however, argued that classroom teachers were best placed to advise the government on the workload burden: the issue the teacher panel was set up to address.
EIS assistant secretary Andrea Bradley said: “We need to remember that classroom teachers are at the sharp end. They can determine if a particular policy is realising its aims, or whether practical matters or issues are getting in the way.
“Decisions made by headteachers or local authorities may not be in the best interests of learning and teaching, and can be made for more bureaucratic reasons, and [the] teacher voice needs to be stronger to challenge that.”
‘The minister discusses these issues with teachers regularly’
Mr Searson from the SSTA added: “One mistake the system makes is it believes headteachers represent their staff. They don’t - they represent themselves and, in many cases, they don’t understand the issues because they are not doing it day in, day out.”
Mr Swinney set up the teacher panel last year. It has met three times to date, with quarterly meetings planned for this year.
When the panel was formed, the minister said its first task would be to help shape the programme to reduce teacher workload and to monitor its impact.
Mr Swinney has also launched a panel of 10 international education experts - from Finland’s Pasi Sahlberg to Canadian Avis Glaze - tasked with ensuring that the government’s education priorities are influenced by best practice globally.
A Scottish government spokeswoman said the teacher panel was made up of people with “extensive experience in the classroom” and included primary, secondary and special school perspectives, including “a mix of those from classroom or management roles”.
She added: “In addition to meeting with the panel to discuss how to reduce workload and improve the education system, the deputy first minister meets with teaching unions twice yearly, and discusses these and other issues with individual teachers he meets during engagements throughout the year.”
