A post of “lead teacher” will be available for councils and headteachers to introduce into schools from August, with a salary of over £47,000. It is a new promotion route and, when Tes Scotland broke the news last week, teachers were full of questions about how they could apply for one of these jobs or put their names forward to be part of this programme.

But the lack of fanfare surrounding the creation of the lead teacher role suggests that it would be premature to get excited about the impact that it is going to have - in the short term, at least.

There was no official launch of the new posts. Instead, their creation was mentioned in passing by the EIS teaching union’s salaries committee convener at the union’s annual general meeting.

To understand why the plan for this new progression route in schools appears to have been progressed in such an understated fashion, it makes sense to look back at how the role came into being, and what has changed since then.

When deputy first minister John Swinney became education secretary in 2016, one of the key problems that he faced was a teacher shortage, and he set about trying to tackle it. New routes into the profession were launched, including ones that allowed teachers to be trained faster, particularly in shortage subjects, and be paid a wage while they did so.

But it was also felt that teaching needed to be more attractive as a career and that there had to be more ways to progress - it was believed that this would also help to tackle the other part of a long-time problematic equation: teacher retention.  

The only way to progress in teaching, it was pointed out, was to enter management and, even then, the pool of jobs was diminishing, given the introduction of faculties and the disappearance of principal teacher jobs in some secondaries.

And, of course, the chartered teacher scheme - which some would argue was lead teacher by another name - was scrapped back in 2012. 

So, in 2017, the government said it was planning to take inspiration from Singapore and “radical” plans were afoot to make teaching more attractive by dramatically increasing career-progression opportunities. The government also argued that increasing leadership capacity was an essential part of the plans to devolve more power to schools.

Next, an independent panel on career pathways for teachers was formed; it reported in 2019 and called for the creation of the lead teacher post.

By then, though, the education bill that aimed to give more power to schools had been shelved, and now, when it comes to teacher supply, the pendulum seems to be starting to swing in the opposite direction - the narrative is gradually becoming one of teacher surplus, not teacher shortage.

So, while the role of lead teacher has now been created, the landscape it is being introduced into has changed dramatically. Throw into the mix the economic impact of Covid and it’s hard to see the resources that are needed to introduce the role in significant numbers being made available.

That said, the Scottish government has committed £1 billion to closing the attainment gap over the course of the current Parliament - that’s up from £750 million committed over the course of the previous Parliament. And School Leaders Scotland says it will be pushing for the lead teacher role to be resourced well, given that education recovery from the pandemic is supposed to be a priority.

It is still hard to be optimistic about the launch of lead teachers, however, when other attempts to offer a promotion route that doesn’t involve management responsibilities have fallen flat - we’ve had chartered teachers and, long before that, senior teachers, too.

But, still, there is enthusiasm for such a role out there - and there is a need for it.

However, for the lead teacher role to be a success, that enthusiasm needs to be matched by government - and the money to make it happen.

Emma Seith is a reporter at Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith

This article originally appeared in the 18 June 2021 issue