The retiring moderator has visited some 40 schools from Shetland to South Lanarkshire during his five, 10-day regional tours and has returned firmer in his conviction that happy teachers lead to happy schools.
Where teachers felt demoralised and undervalued, schools struggled.
Mr McLellan has been particularly impressed with schools and units for children with learning difficultie. “It has been very moving. It is easy to be sentimental but what was happening, for example at Pinewood School in West Lothian, was hard-nosed educational development in the context of great fun,” he said.
The test of an education system was what it did for the weakest, not just the strongest and concerns for the most disadvantaged would remain high on the Church’s agenda.
