A former headteacher and quality assurance inspector this week took over the running of the national management training centre for senior staff in secondary schools.
Arthur Cumming, head of Cathkin High in Cambuslang before becoming senior quality inspector in Strathclyde, succeeds John Havard as director of the Scottish Centre for Studies in School Administration.
The future of the centre, which is based at Moray House Institute in Edinburgh, was in doubt last year until an agreement was reached between the institute and the Headteachers’ Association of Scotland. It now operates with an advisory committee chaired by Gordon Kirk, principle of Moray House.
Between 1972 when it was founded by the then Scottish Education Department, and 1989 it ran 150 courses attended by more than 3,000 senior educationists. The ending of public funding led to Moray House’s agreement to support the centre on the understanding that it would be self-financing with the institute providing support services and a base.
Since 1989, it has mounted 51 courses with more than 1,000 participants, and it has expanded to include training for principal teachers and senior staff in primary and special schools.
Mr Havard, who directed the centre for 17 years having previously been headteacher of Edinburgh’s Holy Rood High, agreed to postpone retirement while the future of the centre was being resolved.
There will be two new courses. Human resource management is for principal teachers aspiring to senior management. Management of the curriculum, focused on the first two years of secondary school, will be run in association with the Scottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum.
In addition last year’s courses for senior staff will be repeated: quality assurance in secondary schools and in primary and special schools; human resource management; and curriculum management, focused on Higher Still.
Another new initiative will support locally based seminars on national management issues for individual schools or clusters.
