The announcement that school inspectors will be scrutinising remote learning during the coronavirus lockdown feels like “a Big Brother approach”, a teaching union has said.

Education secretary John Swinney announced yesterday that “a programme of national overviews will commence immediately and last for the duration of remote learning”, with an initial focus on local authority planning and guidance.

However, Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the EIS teaching union, raised concerns a few hours later, at a meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee.

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Mr Flanagan told the committee that he recognised the government announcement was intended as a “light touch” approach to gauging the effectiveness of remote-learning platforms.

But he added: “We are quite sceptical about the value of that because, if you only sample a range of schools, it’s a bit hit and miss what you see.

“Local authorities should be responsible for ensuring the quality of remote learning in their areas and we would prefer for Education Scotland to be liaising with the local authorities rather than contacting already hard-pressed leadership teams within schools.”

Mr Flanagan said that “for a lot of teachers, it just feels like a Big Brother approach, rather than a supportive approach, and the EIS certainly made that clear in our comments on it”.

The official Twitter account of the EIS - which is Scotland’s biggest teaching union - has also highlighted concerns about a “Big Brother approach” following the announcement that Education Scotland school inspectors will scrutinise the effectiveness of remote learning.

LAs are responsible for ensuring the quality of remote learning in their schools & we would prefer Ed Scot liaise with LAs rather than contacting hard-pressed SLTs directly about remote learning. It feels more like a big brother approach rather than a supportive one @SP_EduSkills

- EIS (@EISUnion) January 13, 2021

The Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee heard yesterday from teaching unions that remote learning has “pushed a lot of teachers to the edge”.

MSPs were also told that the longer schools were closed, the less likely teachers would be able to effectively assess pupils’ performance and estimate grades in the absence of exams.

Seamus Searson, the general secretary of the Scottish Secondary Teachers’ Association (SSTA), said: “We’ve been inundated with members contacting us with what they believe are impossible demands being placed upon them, to try to meet the expectations of parents, pupils and politicians.

“I just think that we need to be realistic in what we expect of teachers during this period of time.

“We need to continue the engagement of pupils in education, not try to continue as if everything was normal and expect the same outcomes.”

Mr Searson added: “We haven’t been normal since last March. But we do need to have a breathing space in this to actually try to support and encourage teachers to keep doing the excellent job that they’re doing, and not trying to undermine them and double-guess them at every opportunity, which appears to be the atmosphere that lots of teachers are reporting back to us.”

Richard Bell, a national executive member of the NASUWT teaching union, said that teachers “must be exhausted and demoralised at this stage, and potentially we are only at the beginning of it”.

During a second evidence session at the committee, the chief executive of the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), Fiona Robertson, was asked about the uncertainty around assessments this year. Ms Robertson said the SQA was working “at pace” to come up with guidance for schools and pupils about the new model.

She told MSPs that the SQA will “strip back in the assessment requirements for each course”. 

“We’ve done as much as we can to provide guidance and support to the system in what is obviously a challenging and fluid situation,” she said.

Challenged about the apparent failure to produce contingency plans this year if there were more lockdowns and school closures, Ms Robertson said the exam board had to “remain agile”.

She added: “We’re going to have to continue to be fleet of foot around a number of different scenarios which could play out, depending on public health advice.”