THE education brief is a thorny one, as John Swinney has discovered. This summer he had to shelve his Education Bill after failing to attract sufficient support from the other parties at Holyrood. His standardised national assessments for pupils in Primary One have come under sustained fire, but he argues that it would “deeply irresponsible” to scrap these tests, a opposition MSPs have demanded.
Mr Swinney, understandably keen to close the attainment gap, is pressing ahead with plans to launch a Headteachers’ Charter, which he envisages as empowering heads to work with their school communities to reach key decisions on the school curriculum, staffing and budgets.
The headteachers’ own mood, however, is one of sourness and frustration. As we report today, they are being offered pay rises of three per cent, as opposed to the 10 per cent being held out to classroom teachers at the top and bottom end of the scale.
The heads’ unions describe the offer as “cynical and divisive” and contend that it ignores those who have devoted their careers to education and are now employed in leadership posts.
They point with some justification to the strenuous daily workloads they operate under. Dozens of heads are, for a start, responsible for more than one school. The unions insist that stronger financial incentives are needed if the recruitment of future headteachers is to remain at genuinely healthy levels. The case study we run today is an affecting and convincing portrayal of the very real pressures faced by headteachers. Yet starting salaries are £45,000.
It is unlikely that the shake-up of pay scales in its current form will be acceptable to teaching unions who want a restorative pay award for all staff to address a decade of pay erosion. However, it is vital that we do not lose sight of the need to improve pay for teachers at the top and bottom of the pay scale to attract new blood and prevent experienced teachers from leaving.
Mr Swinney could do worse this morning than to reflect on the experiences of retired primary school headteacher Maureen Tremmel and also ask himself whether heads are being adequately remunerated.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here