Teachers need the right tools
One of Scotland’s premier personal injury law firms has a memorable TV advert where they claim their customers need the right people doing the right job.
The same principle applies to teaching.
Students need the right teachers teaching the right subjects.
Unfortunately, if it matters to you it most certainly doesn’t matter to the Scottish Government.
The results are in from Scotland’s annual teacher census and they make for uncomfortable reading for the SNP.
The number of teachers who teach in a main subject has plummeted from 24,418 in 2008 to just 21,707 in 2017. Imagine a town the size of Pitlochry, full of teachers, and that’s the amount who have been lost since the SNP started running our schools.
The number of standalone English teachers has dropped by 20 per cent, maths by 15 per cent and general science by 11 per cent.
With all due respect, having an art and design teacher explaining protons and neutrons rather than Picasso and post-modernism isn’t conducive to good learning, regardless of their crossover talents.
Modern language teachers are so thin on the ground they really should be a protected species.
Specialist German teachers have fallen by nearly half and there is more chance of finding a Home Economics educator than one who can“parlez Francais”.
I know some of you will be asking, ah but the SNP told us teacher numbers are up. And technically in the past two years, the number of secondary school teachers has risen slightly, but unfortunately this doesn’t tell the whole story.
Studies have shown that highly effective teachers have a deep understanding of their subject and a passion for conveying this to their students.
The combination of knowledge and enthusiasm leads to better teaching, better lessons and better behaved students.
Further research has shown that teachers leading classes out-with their field have more stress and focus on the negatives of their teaching rather than the positives.
These teachers often rely on traditional lesson plans that are ineffective and are less able to help students with complex questions.
Teaching unfamiliar content can turn a previously confident and competent teacher into one who fears entering the classroom.
What’s the answer to all this? Well, only by training more teachers will we get subject specialists back into the classroom.
I was, therefore, delighted to see teacher training expanded to both Napier and Queen Margaret University last week.
Increasing the number of training places available should make a big difference when it comes to reducing current teacher shortages.
However, proper workforce planning should have begun long before now.
For years, we have been calling on the Scottish Government to expand and improve teacher training and to roll-out programmes like Teach First which has proven so successful in England and Wales.
Ensuring that the right teachers are teaching the right subjects is incredibly important for student’s learning and this matters to teachers, parents and the Scottish Conservatives.
As ever I appreciate the feedback of constituents and can be contacted at the Control Tower, Scone, Perth Airport, PH2 6PL or via email at Elizabeth.Smith.msp@ parliament.scotor via telephone at 01738 553 990. Liz Smith MSP says teachers are often teaching subjects outwith their field of knowledge