Cllr Ann Le Blond

With the exam season now over and the summer holidays in full swing, I want to start by wishing all those who sat exams this year the very best of luck when the results are sent out in early August.

I am sure we can all remember the nervousness we felt waiting for the postman to deliver our results.

Nowadays, young people have the luxury of mobile phones and email, so I hope the wait isn’t so nerve-wracking.

It has been a stressful and testing period for many pupils, but I am confident that all of their hard work and determination to do well will have paid off in the end.

They should be very proud of their achievements.

A good education is vitally important to all, and we must remember our teachers work extremely hard every day to ensure this is delivered.

I would like to thank them for their unwavering commitment to their pupils, often spanning over many years and indeed, for in the next one fast approaching.

I believe it is crucial, that those who teach and support our pupils day in, day out, should have more power and say over how their school operates.

After all they are the ones closest to the pupils, not the government.

We have seen recently the SNP government’s education governance reforms taking shape, but I believe they should go further.

Rather than devolving power to regional boards, we should give real powers to head teachers.

Allowing head teachers to have control of school budgets and teacher recruitment would be a major positive step forward.

Head teachers know what is best for their school, and therefore increased autonomy would see the driving up of standards and academic attainment of pupils by allowing them to spend freely, the money received from the pupil equity fund as they think best.

A plan to allow head teachers to recruit staff would be made stronger by changing the way in which we look at attracting the best teachers too.

I would like to see more flexibility in the current system, for example, around attracting the brightest graduates to the teaching profession.

Postgraduate bursaries could be used to attract more people into teaching core subjects, especially science, mathematics, engineering and technology.

These subjects are exceptionally important in a world which is rapidly changing with new technologies.

With all of these ideas considered, I believe we can deliver a better educational system to support our pupils and teachers.

As your councillor, I will continue to argue for these points to be delivered, so that we can see positive outcomes for all our children and young people of Rutherglen and Cambuslang.