The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Head teachers to be handed greater powers over schools
Swinney outlines major reforms but opposition parties want more teachers
John Swinney has been urged to concentrate on attracting more teachers to classrooms as he revealed major plans to give head teachers greater powers over schools.
The education secretary outlined sweeping reforms at Holyrood, including a radical overhaul of how schools are funded in an effort to increase transparency, raise attainment and close the gap between the poorest and richest pupils.
Head teachers will also have the power to choose staff and management structures, decide on the curriculum – within a national framework – and directly control “significantly” more funding.
“The evidence is clear that the strength and quality of leadership in our schools is crucial to delivering improvement,” Mr Swinney said.
“We know that head teachers want to focus on delivery of learning and teaching, not be chief administrator of their school.
“We will, therefore, give head teachers more power over decisions on learning and teaching, freeing them to make a difference to the lives of children and young people.”
Mr Swinney told MSPs the changes would “put the power to directly change lives into the hands of those with the expertise and insight to target resources at the greatest need”.
He also said parents would be given a stronger voice, with involvement in the running of schools.
But he rejected a bid by a group of parents at a Catholic primary school in Glasgow to remove the school from council control, adding that local authorities will retain a “vital role” in the education system.
The Perthshire North MSP said he had already ruled out a “fixed national funding formula” to work out settlements for schools.
Instead, a consultation on “fair funding” has been launched to consider how to distribute cash.
Labour’s Iain Gray said: “Consultation responses to the governance review from teachers, from parents, from educationalists and from councils all said the same thing – that the first reform we need is more teachers, properly paid, properly supported and properly resourced. Why has (Mr Swinney’s) statement nothing to say about that?”
The Greens’ Ross Greer said the review will not resolve the key issue in Scottish education, which is loss of staff.
The country has been waiting since John Swinney was given the Scottish Government education brief to see what he would make of it. The time for tinkering around the edges ended as soon as the country tumbled down the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) table to a historic low.
For the first time, Scotland was ranked as “average” in all three subject areas and Mr Swinney, given the brief as the Government’s safe pair of hands, admitted they made for uncomfortable reading.
His announcement of sweeping changes to the school governance regime is a timely and welcome reaction to such slipping standards.
Giving individual head teachers more autonomy over their own charges is sensible – with proper oversight – because there is no one better placed to determine their own needs.
But such top-down reform should not lose sight of the ultimate aim – to close the attainment gap and ensure children are being given the opportunity to learn at a suitable level. It can only come through reform within the classroom. Only by providing more teachers, properly equipped and in modern facilities, can the Scottish Government have any hope of sending the country back up the rankings.
Mr Swinney’s reforms are a start – but they are no more than that.