Fife teacher condemns education system in open letter.

SCHOOLS: Fife teacher laments staff stress, failing pupils and CFE ‘disaster’

A Fife teacher has delivered a damning assessment of the “utterly broken” education system in an open letter to Nicola Sturgeon.

Mark Wilson, a biology teacher at Dunfermline High, said the country is failing pupils with demoralised teachers hamstrung by a “sub-standard curriculum and never-ending bureaucracy”.

“Today, right now in schools across Scotland, teachers are losing morale on a scale I’ve never seen and didn’t think could happen,” he wrote in the letter published on his blog.

“The current conditions for teachers are so gruelling that we are beginning to hate, to dread, stress over and now depart a role we loved so much.”

The former SNP member, who called the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) a “disaster”, added: “Teachers are demoralised, stressed and being ground down because we know that we are not doing the best that we can for the kids in our care.

“We are being prevented by a sub-standard curriculum and neverending bureaucracy from educating our kids properly. We are failing these kids.”

In a direct plea to the FM, he said: “That teachers are losing heart, motivation and morale should scream loudly to your government how futile our efforts seem to us and how concerned we are that our education system is utterly broken.”

Scotland has slid down the flagship international league table with performance declining in maths, reading and science in the PISA rankings released at the end of last year.

There is also a teacher shortage, with hundreds of posts unfilled at the start of the school year.

Ms Sturgeon has declared that education is her top priority and put forward plans earlier this month to hand more power to head teachers to drive improvements.

Keir Bloomer, the architect of CfE, said it “remains the right route for Scottish education”, adding: “It is lamentable that the implementation programme has been so badly handled.”

A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We have made a commitment to tackle bureaucracy and address excessive teacher workload.

“Changes to National Qualifications were welcomed when announced last year, with the removal of unit assessments freeing up time for teachers to focus on learning and teaching.”

We are being prevented by a substandard curriculum and neverending bureaucracy from educating our kids properly. We are failing these kids. MARK WILSON, TEACHER