Kinlochleven parents’ despair over ‘revolving door’ of teachers

Continued from page one. Asked to comment on all the teacher changes at Kinlochleven, Highland Council only told us: ‘The head teacher [Ms Machin] has advised the council that she is leaving her post.

‘The depute head teacher will take up the post of acting head teacher and the Education Service will back-fill the acting depute head teacher post.’

Acting head teacher of Kinlochleven Primary is now Joseph Hannaway, while the new depute head teacher for the primary is Loren Crowley.

But, gathered together with other irate parents and Councillor Baxter outside the primary school on Tuesday, Mrs Byers added that this year the primary school did not now have a teacher to cover the P6/7 class, to work alongside the new deputy head, who was appointed in November.

‘Highland Council has had since November to advertise and fill the shared teaching vacancy and has not done so,’ she told us. ‘We are now in the position that we are starting a new term in August and the children will be going back to a temporary teacher with the position not even yet advertised and will not be until the start of the new school year in August and then it will be several weeks before interviewing can even commence.

‘Highland Council has now decided in its wisdom to remove the two fantastic teachers we have, who covered our Primary 1,2,3 and Primary 4,5, thus taking away any stability and continuity our children would have had going back into school in the new term.

‘This after all the upset and turmoil the children have already gone through this year, and they are going back into an already very different environment from what they know, with new routines and perhaps isolated from their friends by distancing rules.

‘We have additional needs children who will be going to school with no one who understands their capabilities and needs, and how to deal with situations when they arise.

‘Highland Council tells us that it struggles to attract staff because of housing issues and lack of work for partners, and yet both teachers it is removing from the school are local and settled in the area with no housing or partner issues.’

Mrs Byers said parents also wanted to know why the local authority was putting local Pupil Support Assistants (PSAs) through teacher training degrees – as it did with one of the teachers who now does not have a position – if it was not to grow the local workforce and stop the endless cycle of people leaving.

‘Mr Swinney keeps announcing the importance of education, sadly we do not feel that this is the case. We have been disregarded and pushed aside by Highland Council,’ said Mrs Byers. ‘We feel that Highland Council has rode roughshod over the parents’ concerns at Kinlochleven Primary for the past two years.

‘The children deserve better and the teachers that have worked hard, especially over the last three months, deserve better.’