Lack of toilets and staff rooms leave teachers struggling with low morale

● Leader of one of the countries biggest teaching unions highlights their concern

teachers without designated toilet facilities.

Mr Searson said this was one of the unacceptable outcomes of private construction firms cutting costs.

Mr Searson said the new trend for having “subject hubs” where teachers from various departments such as biology or maths could meet, instead of having communal staff rooms where all teachers could gather, was flawed.

“In theory, teachers of particular subjects can have a break in the subject hubs. But this isolates the entire staff from one another.

“Anyway, this model doesn’t work because these hubs are increasingly being used as teaching spaces,” Mr Searson said.

“Over the past few years there’s been a tendency for new schools in Scotland not to provide a staff room.

“It’s all about pupils’ wellbeing and not the teachers’ well-being.

“Teachers need to have their own space, a place to relax, talk to colleagues and let off steam occasionally. It is almost a form of counselling or therapy.

“If somebody’s new to the profession more experienced colleagues can say ‘have you tried this or that?’. It takes away a lot of the stress.” Mr Searson added: “PFI contractors want to build as small as possible.

“They can be on 25-year contracts but the school has to pay the contract. So, there is a large amount of money to be paid back every year – it never gets cut but funding to schools gets slashed. These buildings should belong to the community.

“With these schools not being big enough there is no room for expansion.”

The issue over lack of facilities for teachers was one of the motions agreed at the SSTA Congress 2019 held in Crieff, Perthshire, in June.

Sally Shearer of the SSTA’S salaries and conditions of service committee raised the motion which read: “The SSTA calls on local authorities to ensure that all schools have appropriate facilities (eg staff rooms, staff bases, toilets etc) to support the well-being of teachers.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said; “Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, it is the responsibility of local authorities to manage and maintain the school estate.”

Mr Searson added that the SSTA was working to improve teachers’ well-being and was examining a recent checklist of educational improvement recommendations compiled by education experts.