Maths students to help in class at crisis-hit school

UNIVERSITY maths students are to be drafted into a Scottish secondary school after it failed to recruit qualified staff.

Third-year University of Edinburgh students will assist with lessons at the city’s Trinity Academy.

The desperate move comes after Trinity’s headteacher wrote to parents in September asking for help in finding maths teachers.

There are more than 800 vacancies at primary and secondary schools in Scotland, with staff shortages most acute in maths and science.

The City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Government insisted that the students would not be in sole charge of teaching the children, as they would be accompanied at all times by qualified staff.

But last night Scottish Tory education spokesman Liz Smith said: ‘The SNP’s disastrous approach to workforce planning means pupils across the country are getting shortchanged, harming their long-term education prospects.’

A freedom of information request revealed that Trinity Academy, whose maths teaching crisis led to angry exchanges at Holyrood between Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson, received fewer than five applications from potential recruits. The posts have now been re-advertised.

The school’s problems emerged when head teacher Bryan Paterson contacted parents for help in filling the posts – saying the major cause was Scotland’s national shortage of teachers in subjects such as maths, science, technology, business and home economics.

Larry Flanagan, general secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, said deploying students to cover vacancies was unfair on them and ‘unacceptable as a means of addressing teacher shortages’.

A Scottish Government spokesman said its Teaching Makes People campaign would help fill the shortages in maths and science teachers.

The students, who will help a teacher in another subject take the maths classes, are expected to begin work next week.

Education Secretary John Swinney said only teachers registered with the General Teaching Council of Scotland should be teaching in classrooms, and he insisted this remained the case at Trinity.