Why I’ve ripped up my letter from the Education Secretary and marked him down as a failure

FROM the start of her tenure as First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon said she wanted to be judged on education. But just about everything the SNP has done has made things worse – and slowly drained the reservoir of goodwill among the workforce to the extent that it’s likely the Nationalists will be presiding over the first major teaching strike in decades within the next few months.

Every teacher got a letter about this from Education Secretary John Swinney. I ripped up mine.

After a long career in industry, I have been working in secondary schools in the East of Scotland for eight years – a period of remarkable upheaval in our classrooms – as the SNP introduced its Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).

As a result, subject choice has been narrowed. At S4, children study as few as five subjects – down from eight under the old Standard Grade system – and the effects have been catastrophic.

With English and maths usually mandatory, many pupils who would formerly have done a couple of sciences and a language now find they are no longer able to do so.

I know of one girl who had been keen to study architecture at university but was simply unable to take the requisite subjects, while there are similar problems for those hoping to study medicine.

In this age of social media, children are also able to find out that a neighbouring school is offering a greater number of subjects, leaving them understandably angry.

In most subjects, teachers see pupils for only an hour or two a week, so learning is both shallow and slow as things are forgotten.

Moreover, by this stage, many pupils have a clear idea of which subjects they do not wish to carry on with – but they find themselves forced to do them for another year. Inevitably, this produces demotivation and disruption.

Languages have been massacred, with uptake reduced by more than 40 per cent – so what is the point of children studying two at primary?

The sciences are being killed off, after a slump in uptake of around 20 per cent; while ministers claim that more Highers are being taken than ever before, most of the increase has been in English and PE. Was this really the SNP’s intention?

Until the end of S3, children undergo the ‘Broad General Education’, before studying for Nationals in a single year in S4. Previously, pupils studied for Standard Grades in S3 and S4.

The change was a daft notion, as now children treat S3 as another year which doesn’t count – and trying to teach Nationals in a single year in S4 is a terrible idea, hurting attainment.

More schools are scrapping this on the quiet and going back to the old practice of choosing subjects at the end of S2, and studying them over two years. Why doesn’t the SNP bite the bullet and admit the change was a mistake?

Apparently, the original decision was taken by one of Mr Swinney’s predecessors, Fiona Hyslop, with no consultation or justification – so Mr Swinney could always blame her for the U-turn.

Divisive

Meanwhile, nurseries and primaries are supposed to cover 619 ‘experiences and outcomes’, including two foreign languages. This is over-stretching them to a ridiculous extent.

The Government needs to allow individual primaries to concentrate on what they can see are the key areas for the pupils in front of them.

Standardised tests have also proved highly divisive; I can see the value of these for older children, although by allowing schools to do them at different times, potentially months apart, they aren’t going to be very ‘standardised’.

Just about everyone involved has told Mr Swinney that undertaking them in P1 is a bad idea but he is ploughing ahead.

I’m hearing from primaries that they are time-consuming, and the results are pointless. In some cases, they seem to be measuring how confident a child is with a mouse and screen, rather than their actual ability levels.

At the same time, teachers have lost all confidence in the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), an outfit that is both incompetent and out of control.

The core of the problem is that it is incapable of writing and maintaining a clear, comprehensive and up-to-date set of instructions for teachers, and deliberately runs a culture of secrecy about whatever it is that it actually does.

The SQA should be taken off the job and another exam board drafted in – Northern Irish, Welsh or even English – frankly, any of them would do a better job than the SQA.

Now teachers are being told to focus on making National 4 more credible – but how can it be, when it’s ungraded and assessed by a set of Mickey Mouse tests which, under SQA rules, can be done one question at a time, over a period of weeks – and with the option of a resit?

Bypassing the unions, Mr Swinney wrote to individual teachers in an attempt to ‘sell’ a paltry pay deal that has triggered the threat of a nationwide strike.

The proposal sets out a 3 per cent increase for most teachers, though the Government spins claims that other changes mean many of us could get a 10 per cent hike.

In fact, this would only apply to teachers finishing probation and moving on to the main pay scale – a very small number.

So, as I mentioned, I tore up Mr Swinney’s letter to teachers as he tried to reach over the heads of the unions. And I sent him one of my own by return...

I would have loved to have signed my dispatch, but sadly the culture of fear which has built up in teaching over the years means that I dare not.

I’ve told Mr Swinney that he should scrap the National 4 and 5 exams the SNP introduced – they are so badly designed they can’t be taught in the same class, which we are increasingly forced to attempt. Frankly, adapted English GCSEs would be a better replacement.

Mr Swinney is probably also aware of schools in central Edinburgh unable to fill posts, particularly in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] subjects.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg; there are other empty posts in Edinburgh which will not be filled until next August (if then).

Other parts of the country are even worse: we simply cannot hire enough good people into the job at current pay levels.

And the failure of the Government to honour our unions’ demand for a 10 per cent pay rise isn’t the only problem.

Career

To borrow an analogy from the writer Douglas Adams, of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fame, a teacher now has approximately the same chance of getting a promoted post as a whelk does of surviving a supernova.

This is because the move to multi-subject ‘faculties’ has cut the number of promoted posts – while multiplying the number of teachers eligible to apply by the same number.

That’s another major reason why we can’t hire or keep people – there is no career for them. The Government has set up a Teacher Career Pathways panel which is due to report at the end of the year, and ministers would be welladvised to implement – and fund – what it recommends.

Otherwise, teachers could leave the classroom and get a job with the proposed new ‘Regional Improvement Collaboratives’ – another tier of educational bureaucracy that will be about as much use as a chocolate teapot if they’re not backed up with time, resources and money.

Ultimately, the lesson of the SNP’s record on education is not that grand promises were made and remain unfulfilled – which is true.

It’s that the changes that have taken place have exacerbated underlying problems to an almost unmanageable level, and that is a failure teachers – and parents – will find hard to forgive.