It would be a grave mistake to devolve autonomy to headteachers
AS an avid supporter of independence, and still a (tentative) supporter of the SNP, though my patience is growing thin, I have grave concerns about giving headteachers ultimate control over their financial budget and of a hire and fire policy (“Headteachers want power to appoint their own staff”, The Herald, December 19). As with Glasgow City Council, and I’m sure all other local authorities, I agree wholeheartedly that there is no statistical evidence that this will be a success. Neither was there any proven prior evidence that the introduction of the Curriculum for Excellence would be successful.
In 2011, I, as a former principal teacher of maths along with many of my colleagues believed that CfE was going to be a disastrous curricular initiative, and to quote a letter you published way back in 2011, “I just hope it won’t take another five years for the Scottish Government to analyse what this CfE initiative has done to Scottish education and eventually admit that it got it wrong – again”.
Similarly, its recent move to devolve more autonomy to headteachers is ill thought-out, untested and appears to me simply a means of shifting the blame and the responsibility away from itself. Yes, I’m sure there are some headteachers who, either by their own guile and ingenuity, or with the support of professional parents from the leafy suburbs, will make a success of this, but I strongly believe there are lots of headteachers who either feel incapable of, or just do not have the desire for this responsibility, knowing it could go disastrously wrong.
I know of at least two secondary headteachers who, from their appointment, have had a negative impact on their schools, creating an ethos of poor behaviour, a drop in uniform, low staff and pupil morale and falling standards, and to give them sole control, without the possible intervention from the expertise in their local authority, will cause their schools to slide even further into the abyss.
To paraphrase my letter of 2011, I sadly make this prediction: “I hope it won’t take another five years for the Scottish Government to analyse what this new initiative has done to Scottish education and eventually admit that it got it wrong – again.” Tom Strang, 1 Gorse Drive, Barrhead.