TEACHERS have demanded more support and less bureaucracy from the SNP Government in order to reform schools and close the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils.

At its annual conference in Manchester yesterday, the NASUWT union said the government’s goal of higher standards and greater equity would only be achieved if teachers and school leaders were “rewarded as highly skilled professionals and have working conditions to match”.

A motion passed by delegates said SNP ministers needed to work with the NASUWT to fix “excessively high” teacher workloads, “burdensome” assessments, “bureaucratic” review processes and the “potentially damaging use of data from new National Assessments”.

Jane Peckham, NASUWT National Official Scotland, said: “Teachers need more than warm words from ministers about their commitment to education and to raising standards.

“They need to see real change in their working lives which enables them to focus on meeting the needs of their pupils and which reinstates teaching as the profession of choice for graduates and career changers.”

Scottish Labour’s Iain Gray MSP said the NASUWT was "absolutely right" to suggest teachers had been let down.

He said: "Workloads have gone up, while resources have gone down. Nationalist ministers have slashed £1bn from education budgets since 2011.

“Our hard-working teachers are the lifeblood of our schools. They need to be given the resources they need, not constant cuts from an SNP government only focused on how to divide our country again.”

Tory education spokeswoman Liz Smith said: "If we are ever going to get on top of the problems facing our education system we need to ensure that we give teachers better support.

“This involves getting teacher numbers up so our schools aren’t understaffed, and cutting down on the ridiculous levels of bureaucracy and guidance that they currently have to deal with. The SNP have no excuses having been in power for ten years, and it’s time they took meaningful action to turn the situation around.”

The Scottish Government said it was already taking “robust action” to strengthen Scottish education and close the attainment gap.

A spokesperson said: “We have taken a range of actions to reduce teacher workload in order to strengthen education and free up teachers to teach. We have provided clear and concise guidance and made changes to National Qualifications.

“This represents a considerable reduction in workload for teachers and for young people because teachers and pupils will not have to undertake the formal unit assessments at, in most cases, three points during the year. This is what teachers and others told us was significantly contributing to workload and was welcomed by teacher unions last year.

“We are working with partners, including SQA and the teacher unions, to ensure that workload is reduced as a result of these changes. We will continue to listen to the views and experiences of Scotland’s 50,000 teachers and headteachers to ensure they receive the right support, guidance and services from our national agencies.”